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.
Here are the sketches from this week.This week’s going to be a little different because I switched to watercolors last Saturday and I want to show you those separately and write a post specifically on my new pages so this will be sketches from Wednesday to Saturday. These are all from photos I’d previously taken except for the Saturday one which I will link to the source.
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday (source):
While the colored pencils are ok, I was starting to enjoy these less and less. Which of course was showing in my work as it was getting sloppier and less detailed and I was liking them less which was creating a circular effect of course. So I finally made the switch on Saturday and more about those sketches very soon.
David’s new school has a school-wide meeting every Monday morning. During these, they discuss school-wide issues. Last week, it was talking about school rules. This week it was about good wolf vs. bad wolf. Here’s the story copied from their speech:
An old Cherokee chief was trying to teach his grandson about life. He said, “A fight is going on inside of me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He’s angry, envy, sorrow, regret, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and ego. The other wolf inside of me is good. He’s joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, kindness, empathy, generosity, and truth. This fight is going on inside of me and inside of you as well. It’s inside every person.” The grandson thought for a moment and said, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?” The grandfather said, “Whichever one you feed.”
When we are angry and mean and we think unkind thoughts, we feed the evil wolf side and it becomes stronger. But when we’re kind and thoughtful, we feed and strengthen the good wolf side. We should try to make our good wolf side stronger. Since the grandfather says the wolf we feed gets stronger, we want to feed the good wolf side and starve the evil wolf side.
This got me thinking about my goals for this year. One of my goals this year was to be free of my past and the things I get hung up on. Stop worrying constantly and start appreciating the good things around me.
I think the Good Wolf and the Bad Wolf analogy applies to the way we look at life, too. I know that on my rough days, I look around and only see the bad things about my life. I see the piles of dishes in the sink or toys on the floor. I see where I’m failing or where I am not doing enough. It’s a dark day so everything I see is dark. I look for the bad.
And then there are those wonderful days where I feel really happy. All I see is the good stuff. No one can knock me down. I love my kids, my house, my husband, my life. I feel on top of the world and super-duper lucky.
Both of these days exist but they are rare. Most of the time life is just ordinary. I am not in that bad place but I am also not at the top of the mountain. And since these kinds of days are way more frequent, I think what I do on these kinds of days is what matters most.
It is on these kinds of days that I need to feed the Good Wolf of my life. Not just be kind to others but also be kind to myself. And positive about my life. I’ve learned that the same situation can be seen from many points of view. And the trick to happiness is looking for the good. For example, I can whine about how I have to get up at 5:30 to exercise or I can feel good about having some time completely to myself. I can stop taking the family photos because my hair isn’t colored, or I can just focus on all the smiles in our eyes. There’s always something to pick on if you want to be negative.
And there’s always something to smile about if you look for it.
That’s one of the reasons I do the gratitude journal every day. It forces me to take a moment and notice the good in my life. Every single day. And realizing that there’s something good every single day is very powerful. It makes you appreciate your life on an altogether new level.
I think “looking for the good” is one of the biggest changes I can do to actually feel happier. Maybe it’s called being optimistic. But when I think of words like optimistic or pessimistic, I think of the future. Like how you think the future will turn out. Looking for the good is all about the present. Looking at a situation right now and seeing the good in it. Seeing the magic in it. Figuring out what works (and not what doesn’t.) I do think this is a characteristic and something I can nurture in myself (and my kids.)
When David came home and told me about this story, he said he wants to add two more wolves “Happy Wolf” and “Sad Wolf” and they’re not fighting each other, he said. So you can feed the sad one every now and then but that you should try to feed the “Happy Wolf” more often. I like this because it shows that both happy and sad feelings exist and are legitimate. While it’s realistic to think we can work to be good most of the time, it’s unrealistic to assume sad feelings won’t ever exist.
But it is possible to feed the happy wolf more. It is possible to look at the good in things. Sometimes you have to search really hard but almost always there’s something you can find. And, like most things in life, the more you try, the easier it gets.
You just have to choose to look.
This week was the beginning of my new book. That’s why there’s one page. Here it is empty:
quite uneventful, I know.
I added some ephemera to the left side.
And here’s the filled page:
I kept it pretty simple. Sometimes, I prefer simple.
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’m a big fan of the Nike motto: Just Do It. If some of you have taken Melody’s Soul Restoration class, she has a similar concept which she calls: “She Did It Anyway.”
Here’s what I learned about life. We’re always too busy. There’s always a lot going on and there’s always a good excuse not to do that thing you’ve been putting off. There are some cases when the thing you’re putting off is unpleasant so as long as the consequences aren’t damaging, I can understand putting those things off.
But then there are the other things. Those we know we will love to do. Those that we really dream about. Those that might be tough but will have huge rewards. The thing is your life is made up of your ordinary days. So if you can’t find a moment to fit this new activity into your “every” day, you will never do it. Your life will never have that added joy because you’re constantly putting things off and waiting for the “right” time.
In general, I am very good about starting things. I am very organized. I make a plan and I get started. For example when I finally decided to start sketching (as opposed to whining about wanting to do it) I created a Pinterest board and collected several sketches I liked so I had a pool to choose from and I sketched one of them every day. Same for art journaling in my weeklong book. I made a collection of ideas and just did one each time.
Where I tend to get stuck sometimes is getting to the next level. Since I am a big planner, sometimes changing the plan is a big deal for me and I get stuck. For the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling like my sketching was getting stale. It was getting boring to copy more of the same sketcher’s work and I couldn’t find anything else I liked. I, briefly, tried to sketch my photos but that got old quickly, too.
I knew that I wanted to switch to watercolors. But I had so many stories around why I couldn’t. I make all my sketches in my daily book (I will write a post about this notebook) and it has thin squared pages. They can’t take watercolors. I also felt like I could never sketch without the grid I’d come to depend on (I bought grid paper cause I like it, not with sketching in mind.) so much. I also didn’t think I could come up with ideas of my own. I pondered for weeks and weeks. I looked at others’ work and felt frustrated. I tried to talk myself out of it. Told myself colored pencils were just fine, etc etc. This went on for weeks. Until last Saturday I finally decided enough was enough. I drove to the art store and bought a watercolor pad that was recommended to me (more about this on another post, too.) I kept telling myself not to over-think it. I had one idea for a sketch. So I cut the paper, and just sketched it.
As soon as I started, I forgot about the lack of grids, I dove right in and sketched and wrote and didn’t worry that I had no other ideas. I hadn’t planned a long list. I just did it. And then the sketch was finished and I loved it and glued it to my notebook and a new process was born. Two days later, I managed to come up with more ideas. I don’t have a long list but I am not worried. I know it will come. And if it doesn’t, I will adjust.
Just to show that this is not specific to art, the same thing happened for exercise. For the last month, I’d been worried about what happens when I hit the one-year mark. Do I keep going with the same system of walking for 2 miles and running for 1? Did I want to continue with 5K a day? I knew that I wanted to increase the running. I wanted to see if I could switch to only running for 2 miles. But I was really scared. I could barely make the 1 mile run, I didn’t think I could do 2. I also didn’t think I could start the exercise by just running. It sounds irrational but I was really worried. I kept whining and whining to myself.
And then on Saturday, which was my one year date. I just did it. I figured it was a Saturday and I was well rested and I could just give it a try. And it worked! Of course it worked. But then I worried that come Monday morning I wouldn’t be able to do it since during the week I exercise at 5:30am and there was no way I had enough energy for a 2-mile run at that time of the day.
But this morning I got up and did it anyway:
I didn’t think. I didn’t worry. I just did it. I know for some people 10:40 minute miles are slow but for me this is a miracle. And tomorrow, I will do the same. And the next day and the next day. I even have a plan on how to slowly get to running 3 miles a day.
One of the reasons I am good at getting things done is because I have relatively rigid routines around things I care about. So when the time comes to switch things up or take them to the next level, it can really mess me up. I can make a lot of silly excuses not to do it. Just like someone who never gets started to begin with.
But there’s magic in doing it anyway.
There’s magic in telling that voice to shut up. In having faith that the plan will reveal itself. In trying. In throwing yourself at it fully. Because that’s when the magic happens. You give it your all and the universe shows up to do its half.
It always does.
What about you? Do you have something in mind? If there’s something you’re waiting to start or take to the next level, this is my gentle push to encourage you. Make today your day. I cannot tell you how happy I felt all weekend for finally taking these two activities to the next level. I wish the same for you.
So take a cue from Nike and Just Do It!
This layout is for Write.Click.Scrapbook’s October Gallery. The theme is shadows.
Journaling Reads:
my sweet boys, i want you to know that the best part of life is getting to make your own path. you do not need to ever walk in anyone else’s shadow or aspire to be just like anyone else. You should always be you. You are unique and wonderful in all the ways that make you who you are. Make sure to honor that and forge your own path in life. I love you and will always support you.
Details:
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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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