2 Weeks And Counting

OK, so for 2 weeks, I have not bought any art supplies. Wheee! Looks like I am on a roll. All coupons I get in the mail, I lose quickly and any I receive through the email are gone also, very quickly. I must be strong.  I did notice today that my adhesive tape runner is very low, so I might go to some wierd-o place to buy a replacement like the grocery store. They have small one's that I can get by with. I must stay away from the major art supply brick and mortar stores! I actually still had $300.00 in my checking acct when I got paid yesterday. Because I stayed away from temptations.

I recently found a great new "old" book for an art journal at a yard sale:

It is 11 X 8 and is an old RealEstate School text with 500 pages.. The paper feels cool and takes ink, watercolor, and Pitt Brush Pens without soaking through. Sharpies go right through and so do Copic's of course. I am happy. I have always wanted a "book" to make into an art journal. And this one was used, with a ton of notes written in the margin's and sentences underlined. So cool. Here is what it looks like after I threw some water color and ink spray's on it:

This will take me some major years to fill up. WOW!

My FREE 72 Art Bars Tin from Derwent arrived while I was gone last week. The tin container took some major hits and was very dinged up and a few of the bars were broken but that is OK. I straightened it out pretty good and I am excited to have won them!

They are very cool to work with. YAY!! And some time's buying an art supply brings a major dividend. This time it did for sure.

The day job side of my life just keeps getting rougher and rougher. Spent 3 days in San Francisco this week just trying to wrap my brain around the new division. It has some great dedicated folks working to make it better. Just hope that their driver's appreciate all that the management does behind the scene's for them. And it only took me 3 hours to get home on Wednesday afternoon/evening. UGH! I must leave earlier.

Next week I will be down south of home, where it will be hotter, ugh! Today and tomorrow Mr Weather said it would be 106, but it only got to 101 today, so hope 106 stay's away tomorrow also.

Well, I am off of here to get ready for Paula to Stream tonight. She says she will be there.  Happy Father's Day to all of the Dad's and all of the Single Mom's out there that are Dad also. My son will call me tomorrow to wish me a Happy Father's Day! He has since he could talk and he is 36.

Catch ya's later. Stay safe and hydrated.

Day Job Stress, But I Haven't Bought Any Art Supplies

OK, so I decided last weekend that I would not be buying any art supplies for a while, and now I am into mid Sunday and have kept that promise. I have not bought anything art supply related in a week, except for one book, that I had to have. This one:

This has got some great collages in it. So I could not refuse it. And it was $17.99 instead of the usual $24.99 that most art books cost.

I actually have tried to de stress this weekend by working in my craft cave. It is a diaster. But I only got as far as throwing away some old Tim Holtz Ranger Dabber paints that were dried up and keeping the dabber tops to put onto my craft paints, they fit = YAY!! New working dabber paints! Pretty slick, if I say so myself:

My day job is now causing me even more stress than normal. The company I work for, lost our 10 year contract with the division that I have worked at and for, for the last 22 years. We will close that door permanantly in September. So because of that, I have been "gifted" with another division, which is in San Francisco. I already know there are issues there, and I am suppose to go in and fix the boo boo's. Great! I just can't wait. And the drama begins tomorrow morning. I have to be up there for most of next week. And since I am not much excited about SF, I am not very happy about this. Just more stress that I did not need.

Please send your prayers to my good friend Kelly Kilmer who lost her Dad very unexpected yesterday. I know that most of art journal community know Kelly. I feel so sorry for her and her family.

I hope that everyone is being artful this weekend.

I am out!

And I Quote.....

"No more art supplies will be bought after today!"

It is over, I give up. I may write it out in long hand 500 times to make sure.

My friend Cheryl and I have talked about this and we both agree that buying stuff we don't need must stop and MUST Happen.

My biggest weakness of course is the coupons. Coupons do to me as they were intended when they were created. Offer a discount and entice the customer into the brick and mortar establishment so while shopping with the coupon for a % off of one item, they find lots more to buy NOT at a discount! Grrrrr! And after today, that is over! I am done.

So on to my last buying trip today. I received an email from a LSS having a buy one, get one free BOGO on any red rubber stamp set in the store. So OK I went and got 4 sets of Dylusions Rubber Stamp sets, paying for 2 and getting 2 free. I also bought 2 Dylusions stencils, that I didn't have. The stamps are over $20.00 each, so very hard to resist. I so wanted the girl stamp sets, but they didn't have any, so I got these 4 instead:

And these two stencils:

So I am happy now and really feel like I can stop buying stuff! It is very sad, when you have a 40% off and actually walk around the store for 45 minutes trying to find something to burn the coupon on, because you don't need anything more! So that is that! I vow to be strong.

Did you see the new button on top of my blog? Put It On Paper is a new art journal zine that my friend, Less Herger of artjournaling.ning.com and a friend of her's has created. Click on the button and you can learn all about it. It is great and thanx in advance for your support to a small business.

And another friend, Samantha Kira Harding has created a new Pay What You Can Art Journal class on her new ning site. Check it out here: http://journalgirl.ning.com.

So that is that.

Unfortunately, my day job is winding up to give me more stress it seems! Ugh! I willl talk at ya all next weekend.

Have fun, but always stay safe.

Weekend Art Shopping Day

Hey folks,

This weekend is NOT the weekend I am suppose to art supply shop, but when you are in the zone and the best stuff jumps out at you, how can you not take advantage? Somebody please tell me how to resist.

Yes I need help.

Back in the day, many many years ago, I quit 2 bad habits, smoking cigarettes (17 years ago) and drinking alcohol (27 years ago). I am very proud of me for doing that, BUT I cannot quit eating bad, and I desparately need to, and I can't stop buying art supplies. I am in trouble.

Well until I figure it out, might as well show ya's what jumped on me and stuck today.

I had some coupon's for Aaron Brother's and so I had to go check on their stuff's. They were having a huge 50% off of a lot of stuff also, plus I has coupons. They have received a bunch of new stuff since I had been there so I could not resist. Told ya!

They had Dyan Reaveley stamps. OMG! I got the house one because I want to use the houses to make dresses for girls. Tomorrow I will go back and get another set with another 50% off. Also got 2 wide copic markers. I have never even seen those in a store. And I got some new Gelatos and a pack of Brush Tip Sharpies. Cool.

 

But the best was found at Hobby Lobby. Derwent Artbars. Yum Yum! 12 were $24.99 and of course I had a 40% off, so sweeet, I scored BIG TIME! I never even thought they would make it to the US, let alone in Modesto!

Last night I went to Barnes & Noble to look again, for the new Law of Attraction magazine which of course was not there, but this was! I grabbed it very fast. And as always I had a 20% off and my member 10% off for a total of 30% off this $14.99 magazine. Yep I was stocked.

So there ya have it. My tale of woe. But I am off for the weekend and don't really have to think too much about work until Tuesday when I have to go do another audit. Ugh!

Have a great weekend, and please take a moment to think about the men and women who have gave all and what this Monday really means. They gave their lives for us so we could be free and live safe everyday in the US.

The First Un-Busy Weekend

Hey folks,
Just as the title of this post says, this is an un busy weekend. I did some stuff today that I had to put off because of all of the other busy weekend's lately but today I got caught up.

I have some cool things to show ya's:

First, is this cool Eagle Creek Half Tube Cube, recommended by Kelly Kilmer, (because she recommends Eagle Creek) that I bought while waiting for my car to get serviced and washed. It is perfect for carrying rolls of TAPE in my journal bag. There is a luggage store inside the car wash that sells cool bags. Nice.

I have been accumulating more and more Stamp Markers from American Crafts to go with my Tim Holtz Distress Markers. They live nice together. Love these for stamping. Huffing is back! LOL

New Books!! YAY! The top one is by Linda and Opie O'Brien. It is about creating very cool dolls from old rusted tobacco tins to old metal car parts. I love this kind of stuff and this book makes you drool. WOW! I never grow tired of staring at these beautiful works of art.

The next book is fantastic. It is a book of Art Journal pages that Orly Avineri created and put them into book form. It is not a how to book. It is like looking through her journals personally. Please go to Orly's Blog and check it out, and if you would like a copy for yourself and you should, please buy it from her blog as Orly will get more money for the sale as opposed to Amazon where she will get a very very small amount. You will not be disappointed. And when you go to Kelly's blog you will also see a great review about this book.

This is the fiction that I am reading now. I picked this up because of the drawing on the front and back cover. Very cool sketching. This is not a very good pic, sorry. This has a very unusual creepy story line. Right up my alley.

I have actually been working in my journal some. Actually not really anything new, but adding things to some of the spray ink back grounds I didn't like. I found these cool die cuts, and have been adding them over the top of pages I was not happy with.

This is a doodle page I have been messing around with, using the Stamp Markers. Love those pens. Yum!

Mary Ann Moss is up to something sneaky petey on her blog. I believe she has created some really cool labels that she wants to share with us for our journals. I am sure they won't be free, but anything Mary Ann offers, I will be there in line to grab. Please check it out. And if you don't know who Mary Ann  Moss is, shame on you. It is time for you to make your aquaintance's.

Hope you have an arty weekend. I am!

Short Quicky Post

It was another nutty wek last week and the only good thing that came out of it was I got to spend most of  Friday with my friend Beth. We had a good day. Did I tell you that this girl is very very talented?? Well yep she is. I love her journal style.

My Roku missed me while gone. Poor thing. I did try to watch some old Netflix Dark Shadows TV shows while gone on my laptop, but the Hotel I was at had sucked internet!! I now have an intimate relationship with the IT folks for LaQuinta. Ugh!

I did have one bright part of my week, when I found a Office Supply Paper Store next to where I was working and I got a ream of Kelly Kilmer's favorite cardstock that they just discontinued. Wassau Exact Index 140 lb Cardstock. I took this pic to show Kelly that it was bought at HER store.

I am all but numb from exhaustion, with the day job and a crazy run around all weekend. But wanted to say Happy Mother's Day to my friends.

Have a great week, folks.

A Couple of Things

Hey folks.

The image below is how I felt on Friday after work. Credit goes to someone's blog, or facebook where I found this and said, yep that is me this week. So apologies if you come here and read this.

Not much left of me after last week. This next week does not look any more promising either. And because of the work I am involved in, I had to cancel my very yukky appt I had scheduled for tomorrow with the gastro folks. Which means if I was going to be doing that tomorrow, I would not be sitting on this chair today. Get it?? Yikes! I really wanted to get that over with, but I must schedule it when I will have an easy start to a week and not have to drive a zillion miles the day after that procedure.

I found some new markers from American Crafts called Stamp Markers. They look and act just like Tim Holtz Distress Markers. Got them at Mike's.

Then I conducted a little "Hot Breath" test. I colored on the stamp with 2 or 3 different colors and then gave them one hot breath to put some moisture on it and stamped it. The top image is the Stamp Markers and the bottom image is the Distress Markers. Pretty close to the real deal. They come in packs of 5 markers for $11.99 compared to Tim's which comes in packs of 5 for $14.99. Pretty and cool.

I am now also broke, as I had to pay out my entire check for so much. I am having to go into my savings again! Yikes! I so hate to have to do that. But I guess it is better to be broke for a month and have everything paid up than to be overdue on stuff. But it is so said that I have to keep digging into the only extra I have each month to make it. Holy Cow, what would I do if I didn't have a fricking job?!! I certainly feel for my friends that do not work.

And I got a Roku. This is the TV hook up that runs from your wireless internet. I bought a subscription to Netflix and have been watching cool stuffs like the original Dark Shadows Soap Opera!! Awesome! I use to run home from Jr High every day to watch it. Oops, just told you how old I am. Oh well..............

Ok I am out.