Xmas Stuffs BUT Watch Video from Last Post First! That's an Order!

Hey folks,

Hope you all survived Christmas, but since it was just yesterday, maybe not!

I made it through without a scratch, and not dramatized! YAY!

I got a cool blanket throw from Barnes and Noble that I thought was being bought for my Dad, but was mine! It is heavy and perfect to curl under to read!

I also got a Nutribullet, since I am suppose to start using to make smoothies for health reasons. It is cool. But the best???...

THIS!!!!

These are new Golden High Flow Paints, meaning they can be used in air brushes and refillable markers, since they are very thin!! There are 10 opaque colors on the left and 10 translucent colors on the right. These are 1 oz bottles and even though there are waaay more colors than these, I am happy and can add more later. It pays to know what you want, print out the order info from the store and hand it to Santa and say, this is what I want! Works every time. LOL So since I am on vacation, I will begin to work with them. And before you ask, another arty friend of mine, also ordered a set of these and we tried to get them to work from a water brush. I wasn't too happy with that, since it just didn't want to flow well. Ugh!

A couple of latest AJ pages:

Now if you didn't behave and look at the last post first, like I told you, please do so now, then this last page will make more sense. The video is from Jane Davies. This page has a skin on it!

My parents at dinner yesterday.

Have fun with what Santa bought you!

Transparent Acrylic Skins

VACATION!!!!!!!!!!

Finally!

So ya know, I am just kicking back relaxing, right?? Yea......

Since day after tomorrow is Christmas, and I am not done with my stuff, well you know where I am at.

My brother is here visiting from Virginia and so I  have been busy, busy!

I have already received some gift's and want to share with you!

So the first 3 pics is what I received in my Xmas box from my friend Cheryl in Washington!! EEEP!!! So cool! I tried a panoramic pic with my iPhone in the first one. LOL. She sent me tons of maps! I love maps. The next one is the stamps and punches she sent and for added imagery, I included my cat's tail in the pic!
The last pic is of the Smashbook that she made into a day planner, art journal, etc for 2014! This spread is for February! So cool! Cheryl is very talented. I linked her blog above. Please check out her talents!

This is a drawing that Less Herger created on a recycled can lid. Another friend gave this to me as a gift! This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Please go to Less's blog and visit her Etsy Shop to see these small recycled drawings! I love this thing! Amazing!

I am hoping that I can get into my art journal while I am off for the next 2 weeks! Hoping...

In January I decided that I would keep track of how many books I would read this year. My goal was 40, but by the time 2014 rolls around, I will be in the middle of # 49! Thanx to my friend Beth who introduced me to James Patterson, Alex Cross series, which led me to the Women's Murder Club series also by James Patterson! Great detective books!

Have a great holiday with your family's and friend's. Remember those less fortunate and don't stress over everything that is going on in the world. It is too depressing! Dwell on the HAPPY!

Till next year, I am out!

PANIC! (Nevermind)

OK Now I feel like a fool.

 After I hit publish for this, and then hit view blog, my blogs were back!

All is well for the moment!

________________________________________________________________________________

I got up this morning and saw that all of my blogs I follow had disappeared from my blog!!! YIKES!
to say I am upset is a major under statement!
So if anyone out there in Blogger blog-landing knows anything to help, please step up! I know out of my 49 followers, I only see comments from about 4, but that is OK, if you 4 know how to fix this.

Yes, I rebooted my laptop

Yes, I signed out and signed back into Blogger

No, I am not savvy enough with blogger to really understand the gizmo's in settings. I can barely change my header.

Help!

Sadness And Other Things

This week has been a little trying for me.

A lady that dispatches for one of my division's lost her husband on Friday from a sudden massive heart attack. WOW! I am so sad for this family. This guy was one of those people you could honestly say, that he would give you the shirt off of his back! It is unbelievable that just last Saturday, I was with him, his wife and his kids as we worked on a "Stuff the Bus" promotion for Thanksgiving in Manteca, a small town near me. We park a bus at a Food 4 Less grocery store and as people come out of the store they give us food for the needy folks that need the food for Thanksgiving. Steve worked all day collecting food, helping us get the food in the bus and of course had to help us jump start the bus at the end of the day! Never fails, there must be some drama! And then the very next Friday he was gone! I am still in shock. I believe he was just 40 years old.

That is the sad news. So on to other things!

I have worked this weekend on getting my craft paints switched over to dabbers, and then getting a small circle painted and punched for the tops. Here is a pic:

Looks kinda cool! The top row is Distress Paints. The rest is pretty much craft paints now with dabber tops!

I have been working in my journal some.

 

I don't know why it is sideways here. It is right on my desktop. Sigh...

I love the bird image on this page.

This was the inside cover of a zine, that I think was Seth Apter's. But not sure. But I like it and it is blue!

I found this strange image in my stash and thought OK I need something here. So here it landed on top of a Samie Harding background paper.

And lastly, this is my journal page I created out of the sorrow I feel for Steve dying and what his family is having to go through now:

It was a fast page, but I wanted to get it down!

Anyway, please stay safe, have a great Turkey Day, hug your kids, spouses and friends and let them know how much you love them!

Till next time. I am out!

More AJ Pics

Hey, I have actually been doing stuff in my journal! Yay Me!

Cool image! This one is not complete though.

This is about a good friend and a very sad story! Looks like she is being forced to leave CA! Yep, it SUX!

This looks pink, but believe me it is red. Just like the rest of  US, I had to choose new healthcare, so when I did this page, I was very upset about it. My present healthcare group did not want to be kind to my employer so as of 1-1-2014, I will be an official Kaiser Permanente Member! I have to pay more than I do now, but I am not young and have TOO MANY issues, not to have healthcare! Grrr

I have decided in this journal, I am not going to have too many "pretty" pages! I want them to be rough and a little bit ugly! I really like this one!

This one is definitely not great! The left side is OK but the right page is YIKES! I didn't know what I wanted around the weird stripy doll so I scribbled! Yuk!

Now this one is actually based on a true story. When I was in HS, we lived on a dairy where my Dad milked. Since our house only had 2 bedrooms, my brother got one and of course my parents got the other, so that left me outside in a small silver stream camping trailer for a bedroom. Now before you start saying, Oh the poor thing, I loved it. It was made into an actual bedroom with a desk, closet and bed. No sink, etc. Anyway, I could stay up late reading and play my record player, etc. And since I was already smoking, it was easy to sneak that too.
The best story I have about this is my brother was a little heathen back then and he picked on me constantly, so one day he was chasing me to kill me, or so I thought and as I ran into the trailer, he said something about telling Mom and Dad that I had been smoking, so I turned around to slug him and just as I threw my fist, he slammed the door and my fist and arm went through the glass in the door, and cut me pretty bad! I still have the scars! LOL! PS, that is not a pic of me!

One last thing, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond tonight to get coffee and saw this. It is a very large, 23 X 16 inch Oven Liner, like the Ranger Craft Mat, but bigger and only cost $9.99! Takes up to 500 degrees so no heat gun's will harm it. And the size is the best part. A regular Ranger Craft Mat is 11 X 17 for $17.99 This one may be a little thicker, but who cares, it is great! Mine is black, and I bought it at a kitchen supply store many years ago. I love it.

So that is the end of this story! Have a great weekend!

I Am Famous!

Have you read an Art Journal Magazine called Featuring?

You haven't??

I have bought a copy, every copy since they started. It is a great magazine, in that it features art journalers that are not "famous". It is big and glossy and beautiful.

I was interviewed for it and they posted it today on their face book page!

Heeee, I am famous!

Go Here!

Have fun and seriously think about ordering the next issue! You will love it!

Have a great week!

I Have Been Busy

On June 10, 2012,  I wrote a blog post titled, "Day Job Stress...," and in that post I wrote about how my Tim Holtz Dabber paints had dried up and I found out that my craft paints lids and the dabber lids interchanged and I switched them out and well-a, I had new dabber paints!

So, I found this rack at a 2nd hand store yesterday:

It holds 50 craft paint bottles! Looks like it is home made! It is wooden. It measures about 12 X 16 inches.  And it cost 99 cents! Did I score or what????? So this morning I took the rest of my dabber tops off and screwed them onto my craft paint bottles!!!! The dried up bottles of dabber paint are now gone with craft paint lids!! Bye Bye! This is the pic before I added all of the new bottles.

I said I have been busy.

I found a LOA friend that I lost 4 years ago when I started this day job and lost my mind completely. So I went to her house today for a visit and found out she had gotten married, and she and her husband, George, sell books out of their home!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I was like OMG by the stacks of books every where and George knows where every book is. It was amazing. So now I know when I find cheap books that I can take them over to Barbara's and George's and while Barbara and I visit, George can go through them and take what he wants to sell. It will help them and I will feel good about helping them. Barbara actually sells DVD's and VHS Tapes also. Hubs and I have a bazillion VHS Tapes that need to find a home, so he doesn't know it yet, but......

Speaking of the hubs, he is down in LA this weekend, picking up ANOTHER old motorcycle to fix up and sell! Grrrr! But I have the house to myself! YAY!!!!!!

I also found the latest version of the LOA magazine at target this week when I was in Hayward! I love this magazine. If you are into LOA, go find it!

OK I am off to call a friend and do some art!

BYE!!!!

I Actually Made Stuff AND Wrote a Blog Post!

Hey,

The title of this post says it all! I actually did stuff this weekend instead of my usual vegging!

I actually cooked both yesterday and today! The hubs is in shock but full! LOL

I actually went to a local hospital and visited a girl that I lived next door to when she was born. We had a lot of catching up to do since I left there when she was 10 and she is now 35. Not all of it was fun though, since I actually found out about 5 different deaths that have occurred in the last couple of years, all of people I knew including her Mom! Sad! She is having her gallbladder removed tomorrow.

I actually also did my weekly Sunday visit to my folks! They are fine.

And then:

I actually made 2 spreads  in my art journal! Yay! Me!

Not actually completed yet! But I did some work in my journal!

And I have added some more cards to my Scrap-O-Dex. It is looking fatter each day. And the bottom pic is a close up of one of the cards. It is a ton of fun!

I have actually also been cleaning and doing more organizing in my art cave.

I have been trying to get all of my tapes in the same place in here. So I bought a couple of Reflections containers about 9 X 9 with a lid that locks. I have 98 rolls of tape just in those 2. I have a ton more, at least enough to fill 2 more of these.

I am also having a good time listening to my new audio books in my car. I even dusted off my Library card and went and checked out the next Alex Cross book by James Patterson. I have only 3 more of that series and I will be done. And then I will be starting on another James Patterson series, called the Women's Murder Club. I loved the first one, so I will read/listen to those. There is 12 in that series. I listened to the 1st one this last week and was HOOKED! I never get enough books. My goal is to have read 40 books this year, and I am now at 32.

And I have also been cutting up my arty and Juxtapose magazines, not my art books, but the magazines I will never look at again. I am cutting words and images out to use in my journal.  I will never be selling anything, so those images are fine. I love cutting up magazines for collage fodder.

And that is actually what I have been up to lately or at least this weekend. I was headed for the Bay Area this next week but with the BART strike happening, I will stay away until it is settled!

Actually, is the word I have repeated all over the place in this post!

So actually I am gone!

OK, Ok.....

Hi,

Thought I would write a spell and see what turns up.

Lately this is what has been going on:

My laptop caught a virus, even though I had ACTIVE virus protection software! $282.00 later, the virus is gone, and I am not a happy person for having to spend $$ on something stupid, but I cannot live by Ipad alone.

On that very same day I had to send my son $300.00 for something also ridiculous!

I am now addicted to red very crisp  grapes. I eat them everyday, and I believe I am doing my body good by snacking on grapes instead of eating cookies and ice cream and other much loved junk snacks!

And speaking of my body, I am now under the realization that I will have to lose 100 lbs. before the end of the year, just so I can get off of at least 6 prescriptions, so I can afford the Affordable Care  Act. The latest figures for me, because I work, is $6850.00 out of pocket each year. I am still looking at other solutions, I must!

I have been obsessed lately with cleaning the house. Well, really that is a little white lie. I AM cleaning, but actually looking for a Law of Attraction book I had in my hands 4 years ago. I know it is in this house somewhere! So little by little it is being cleaned. And if I find the book? Ha! The cleaning stops immediately of course!

I have a baby possum living in a tree in my front yard! Yikes! He appeared when the Hubs was trimming the trees back for the winter. I guess he is still up there somewhere. I don't have time to play with a possum!

I am now listening to books on CD's while I am driving, which is what I do 90% of my time, because of work travel. I am now on the 4th one, a Patricia Cornwell book called  Trace. Very cool. Never occurred to me that I would like this as I am a "have to actually have a real book in my hand" kind of book nerd. But because of the cleaning,  I have also been taking books to the used book store for credit, today I have 75 bux of credit! Yes, I have a few books, quite a few!

Art? Eh, not much, except I am still working on my rolodex cards for my Scrap O Dex! Soon I will have them all covered with paper and can begin to add embellishments, so they will look super! I am even going to stich on them. And I am taking a Kelly Kilmer class tomorrow in Niles! Can't wait to get out of my art slump!

Talk soon!

Cards, Kids & Cats

Thought I would post again.

I have been working on a new arty project recently and wanted to share, but go here first and scroll:

Patty Van Dorin

This lady is a genius, if I haven't said that before. I loved her "Scrap-O-Dex" art journal a couple of years ago and always wanted to create one. So I recently bought a vintage Rolodex:

 

 And then I began making cards for it:

And this is what it looks like now with only 25 cards completed and inserted:

This is the most fun I have had in a while. I even bought a Rolodex card punch, Sorry, I did not take a pic of it, but it is a very small plastic squeeze punch that only punches one card at a time. At this time I am only covering both sides of the cards with assorted papers and punching the holes. Then when they are all covered, I will add stickers, quotes, embellishments and maybe even stitching. Again, after you check out Patty's blog about this you will be hooked. It's so fun!
I got the vintage rolodex on Etsy and it came with dividers and cards. The punch, I bought at Office Depot. And believe me I did NOT have to buy any paper for this! LOL

The kid part of this post is about how I now have a Grandson that is a Senior this year, a Granddaughter that began Middle School this year and I miss seeing them. Plan to go back home next May when my Grandson graduates HS. Yep! That is the Plan!

The cat part of this post?

Is my Buddy! In this pic, he has sleepy eyes since I woke him when I got up and  started taking pics of my Scrap-O-Dex! Of course I have been up since 3:00am! If I wake up and start thinking, then my brain won't let me go back to sleep! Grrrr! The trials of being a genius! LOL

Yep! I Admit It, Part 2

OK I have worked and worked and made some progress in my art room! Please look at the following photographs hopefully in the right order as the previous post! No Guarantees, but here they are:

There is still TOO MUCH stuff in here, BUT at least I can move around and find stuff again! And since my art table is unpacked, I can actually do some journaling! YAY!

Oh and in Pic 3, the stuff hiding behind my sewing chair is a couple of birthday gifts for the Hubs who will be a Happy BD boy tomorrow! Then that stuff will be eliminated from the room!

Just wanted to give you a before and after post!!! I be proud!

Later!

Yep! I Admit It

Raising my right hand, I state, "My name is Sharon and I am a art supply hoarder!"

There I said it! I am in trouble again. Oh me oh my! I have a sickness that I am just now admitting to for real. As you can see here below:

My art room is only 12 X 10 but actually if you measure out from the book cases it is more like 10 X 10. So....

I believe that if I could take a  year off from my day job and dedicate myself to my art room and my art, I could be healed. Because 1, I would not have the funds to continue to purchase art supplies I do not need. And 2, I could actually work in my art journal and use up the too many supplies that I have now.

What do you think? Do you know someone with this exact same disease? Is there a group like art supply-aholics anonymous out there somewhere?

I recently found this You Tube video on this exact subject.

Please watch and see if you agree with me and this fine lady about what the world of videos and art books has created.

http://youtu.be/r3D77sMmwd8

Until next time!

It's been a very long time

Hi folks!

Yep, it has been a very long time since I have posted. Too much day job and too much drama has almost stopped all Me Time activities lately. Sad!

Daddy turned 95 on Thursday and even though we had a party. I didn't get the best pics of it. Insert the Drama Factor here! But I survived to tell about it. But I feel as though the weight on my chest won't leave. Sigh...

But on a lighter note, I bought a Wacom Bamboo Connect tablet from a young man on Craigslist. I have always wanted one to goof with. Cool! 

I belong to an monthly art group called Art Menagerie. We meet the 2nd Saturday every month to create art. And since it is geared towards AJ, makes me happy. Last month we met to spray paint with stencils. So today I am helping everyone cut down their Graffiti papers to make a small journal. WoW look at me heading an Art class! Anyway this has become my escape each month from the Day Job Drama!

And with that, I am outta here! 

 

Mobile Blogging Test

I added a new app to my phone for blogging. And so today I thought I would try it out. It looks easy to use and if so you might see more posts from me!

This last week my Mom turned 91 years young.  Here is a pic of me and my Sister with Mom in the middle (scroll down for pic) And she really raked in the loot. Almost 300 bux including what she got for Mothers Day last weekend. Yikes! And of course she wants to take it straight to a casino. LOL 

Of course like always Blogger put the pics backwards. Oh well,  now here is Daddy with his shirt unbuttoned, of course.  He will be celebrating 95 years in July.

I have some arty stuffs to share but this is a test post so will try again later to do another.

And since I can't get the curser to go below Mom's pic, I guess I will end this now.

Bye bye have a safer week than last week.

A Great Happy Weekend

Hi everyone! OK things don't look so good this time. Blogger hates me!

I just experienced a greater than ever weekend that I want to share with you. It began with meeting a person that I began following when I first jumped on the AJ wagon like 7 years ago. Samie Harding has been a great inspiration to me and I have always loved her and her work. So this past week she flew out to San Francisco to do some video work for Mati (pronounced Matey like a pirate would say). So my friend Beth who is also a great fan of Samie's and I cooked up a plan so we could meet Samie face to face! We drove to Berkeley and met Samie at Mati's Studio (wow) and spent the afternoon with her in San Francisco at Japantown! It was a big mall with a ton of great shops. I had never been there before but know I will be going back! We went to Kinokuniya's



It was an amazing Japanese book store. OMG! I thought I had died and went to heaven. And we also went to Daiso's of course, since I can't pass up a trip to any Dollar Store! Then we ate at a great Japanese resturant, and since Samie can speak Japanese, that made it even more fun! So lots of fun and lots of shopping and getting to spend a few hours with a friend in person that has always been an online friend forever makes for a great day.The next day Beth and I ran around Modesto going to thrift shops on a book search. As everyone knows, I am a book nerd and so is Beth, so that was great. But the best part, is Beth got to come to my house (finally) and visit my art cave! Lets put it this way, she came with 1 suitcase and left with 1 suitcase and 5 bags and 30 books! Hee! So enough of my jabbering, here come some more photos of the weekend that I will be talking about for a very longtime. Samie and Beth in Maido's. Some great paper I got at Blick's. Oh yea we went to Dick Blick's in Berkeley also:) Look at these great neon pencils I got at Blick's also. This is a whole 'nother blog post in itself. It is a Sensu Stylus Brush for the Ipad and/or Tablet. Samie is teaching an online Digital Art class and I had
 to have this to go with it! Wow! It is amazing!

I have been wanting this book for awhile. Grabbed it when I saw it this time! Had to grab this cool book from the best Goodwill store in Madera when I took Beth home yesterday. And last but not least, my Hubs bought me a new Laser Printer for my 59th (again) Birthday! I see transfers in my future! Whew!

 For a week that began very sad with the Boston Marathon bombings and the Texas Plant explosions, at least for me the week ended on a good note.

Please stay safe! Have a good week ahead!