And finally we’re back to the normal 2-page spreads. This one was a vertical one and the girl is inspired by Abigail Halpin’s sketches. Here it is empty:
A closeup:
I just had fun filling this one:
here is the left:
here is the right:
And here’s the filled page sideways:
I used white text towards the bottom cause it was hard to see the black on the dark purple.
Weekly Art Journal is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here. And you can find out more about the weeklong daily journaling here.
I had a rough day today.
I was scheduled to have a time-consuming appointment today that I’d been worried about. It was with someone that I wasn’t sure I could count on. I’ve had appointments with this person before and more than half the time something goes wrong and the whole schedule goes awry. But when she does show up, she still does a kind of service and quality I cannot find elsewhere and she’s also nice. So I keep trying again and again even though the lack of predictability and dependability drives me absolutely mad.
So I went to bed last night worrying about this and when I woke up, I was still worried. Lo and behold, something went wrong on her side and then some more things went wrong and she didn’t show up at all. Not only that but now I am not sure when the follow up will be and it was something I really needed.
There’s nothing quite like unpredictability to completely ruin my day.
Even though my plans went out the window, nothing major really went wrong today. My kids are fine, work is fine, I am fine and so is Jake. My family. Everything else went as expected and if I had to bet on it, I would say chances are this particular issue will get sorted out pretty soon as well. She will eventually show up and all will be fine.
But, alas, it still ruined my day. While one side of me was frustrated, dejected and even panicking at the schedule change, the other side of me was yelling at the first side for being such a pain. Even as I fully recognized what I was doing was immature and unhelpful, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling frustrated and off balance.
I am not a “just roll with it” girl and I never will be. So when I get notice for jury duty (which I did recently, by the way) it will frustrate me. When someone I made an appointment with doesn’t show up and doesn’t schedule a solid follow up, it will frustrate me. When something unexpected happens, it will frustrate me. I’ve learned that it’s better to accept who I am than chastise myself for being who I am.
But here’s the thing about life: unexpected things will happen.
I have a husband and two kids. Unexpected things will happen. I rely on other people to help me out with certain things. They have their own lives and families. Unexpected things will happen. I use machines and scripts and systems to do my job. Machines fail. Scripts break. Unexpected things will happen. Unless I live in a hole and don’t talk to anyone, ever, unexpected things will happen.
It’s part of life.
And since I know this and I know those things will always frustrate me and throw me off, I need to find a way to make it all work. I need to find a way to be able to sit with it and not let it ruin my day. Not let it affect the rest of my life. Not have my frustration spill over to my kids and husband. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot today.
One obvious solution is to remove as many undependable people from my life as possible. And I can make such changes so people in my life have integrity and are reliable. But in some cases that will be impossible. Unexpected things will still happen. So what do I do then?
I think one trick is to take a walk. To clear my mind and realize the relative importance of this disruption. Often times, the problems that come up are resolvable and not critical. I can also do what I am doing right now, which is to write it down. Writing not only helps with perspective but it also allows me to get the frustration out of my system. And, finally, I can take time to actively play with my kids or do art. Both of these things give me temporary relief and joy because I tend to get lost in what I am doing and as opposed to just watching TV, they don’t leave me with an empty feeling afterwards.
I don’t know if any of these will work but I think they are all worth trying because letting every little curveball ruin my day will mean many many ruined days and I cannot afford to waste my precious time here like that.
How about you? Do you have a good way to deal with feeling frustrated?
This is another one of the projects I did for Pink Paislee for September.
Journaling Reads:
Little boy, there are many ways that you resemble your father but my favorite amongst all is your sweet and happy personaliy. I often tell your dad that he is the light in my life that makes me so happy and when I saw this photo I felt exaclty the same way about you. I am so grateful that you have the same magical quality. Your smiles are so genuine that they radiate joy and light and I love that about you.
Details:
*****CLICK HERE FOR THE HALLOWEEN HOP*****
David says:
I gave this story five stars because I thought it was cool that there was a dragon in the book and how clever the father was about saving it.
I thought it was really sad that the animals captured the dragon and made him cross back and forth. I liked how Elmer gave all the animals things they wanted. Like the rhino whose tusk needed cleaning. I thought the lion looked funny with the ribbons and bows on his mane. And it was awesome that he was able to cross the river by making the crocodiles suck the lollipop and it was funny to see the tiger chewing gum and that he accidentally stepped on a whale while getting to the island.
My favorite part is when he saves the dragon and they fly away as all the other animals are stuck in the crocodiles’ backs.
Reading a book a week with my six-year-old son David is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
jake
This was another busy week for Jake. He had client meetings and long proposals to work on. Trading, meetings, conferences. On and on. He also attempted the contact lenses a few more times but I think we’re pretty sure these lenses are not going to work for him. They make his eyes too dry so he needs to try another brand which we ordered and are now waiting to receive from the doctor. Let’s see if those work better.
karen
Things are still hectic for me but are quieting down a little bit more each week. I’ve spent most of the week doing the regular things on my schedule. I also scrapped a bit and went out to book club. I managed to take some down time and go to bed early almost every day this week. I sketched, journaled and art journaled daily. I also exercised of course. I’ll consider this week a success.
david
David had a good week at school. He did a lot of reading at school and at home this week. He’s been bringing a book home every night so he can read it to me. He made some new friends at school He got to play with legos. He helped me clean out the living room of all the crazy amount of toys. We all went to the farm this weekend and he rode a pony, rode the train, and played with the excavator. He also made numerous creations with his legos which are now officially all over the house, in every nook and cranny. It’s quite amusing actually.
nathaniel
Nathaniel is also doing great. He’s talking more each day. He loves it when we drop off David because he knows he’s next. On the days he’s home, he likes me to pay attention to him and plays right next to me while I work. He’s also a lot more talkative and likes to make sure he’s acknowledged so he will say the same thing endlessly until he can get a response. He loves tackling and chasing David all around the house and he loves to say all of our names again and again. He’ll say Mommy, Nay-nay, Daddy, Dee-dee. Many times a day.
Even though I stopped doing the daily updates, I’m still taking the daily photos and will share them weekly here so these posts will be long and full of photos, feel free to skip. Here are some of my favorite captured moments from this week:
Nathaniel watching the rain:
A smile for mommy:
The boys playing and running together into the room:
Nathaniel sits next to me with all of his legos while I work.
A smile to fill my heart:
And one from the little one:
and one more:
silly faces are never too far:
Sometimes, he also plays at his table wile I work:
Today we went to the farm for our yearly Halloween fun. We rode the train, David rode a pony:
Nathaniel’s asking Daddy what he wants him to do (he wanted Nathaniel to look at me and smile.)
My awesome boys:
Nathaniel loved feeding the goats, but the goats weren’t very hungry. we had to wait a long time for them to come and eat a bite.
David fed a few, too.
And then we got to go inside and pet them. I love how loving and gentle he is here.
And some more hugs.
We have a photo in this exact spot from last year with the three boys, too.
And on the way out David got to play with the excavator.
All in all it was a wonderful morning and we left before it was too crowded.
Now we’re all resting and enjoying the rest of the weekend. Hope you are all well, too!
Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Crafter’s Workshop and Clearsnap have teamed up for the next three days to create hauntingly inspiring projects for this Halloween season. It’s all tricks, treats, and techniques so join us on a fright night jaunt to remember, hopping from blog to blog.
I will admit that when I found out this hop was Halloween themed, I was terrified. I grew up in Turkey where we don’t celebrate Halloween and I am terrified of anything even remotely scary. So Halloween is not my thing. (Though I’ll admit that the pumpkin carving is growing on me.) I’ve been doing a lot of art journaling lately, so the first thing I decided to do was an art journal page to express how I feel about this holiday.
To create this page, I used watercolor paper, covered my background with blue pan pastels, and then put the Branches Reversed template so I could crate a spooky tree.
I then used the awesome chalk inks to create my tree. Here’s what it looked like when I finished:
Then I used the Birdhouses template and Clouds template to create a crooked fence and add my clouds. Finally, I drew a little pumpkin on the edge of the fence and colored it. Then I used a dotted-rolling adhesive to add some Design Foils. And I had a shimmering pumpkin:
I took a side photo because when you look at it straight on, you can’t see the shimmer, though I still like the dotted look the foil+adhesive gives:
To finish off the page, I just used my inks and a few other templates to add some texture. The three templates I used are Wonky Circles, Punchinella, and Chevron) I tend to favor the chalk inks cause I like how super-quick they dry and the chalky finish. I then added my title and stitched around my page.
And there we are:
here’s a slanted view so you can see the shimmer:
isn’t it so shimmery?
After I was done, I wanted to whip up something quick and small just for fun so I covered a white cardstock with green ink and pastels.
put my Leaf Frame stencil on it.
and used different chalk inks to create leaves.
I then cut them all up
and glued them on to a tag:
I also put down two different orange inks on a cardstock and drew a pumpkin on it:
I cut my pumpkin out, nestled it inside the leaves, added a title and ta-da my tag was done!
There we go. Simple and super quick!
Those are my two projects with a huge thank you to both Clearsnap and Crafter’s Workshop!!
Here’s the other artsy spooksters to visit along the way:
Blog List:
Clearsnap
Crafter’s Workshop
Jaime Echt
Sabrina Alery
Julie Fei-Fan Balzer
Charlotte Jenkins
Mary Dawn Quirindongo
Karen Grunberg – you are here
Jennifer Priest
Jen Clark
Daniela Dobson
Leave your “Trick-or-treat” comment on each blog in the hop in hopes of winning candy, blog candy that is! For every 50 comments posted on this blog we’re giving away a set of inks and accessories to spook up any crafter’s projects!!! We’ll choose the winners from the blog comments posted on all the blogs in the Hop. The prize includes Smooch Spritz in Frosted Grape, Green Olive, and Carrot Cake, ColorBox Pigment InkPad in Spooktacular, Glitter in Grape Fizz, Design Adhesives in “Trick or Treat” and “Eeeeks!?”, plus our new Design Foils in Lime Burst. That’s a lot of spook to go around!
Receive extra entries in the Hop for following us on Twitter and Facebook and for tweeting or posting on Facebook about the Hop – just post here afterwards that you have followed us or posted about the Hop to increase your chances to win. Happy Hopping!!!
Here’s the check-in for September. Almost a week late, but still. You can see the original goals for 2011 here.
Family
I have still been reading regularly to David and we’re both enjoying it a lot. I’m still keeping up with weekly family shoots, daily diary, and gratitudes. I’ve changed things up for October but even then I am still taking daily photos, just posting them weekly. We’ve done so-so on family night in September and Jake and I had not enough date nights in September but we’ll rectify that in October. September was hectic with new schools, new routines, back to school, etc etc.
Health
Going strong on the running and walking. I did 5K a day all September. I will admit I totally flaked on the crunches or situps or leg lifts. I did well with the food. No coffee and no graham crackers so I am proud of that. I did start seeing a weight loss trend in September so it was a sign things are moving in the right direction.
Art + Photography
Still Sketching daily every day. I did find a solution out of the rut but didn’t start that until October either. And also still doing weeklong art journaling and the daily art journaling. The art journal pages are getting a bit old for me and I think I need to change things up a bit again but I am not sure how yet so that’s an October goal. Let’s see if I can figure something out.
Scrapbooking
Not too much scrapping in September. I did a few pages and have begun preparing for winter CHA as well so I am not feeling bad about this category.
Reading
Still reading my weekly book regularly. Reading to David, too. I did return back to my old book club in the beginning of October so there are changes coming here, too.
Writing
I journaled almost every single day in September. I am proud of that. I also wrote my newsletter. I didn’t do so great on the thoughts-posts but I came up with a plan for those and I am implementing it now in October. So hopefully I will put more focus in this area soon.
Learning
September was Uber Media: Pan Pastels and The Pathfinder class. I have already signed up for three for October. Taking Brene’s Ordinary Courage class and Christy’s She Art 2 class and Cathy Johnson’s watercolor pencils class. Nothing on the iPad front yet or the stop motion movie.
Community
Mom’s group appears to be kaput. I’ll have to think about whether I want to implement it again. We did have dinner guests. I also had a really nice breakfast with a friend and have two more scheduled for October as well as a mom’s night out for David’s class. So making progress here.
And that’s it for September. Overall, I think I did okay especially considering all the schedule changes. Lots of good goals met and new routines established. Let’s bring on October! I have already made some tangible changes for October and I am hoping they last the month and serve me well.
So I started running this week. I changed my exercise so it’s just running for two miles each morning. This meant that my exercise duration went from 45 minutes to 21. That’s quite a considerable change time-wise so while I am not enjoying the running, I do appreciate the time gained. I am proud that I have kept up with the running so far.
My plan is to add .1 miles each month like I did with the plan for 2011. This way before the end of next year, I’ll be running 5K a day. Let’s see if I can actually make it work.
I’ve been doing so-so on the food front. Nothing bad but also not amazingly good. I am snacking more than I’d like because I feel hungry often and while I am continuing the beans and peanuts, I’ve stopped buying the chicken so I am pretty sure I need more protein in my diet, too but I am too tired to figure it all out at the moment.
The weight loss is not moving forward as fast as I’d like but at least I am not regressing. At this point, I’ll take what I can get. Even if it takes me another year to lose the last 10 pounds I am ok with that.
and here’s this week’s card:
Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Since school started I’ve been waking up at 5:30am and taking a little time to myself before the kids get up. After I exercise, I sit down and journal a page in my notebook. It is my equivalent of morning pages. Some days it’s just thinking about the upcoming day and all the things I have to get done and other days it’s about looking back and trying to figure out something from the day before or my past.
Yesterday morning, I spent some time thinking about a meeting I had a while back. I had walked away from this meeting frustrated and upset. I’ve noticed that I can definitely tell if I am feeling my centered self or off kilter during a particular meeting. And I definitely felt off during this one. Unfortunately for me, I knew it was going to be a recurring meeting so I felt even more frustrated that I couldn’t tell what was making me feel this way.
As I started journaling, it occurred to me that what made me feel uneasy and put me on the defense was two individuals at the meeting. These two people and the way I perceived them changed the tone of the meeting for me. Not only did I look up to them as the authoritative owners of the meeting, but I also felt like they didn’t like me or respect me.
And so, for me, these meetings became about proving these two people wrong. So the content of the meeting didn’t even matter. All I focused on during the meeting was reactions from these two individuals. I was spending the whole time trying to behave a certain way so I could garner their respect. Every now and then I would end up showing my true colors in the way I responded to a specific argument and then I would instantly regret it because I worried they would disapprove.
The situation became untenable and I just couldn’t get out of the cycle I’d created for myself. The funny thing is, I don’t think these two individuals were even remotely aware of the impact they were having on me. So, yesterday, as soon as I figured out the root cause was these two individuals, an idea came to me during the journaling. I decided to get ahead of the problem in my own way.
I emailed both of them individually and asked if they’d like to have lunch sometime. I tried to be low-key about it and I sent it immediately without thinking about it too much. I knew I could easily talk myself out of doing it.
The second I sent the email, I immediately felt better. I felt that if I could get to know these individuals as people and not workmates, I would be able to see them in a different light. And I felt that this would help me remove the unnecessary importance I assign to them during the meeting. I think that one of the best ways to get someone off a pedestal is to get to know them. Even if the person declined the lunch, I knew that I’d already taken the first step to “humanizing them” by sending my email.
I got a response almost immediately. And, of course, neither declined. (I’ve learned that very few people feel comfortable turning down a direct request but that’s another post for another time.)
So now I feel even better. I am hoping that the lunches will go well and we might even possibly end up as friends. But even if we don’t I am pretty confident these colleagues will not play the same role for me in our next meeting. They will no longer intimidate me. Especially since most of the situation was completely in my head (and not reality.)
This is one of the greatest side effects of taking the time to journal. I feel like pouring my thoughts on paper gives me the space to distance myself from them enough to realize what the core issues are. And then I can find ways to resolve them, work with them, or get ahead of them.
Not bad for a 15-minute time commitment. The journaling often ends up being the most valuable fifteen minutes in my day.
And here’s the next Roma paper page:
The full text reads: Be bold. Dare to be you.
I used an old tree sticker by Webster’s pages and acrylics on this page.
The full text reads: No matter what, choose to bloom.
Not one of my favorites. I started with several Little Yellow Bicycle pots and flowers but this one is too busy for my taste.
The full text reads: Family is where you are loved as you are.
Another one that’s too busy. Maya Road envelope and the card is from Crate paper (4 because there are four of us.)
The full text reads: Your life is truly perfect right now, marvel in it.
I like the colors of this page. Maya Road chipboard pieces and some circles.
I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week. You can read more about it and the book I am using for these pages at the top of this blog post.
As I mentioned two days ago I’ve been wanting to change up the way I sketch. Try watercolors and new sketching ideas, etc. When I finally stopped worrying about how to integrate it into my notebook system (post coming soon about this) I went and bought paper that was recommended to me by Junelle.
I bought a block, cut one sheet to fit in my notebook and I was ready to get started. I didn’t have a list of ideas but I did have one. The sentence that came to me was “She loved the click-clack sound her heels made as they hit the marble.” so I knew I wanted to sketch heels.
I googled for the word “heels” and clicked to have it show image results. One of the images I found was this one”
Almost exactly what I had in mind. So I first sketched it using a mechanical pencil:
Then I went over them with a pen. I used the Pitt Artist Pens at XS size. They are water-resistent so I knew they wouldn’t smudge with the watercolors. I didn’t erase the pencil lines underneath.
then I started to color. I did the lighter colors first.
Then I added the black and left some white space where the seams of the shoes touch each other. I also added some shading below just like in the original photo.
Here’s a straight-on look.
Lastly, I stamped a journaling stamp and added the sentence that inspired the sketch as well as a few others. And, finally, I put the date on the bottom left. As you can see, I messed up and put month 11, I’ve since corrected that.)
And there we go. I taped the paper into my notebook and my little sketch was done. The whole thing probably took about 30 minutes. Give or take.
I’ve since done four more sketches using this system. I try to think of my idea the night before and if possible also find an image. Some days turn out better than others of course but I like learning something new. I like figuring out how to mix my paints. I don’t know anything about watercolors. I bought a few books and signed up for a class and I have a lot to learn but for now, I am just playing and focusing on enjoying that.
My friend Kathy recommended 20 Boy Summer. She told me the very basic premise it sounded interesting so I decided it was worth a read.
And I did like it but I didn’t love it. Maybe that’s because I thought it was going to be absolutely great and it’s hard to live up to that. So I have another book by the same author too and we’ll see how I feel about that one. In the meantime, this is a nice, enjoyable book and a sweet premise. And relatively true to teenage-hood.
I don’t know what it is about young adult novels but it seems to be what I enjoy reading lately.
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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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