Can I do it?

Yes, I can!

I've got it in my head that I can and will scrapbook my 2013, getting the bulk of it done this weekend at the Creative Retreat. Isn't that ambitious?

How you ask? I am on this Project Life bandwagon, strapped in and ready go! I have a plan, a mission, and a new found love for documenting my own stuff! I think I'll use my Honey Kit, the one I used for my week of the Hometown Workshop, I'll stick with a theme. I've already decided that my Midnight Kit will be for 2014.  I have just finished sending 200+ photos to Costco, I haven't had them print in years, but I'm in hurry so I'm trying again. I printed 30+ Intagram photos from home. Considering I have 316 photos that I took in March, I think I'm doing pretty good! I realized I don't need to keep or print or scrapbook all those photos! Gasp!

I'm pretty confident that if I keep it simple, I can get it done and be ready to start 2014!

I'm trying to get a group together to meet once a month to work on Project Life. If you are reading this and are local, contact me!

October re-cap, 13 days late.

I'm slowly making my way through the 3 week Art of Holiday Goodness course I'm taking on-line. It's self paced and I think I'm doing pretty well keeping up to myself!  (again, the first photo is not centred, I guess it feels justified.)

 I'm really enjoying the watercolour painting. This is Monte and his pumpkins.

 Speaking of pumpkins....

 Looking on-line for inspiration.

 Doodling on the table cloth.

 The supervisor had to make sure it was kid and dog friendly.

 I didn't edit this photos. I should have used my expodisc for the white balance. But then if I had, when we paint this weekend, I wouldn't have amazing after pictures for these crappy before ones.

 This one hates the smell of the pumpkins so I was a bit surprised that the job even got done.

 The finished results beside the Halloween tree, the one that will probably stay up till Christmas.

I decorated and photographed the yard in the pouring rain.

Linus got to see every single kid that rang our doorbell. He would have gone home with a few of them, and one of them tried to give him candy. 

Mid-October, I had a sleep over with these two and their mom. We attempted a small craft, made a Chinese terracotta baby pee, and I watched almost all of Brave before falling asleep. I made them pose for this picture before they went to school then M and I returned to do what everyone does at sleep overs! Filing paper work!

This happened the week, in November. Kerry took Linus out with my dad to clear mountain bike trails. Linus swam in giant mud puddles and came home filthy and stinky. So we had to bath that beast.

He was so tired that he fell asleep while we blow dried him. He was so fluffy afterwards.

 This is from today... I made cards for class.

 This one is one of my favourites.

And these are all my softies I've made for the Art of Holiday Goodness. I am going to do a whole year of Linus.

Amelia blogged (here) a few days ago, check out her cute cousins and her adventures with Atticus, the horse.

A cluttered mind

I have so much I want to do, I have a little list in my phone and I keep adding to it fast than I am checking things off of it. 

We (me and Linus) picked the giant sunflower for M-R's class room, the little kids get to pull it apart and check it out. But first Linus inspected it. (I don't know why, but in the preview this photo is left justified and I can't seem to fix it.)

I feel like I spend more time organizing in my space and less time crafting. That wall isn't working for me.

So, thanks to a local Facebook scrapbookers' buy and sell page, I bought the unit on the right.
This meant I could move all my albums, books and magazines to a more manageable shelf. Ha Ha.

It took me the better part of two days. I stood around stunned for most of the time. Kerry even came in and told me to leave at one point. I really have too much stuff that I don't use.

Now that it's all tidy, I can't wait to mess it up again!

My desk is the only clutter right now, and I'm slowly working on it.

I've also been working on my Art of Goodness class. I should be working on classes for Christmas cards and tags, but I can't seem to get into it. (I'm listening to Christmas music while I blog, hoping that it gets me in the mood.)

I'm really enjoying the class, but I have to admit, painting with my fingers, and the 'messy' stuff don't come easy to me.

I've also been playing with some techniques in my art journal, I made this one and the one above from scratch.

I don't know if you can tell, but the clock faces are textured, it's stucco patch that I found in the spare room. I also used a pile of old rub-ons, that I found while 'organizing'.

One of the class assignments was 'gates' and I really wanted to paint a watercolour of Sharon's portrait from the Hometown Workshop.

Right now, I have this cheap, basic palette of water colours, and my Stampin' Up ones. I've never really used either, so this is a good time to try them out and see if I even like watercolour painting.
I better check Pinterest, maybe there's some Christmas inspiration there, or maybe I'll find something nifty to do with my recycling!

Stay classy!

Soooo..... I'm still feeling super creative. 

I don't know if it's kismet, fate, or just a coincidence. I stopped at Michaels, ran into Heather, who bought me a magazine for my belated birthday present, Somerset Workshop. Never had bought one before, probably never even looked at one. (Thanks, Heather!) I came home, flipped through it, and fell in love with Junelle Jacobsen's work. I quickly checked out her blog...Yes and Amen, and decided I need a lamb. But then I saw Christy Tomlinson was offering a class by Junelle and without hesitating, I signed up.  I don't paint anymore, I even let some kids use my brushes for painting all kinds of anime costume things. I could hold all the paint I own in one hand, where as 8 years ago, I had a rack to rival most stores. I will try my hand at sketching, water colour painting, and some fibre art.

Off to Opus and Michaels I went. But first, I offered to buy Opus and Michaels gift cards off the kid! 

The supply list is a page long. Most of the items I have, well, maybe half. I've been wanting to make some art journals to add to my "Special Journal Pile", you know, the one that has a few dozen journals that no one is allowed to write in. I found this Letter Love journal from a class I took last year, and it's got lots of room in it still so I re-named it, Letter Loving and Sketch.
Then I made a water colour book, but the paper I have is cold pressed and quite rough. The nice lady at Opus told me I would not regret the lovely hot pressed 140 lb. vellum finished water colour/mixed media paper, so I bought it and made a book of that too.

And because this well of creative juices runs deep, or maybe because I'm worried that if I stop, I won't start again, I made a Donna Downey inspired art journal. Now the OCD in me says that sucker is fat! That sucker won't lay flat, that sucker sucks. Or as my friend Amy would rather hear me say "That sucker vacuums!" She doesn't like her students saying "sucks".

I haven't even painted in it, and it won't stay closed. I know that Donna's aren't closed, they are very fat, filled with all kinds of arsty goodness. Maybe when mine has something in it and it won't close, I'll love it a bit more. The fabric and patterned paper choices were not planned, that fabric was one of the only pieces in my stash that I could find that was 12 inches wide.

I didn't edit the photos, I took them with my 50mm. I have been loving it lately. It's so much lighter than my other lens and I'm saving all my energy for craft related projects. And what is not to love about that vignetting, or at least today I love it.

To keep with the "classy" theme, I should also point out that I signed up for Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 102 class. That man is amazing. I haven't started making anything, Marg and I are watching all the videos first and there's a lot of them.  I watch, I oohhh and aaahhh, and my wish list gets longer and longer!

Let's just say I'm going to need a larger crafting room.

All systems go...

A few weeks ago, I was explaining to Kerry how my brain feels when I get to spend time crafting. 

"It's like spark plugs, or pistons, I don't know," I used car references because he likes cars, even though I don't really know what I'm talking about, "and they are all firing like 'pew pew pew pew' and it feels so good!" I may have also said this really fast, and really loud! 

I also find fall to really get me motivated, it might be from years of preparing for craft sales and October was always crunch time. I remember crafting while making dinner, Krazy Gluing cheese sauce to my tongue, painting in between the door bell ringing as kids trick or treated. And while I don't miss the craft sales and the chaos, I do miss the creativity.

 And so when I decided this large canvas wasn't working for me, I painted it black.

 And that was gross, that black paint is like liquid rubber.

So I got some new gesso, because my old one was too old. After 2 coats, and the black rubber goop, you can see the Tim Holtz ink leaching through the gesso! Tim is so amazing, even his ink can't be suppressed!

I decided to tear out pages from the vintage dictionary I had been hoarding and podge them to the canvas.

And in a moment of utter brilliance, I used a few of those million Basic Grey alphabet stickers I have kicking around.

 Another coat of podge, some watered down paint, and it's looking pretty good.

A bit of that weird stuff left over from the making of sequins, I can't remember what it's called, and a giant heart, almost finished.

I added some tags that I stamped and hand painted (after I dumped half a bottle of ink), with my expensive, bent paint brush that someone didn't store properly. A few more coats of podge, and some ink around the edges. It's lumpy, and messy, and big, and I love it!

Now, to paint the walls so I can hang this and the 4 canvases I covered in fabric earlier today.