Hot Pink Gesso Madness!!

So I went a little nuts with the gesso tonight...

Hot Pink Gesso Madness

I took some magenta paint and mixed it with some clear gesso to create the background color for this new journal I am prepping to use for my Soul Restoration 2 online workshop. I'm really excited about the workshop and it came out in hot pink madness tonight.

I had extra pink gesso so I painted my mini moleskin, and just about covered my art journal. I love looking at all the bright pink on my art table.

Toilet Paper Mini Album

The other thing I worked on today is this little mini album made from toilet paper rolls. When I saw the tutorials for these on You Tube I went nuts. We have four people living together and we go through toilet paper like crazy. Every time I pick up the empty rolls from the floor I would utter... "if only there was a way of recycling these..." and then I saw the tutorials on how to create mini albums from TP rolls. This album is for Mike (my fiance) and will be filled with photos of our new baby boy. It's the perfect size for him to carry and show his friends and family.

I still have some work to do on it. I will post photos when it is finally complete.

Halloween Party Invitations, Soul Restoration 2, & Art Journal Page

Soul Restoration Part 2 starts today!! I'm so excited!
I still need to take some photos of my SR1 projects for the blog.... but did I mention how excited I was for Soul Restoration 2??!!  Yay!!

I'm also getting ready for a few swaps I am participating in this October. It feel so good to be reaching out to people again. Sharing art. Being creative. Inspiring one another.  :)




This weekend my 13 year old daughter and I went through my paper stash and decided to make some invites for her upcoming Halloween party. Here is a photo. I think they came out great. It was fun to make our own invites instead of buying some at the store. It's more personal.

Remember this unfinished page?  Well I finally finished it. These are some of my favorite colors! To get them I used chalk pastels and clear Gesso. I love how vibrant it came out. That page is about the changes that I will be facing in my near future. Good changes. Life changing changes. Happy thoughts.

Purple Tulips Page

More "Soul Restoration" and other art stuffs

Soul Restoration Week 3

Soul Restoration Week 3

I'm behind on posting my photos of the book I am putting together for my Soul Restoration class over at the Brave Girls Club.

On this first page I created a little pocket to put some of the promise notes that I could not fit on the main page. It feels more intimate this way.


I am enjoying this online workshop. I have been feeling a lot of inner peace and outer calm.  I feel happy most of the time, where before I would worry about every little thing. Now I try to enjoy the moment and let the trivial things that used to bother me just roll off.

I will be starting Soul Restoration 2 next week, so I need to get the rest on my photos of the books and artwork from Soul Restoration 1 on here!

My life is about to undergo some major changes, good changes, life changing changes... and doing an online art workshop that help me listen to my inner voice and find peace has helped me with all this transition.  <3

Guess what I did today?!?  I made some handmade paper! Oh does it glitter! So much sparkle. You can't really see it in the photo, but it is dazzling!  I received my new paper making kit from PAPERALICE today (my old kit broke).  Its so fulfilling to pulverize junk mail and end up with lovely sparkle laden recycled  paper.

I made some light pink sparkly paper for an ATC swap. The theme is Breast Cancer Awareness. So the pink paper will be used for those. The blue paper is for mail art I will be sending off to a friend.

So today was a fun day with lots of creativity. I am so grateful for the opportunity to stay home  and care for my newborn baby boy, and for the snippets of time he gives me where I can be creative.

I hope you all took time for yourselves today. Time to be creative. Even if it is just five minutes to do a little doodle... the toilet is a good place if you need a couple minutes to doodle. Keep a little notepad and pen in the bathroom... or just a pen and write creative thoughts on your toilet paper.

Have a wonderful weekend. Have Fun. Laugh. Live your Amazing Life!

Today is a Happy Day

Yup, it sure is. Today is a happy day. I spent the day hanging out with my new baby boy who is 5 months old, doing art stuff, and altering an old journal.

I found this old leather bound journal today. I think I got it as a gift ten or so years ago. The pages are nice and thick like a Moleskin book, so I knew I had to alter it so I could use it as an art journal. I removed a few leafs of paper from the center of each signature (you can see the space in each signature in the photo above). This gives me room for my pages as they thicken the book up with the mixed media, paints, and papers I use for my art journal collages. I'm excited to start. I think I may use this for a "Me and My Shadow" project where each page shows my positive attributes and their negative counterparts. I think it is important to love the bad bits of your personality in order to be balanced and whole. Also, who the heck wants to be perfect 100% of the time?!?  Not me. No way.

Above is a journal page I finished up last night. This birdie is stamped on a pocket which contains all the choices I have to make in the immediate future. I am at a crossroads in my life right now where I have opportunities and choices about my work, my family, and my health... so all of this is sitting quietly in the pocket, instead of in my head.

And this is what I have started on today.  These are my favorite colors. I used chalk pastels and clear gesso for the background. I still have a lot to do on this page. I plan to do journaling in the flowers, stamping, some glittery bits, and whatever else my muse can think of adding to the page.

I hope everyone had a lovely day today!

I've got friends in weird places...

So last night my daughter and I were prepping dinner. She was peeling potatoes when all of a sudden she noticed this....

an odd little fella, but a friend nonetheless. 

My daughter named him Mr. Potatohead. No, not very original, but it does fit. 

This makes me grateful for the little things in life which make us smile. Mr. Potatohead entertained my daughter and I most of the evening. He now sits next to the sink, and I smile each time I walk by.

Blog for my art, writing, and other musings.

My first blog post on my new blog! How intimidating. I have so much I plan to share with the world. Things like my art journaling pages, art workshops I'm doing/plan to do, etc. Papermaking, mail art, cooking, writing, playing, creating, smiling, laughing and just spreading my bliss into the world.

Today I am going to post a couple pictures from an online workshop I have been doing called Soul Restoration. I decided to do the workshop because my life was starting to get crazy like life tends to get when you forget things like how important creativity and imagination is to a healthy well-being. Soul Restoration has helped me break through my creative blocks, reconnect with my joyful self, and is the reason I am starting this blog.

This is the cover of my Soul Restoration book. I made it with spackle to get a nice texture all over the cover, then I stenciled a flower and painted it pink and purple. On the title tag I added a metal frame I found at Michaels and I used dimensional gel to make it shiny. 

This is my house page. I had so much fun creating this spread. I made all the paper myself using spackle to get a stucco feel like a real house would have, and fibers mixed with stucco for the roof pieces. To create the texture of the grassy areas I used Golden Heavy Body Medium. The only thing it still needs is a couple of flowers planted in front of the house.