
This week’s question was "what are you grateful for right now?"
I read this question at a moment I was feeling truly grateful for everything. The last few months have had their ups and downs but at this particular moment, I am so thankful for life. For my wonderful husband and amazing son. For this life growing inside me. Even for my job and the great people I work with. For spring finally coming back. For the beauty of nature. For getting to teach this class I am teaching. For getting to read books, watch TV, and in general do things I love to do. So I wanted my tag to just focus on how wonderful my life is in general and how very thankful and grateful I am for that.
I wanted to do something vintagy last week so I guess that stuck with me. I was inspired by two amazing people and my art cannot do justice to either. One is art like this by the amazing Rebecca Sower. The other is this beautiful white on white piece by Vivian Bonder. I fell in love with the white on white and have been meaning to do some art that only has tones of white for a long long time. Both of these women are incredibly inspiring and amazing. Besides a lot of lace, I used some machine stitching and that’s really about it.

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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week. You can see the full list: here

This week’s catalyst is: What’s something you wish you could do? (Something you know how but are too afraid to try.)
Here are my words:
This one was easy for me. I’ve always always always wanted to be a published author. Fiction. Reading has always been and will always be my number one passion in the world and I’ve always dreamt of being one of those authors on people’s shelves. I have started several novels and have done a lot of writing over the years but I have never taken it all the way. Never fully finished, edited, and sent out a book to a publisher. In the last six years, I have mostly stopped writing altogether but I still think of it from time to time and the desire to become a published writer has not subsided one little bit.

This week’s question was “what keeps me awake at night?”
To be fully honest, the one thing that literally keeps me awake at night is the baby, of course. Now that I am 8.5months pregnant, between peeing and spinal pain, there’s not much sleep to be had. But since I did a tag on pregnancy two weeks ago, I wanted to focus on something else so I decided to choose another big thing happening to us: the fact that we might be buying a house for the first time ever. Deciding whether to buy or not, finding a house, and trying to do it all in the middle of a baby coming certainly has been keeping me awake so I thought it was a fair one to tackle.
I originally planned to do “vintage” this week but somehow when I started doing the tag, this is what came out. I don’t know that it uses any specific technique except maybe a bunch of stamping and some layering. Nothing major or very new to me. I took a chipboard house and added elements of what I hope to have in my new home: music, words, flowers, sleep (moon), joy (butterfly), togetherness (key) and lots and lots of love.
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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week. You can see the full list: here

This week’s catalyst is Create a piece of art around a memory or occasion that has no photos.
Here’s my text:
When we were planning our wedding, the one thing we spent the most amount of money on was our photographer. We figured the photos were the best way to preserve our memories of the special day. We found this person who looked really professional, had great albums, etc and decided to go with him. He did show up and take a bunch of photos and he even delivered us our proofs and album. The deal was that a year later he would give us the negatives. Except that when the year passed, he went completely awol. We couldn’t get him to answer the phone or email. We were never able to get in touch with him again and, to the day, don’t have one negative from our wedding day. We still have the album we bought but if you come to our house, you won’t see any wedding photos on our tables because we have none.

This week’s question was “name 5 movies that inspire you creatively…”
I’ve had to think about this one for a long long time for some reason. At first, I thought about my favorite movies but then I reread the question and it talks about creative inspiration. Then, the first thing that came to my mind were these set of three movies made by a Polish director called Red, White, and Blue. So I decided instead of choosing five, I’ll just stick to this trilogy.
This week’s technique was fragments. I honestly had no idea what to do with them so it was an interesting challenge for me. I went through all my scraps and picked all the red, white, and blue paper I had and glued them to the back of the fragments and then just had fun with it. I painted the tag with denim distress ink and then embossed it with clear, shiny embossing powder. The fragments I had were the ones with the holes so I tried to align them interestingly. I am not sure how I feel about the outcome but it was fun. I am sorry the photo didn’t turn out that well, especially the butterfly.
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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week. You can see the full list: here

Catalyst fifty-two is Tell us about something you’ve always wanted to learn. A really exceptionally good week this week with a lot of varied and beautiful art.
My words:
I’ve always been a worrier. All the time and about everything. When I was pregnant with my first baby, I put a sign over my door that said “give up that there’s something wrong.” and I looked at it every day. Over the last four years, I’ve gone up and down on this. And this year, I’ve decided to put extra focus on achieving peace and letting go of worry. Though, I must admit the relatively rough pregnancy hasn’t helped a lot, I really have been working hard at letting it go. If there’s one thing I’d love to learn, it’s letting go of worry.
Technique Highlight:

This piece is inspired by the amazing Kelly Rae Roberts. I used several of the techniques she teaches in her book “Taking Flight.” The wings have glitter glue on them that makes them shine and they are made out of wire and tissue paper.

This week’s question was “what was the last brave thing i did?”
It might seem odd but the first thing that came to my mind was my pregnancy. Even though I really want this baby and I am so happy she or he is coming, this has been a long, hard pregnancy. I know it could be much worse but, for me, it’s been a journey in being brave. Trips to ER, a LOT of throwing up, anemia, resulting in more medication than I wanted. But, I’m almost at the end of this journey and can’t wait to meet my little one.
This week’s technique was simple. I drew a profile of a pregnant woman looking down. I put glossy glaze all over it and then microbeads on the glue. I left it overnight and then put another layer of glossy glaze over it so the beads wouldn’t fall off. I made a little heart out of wire with a small flower on it which I glued to the pregnant woman. I then inked the rest of the tag and wrote along the profile. That’s it.

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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week. You can see the full list: here

This week’s catalyst is: What’s something you do every day just for yourself? (If nothing comes to mind, create the art around what the one thing would be and why you’re not doing it.)
Here are my words:
It might seem silly but something I do for myself each day is to spend time with my son. I’ve always dreamt of staying home when I had children but as it works out, I am now working a full-time job so it’s really important to me to make sure I spend quality time with my son every single day. As much as I know my son loves it, too, it’s really something I do for myself.
This is not one of my favorites art-wise but the feelings and thoughts are genuine.
come, play.

This week’s question was “what was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?”
I thought about this one for a long time. In the end, it always comes back to my family. My husband makes me laugh a lot and so does my 4-year-old son. Watching them play together also makes me laugh out loud often and all the memories I could remember of myself laughing involved either one or the other, or both so I centered my tag around family.
This week’s technique was inspired by two very talented ladies: I used the wax melting (using a crayon) technique Claudine Hellmuth highlights in Collage Discovery Workshop and this beautiful art journal page by Ali Edwards that has inspired me for a long time. Besides the wax, I’ve also used acrylic paint rolled over with a brayer and green alcohol ink as well as several distress inks and brown chalk ink.

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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week. You can see the full list: here

Today’s catalyst is: What is something that you turn to, to lift you up out of a bad mood?
here’s my text:
The one thing that never fails to lift me out of a bad mood is music. Even if I’ve had the worst day, I can get in the car, jack up the music all the way and feel better instantly. That’s why I am thankful for my 120gig iPod. This way I never have to worry about not having the kind of music I am craving at that moment. All my music is in one little machine.

This week’s question was “what would you do, if you knew you could not fail?”
For me, the thing that I keep coming back to over and over is to write. I want to write novels and be published. if i weren’t worried of failing, i’d be a writer. (and maybe an artist, too). So I made this little girl who’s holding a book and the letters spell “write.”
This week’s technique was inspired by the talented kelly rae roberts. I tried to use one of the techniques she highlights in her book “taking flight.” this tag uses old music, book, and mechanical drawing sheets and some stamps. Acrylic paint rolled over with a brayer and green alcohol ink as well as several distress inks. i really do wish i could draw better…but oh well 🙂
here’s another look:

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I am combining Emily Falconbridge’s art journal questions with trying a new technique each week.
see full list: here.

Today’s catalyst is: Pick a photo that brings up some emotions and create your art around it.
Here are my words:
I look at this photo of my son and I am filled with emotions. Not just for him, but for all the other people I can see in his face. In his eyes and long eyelashes, I see my wonderful husband whose eyes were one of the first things that made me fall in love with him. On his nose, I see the freckles that my sister and dad have; the little dots we used to hate as kids that I now find adorable in my son. This little boy, in one photo, can bring together everyone I love in the world and make my heart explode.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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