Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Suzi Stamp!!

This stamp is GIANT. When I was skyping with Kelly she said it was hard to tell, that it only looked about ATC sized, so I held it up with a stamp pad and it was TWICE the size of it. It's enormous, trust me, and SO cute! I don't even know why I love her so much, but I really, really do!! She's so pretty that I want to make cards with snarky comments on them. But for now, I just colored her with my Copics and cut her out and stuck her in my journal. 




Then I colored her again and did the same thing (in the same journal, only a couple of pages later - I was powerless to resist!)

Excuse the cocaine and crack whores talk, that's just how my c-faces and I roll. 

Monday, February 27, 2012

Mr. Owl...

He started with watercolor crayons, activated with white paint (no water), and then sprayed over with some alcohol inks and stencils. A two-page spread, which I always SAY I don't like, but always end up doing:


Then I though that THIS page sort of looked like eyes, with its two circles.

And here he is!

I doodled on him, which seemed right and wrong at the same time:

Then I added some paint, a little house and some stamps:

I'm actually pretty proud of these pages. They make me happy!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

P365 Update!

Who's keeping up?? This girl! This app is SO helpful because it sends me a reminder every day!


Saturday, February 25, 2012

WILD girl!

I dunno, Kelly says she looks wild. You think? 

Friday, February 24, 2012

Polka Dots!

Polka dots ATCs on top of a polka dot table cloth...

They were inspired by polka dot journal pages, and then I glued them on..

I'm wildly amused by this!! 

Thursday, February 23, 2012

But, Goog...

Why are the birdies dangling from the tree limbs on strings? I have no idea. But they make me smile!

Teesha Moore said to go with your weird notions, so I've been trying to go with mine. I wanted to make a bunch of eyeballs on a piece of book text, so I did. I wanted the birdies to have strings, so they do. Bring on the weird notions!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It's hard to tell...

I have trouble making something that I see as "just" a background. I don't like to have things "unfinished", which is really silly because I mostly just paint and doodle in my journals, which no one sees! The Mixed Media Police are NOT going to knock on my door and tell me I have to finish my journal pages or ATCs.

So, here are some ATCs. There are four that look similar. Not identical, but close. Maybe they're finished and maybe they're not. If I get a ticket from the MMPs, I know it's you guys who told on me!!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The DENTIST!

I'm totally freaked out by dentists, so I don't go. Ever. Except when I break a tooth. I ignore them when they hurt, I've had giant pus bubbles under my gums and just popped them myself. The ONLY thing that ever brings me to the dentist is a broken tooth. I broke one two weeks ago, the one right there in my x-ray:

It was a huge, gaping hole. Gigantic. But not down to the nerve so it didn't hurt at all. Still, it seemed like a problem I needed to have taken care of, so I did. Are you proud? And you know what, going to the dentist wasn't fun but it made me feel a little bit less like a second-class citizen. I've never had health insurance. Not ever. When I was a child, I went to the doctor twice for vaccinations and to the ER twice because they'll see you without insurance. There were NO "well-child" checkups in my household. A cold, the flu, whatever illnesses we had, we fought off at home. I remember being sick the entire summer between seventh and eight grade. I couldn't say two words without coughing in between. I had reduced lunch at school, wore second-hand clothes. It wasn't something I felt bad about, it was just my life. My friends lived at houses with pools, while we lived without central air conditioning in south Florida, and my brothers slept in the garage because we had six people and only two bedrooms. I want to change these things for my child. Right now, we live in an apartment, my husband supports us all but we have no health coverage. My son is clothed and fed, and we hit the occasional movie, but I want more. I want to be a two-income, two-car, solid middle-class family. I don't want to wish we were just a tiny bit worse off so he could have health coverage and free day care. I want to be SOLID. I'll get there. I'm giving us two years. In two years I want to be in a better place. A more solid place. For my son.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Iridescent Medium!

I've been mixing my own paints because the fluid acrylics are so crazy expensive, but I ran out of glazing liquid  yesterday and I really wanted to make a black. So I mixed it with iridescent medium instead! I freaking LOVE it. I love iridescence. The shimmery stuff just makes me happy!


Here's how it looks in my journal:

I can't wait to try it for hair!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Skart date!

I know these doodles are ugly, but this journal is really making me happy!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Point

I've found myself OFTEN asking myself lately what the point of doing things is. If I'm going to be a graphic designer, what is the point of painting? Drawing? Journaling? Is journaling even worth my time? I look at people's beautiful work - I look at my OWN old journals and I think "What's the point?"

Suzi has always told us to make art for the sake of making art. There is no other "point" needed. But I've had a hard time wrapping my head around that lately. Today I watched a fun art journal video on YouTube and I realized - that IS the point. The journaling, the painting, the words - that's the point. The point is that I have this thought in my head and I want to get it out. Maybe to forget it, maybe to ease my mind, maybe it's a jumping off point for pages and pages of writing that's going to come pouring out of I just let it. It doesn't matter what it's for. It doesn't matter if it's pointless to EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET. It just doesn't matter. I want to paint, I want to journal, I WANT to do it and THAT'S the point.

That's Liam's "hole in one" face. He was mini golfing with Daddy while I worked on Angry Banana. :) 

Friday, February 17, 2012

Smash pages, continued

Here I added one of my tiny pictures to a page already in progress:

Same here, plus I used the kindergarten type paper to practice my handwriting at the bottom:

Here are some pics from Tami's wedding:

I'm going totally random with this thing and I think I'm going to like it. Not sure, but think so. 

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Smash-able pictures!

OK, so my Pogo (it's a tiny printer from Polaroid) hasn't been working. I threw away the cord (accidentally!!) and the car charger I got for it doesn't work. I took it to a battery place and the guy made a face and said it would take 24 hours to test the battery and they didn't have one to replace it if something was wrong with it and blah, blah, blah. So I did THIS instead!


The Pogo prints 2x3 inches, so in Photoshop I set up a 4x6 sized canvas and put 4 2x3 inch pictures on each one! It was 19 cents to get them printed, so I have 20 pics for 95 cents. How great is THAT? 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day at ITT Tech!

The boys came to have dinner with me (I get a twenty-minute break). How cute is that?? Tim got us Outback! Liam loves the brown bread, so it's a win for everyone. It was fun to have dinner with my guys instead of my usual PB&J.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Tami and the Garda

Garda = Irish police

My friend Tami got married on Friday the 13th to Ian. Tami is an ex-patriot who's been living and working in London for the past two years and she and Ian met there. But Ian is from Ireland and has always wanted to move back there - so that's where they're going! But just like in America, they have to "prove" that they didn't get married just so Tami could live in Ireland. Prove that they have a real relationship. And the garda wants pictures. Seems silly, because KNOWING that, you could just fake them, couldn't you? But we didn't. Instead, I made her some scrapbook pages!


These four are made with Design by Blagovesta Gosheva's facebook fan freebie:



(I know this one isn't great, I was trying to show them DOING stuff.)

What do you think? Will the garda be impressed with our silly pages? There are about ten others, because I'm obsessive like that!!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Love is in the air!

A new kit by One of a Kind Design Studio! It's called Love is in the Air and it's super cute.
 Isn't this adorable? My best friend married her Irish sweetheart on Friday, January 13th in London. I'm SO sad I didn't get to be there, but she's so happy!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Smashed Liam :)

This was before school one morning - I'm not the most awake person in the morning, and I hadn't had coffee yet, and he gets himself dressed and amuses himself until an alarm goes off that tells us it's time to go wait for the bus - and so his hair was crazy and he went to school this way. I don't care and neither does he, I actually think he's adorable like this! Will he hate me someday for letting him go to school with messy hair? There was also something sticky in his hair and I tried to get him to taste it - I was laughing to hard to get a picture.


There's a song called He's Mine and I love it! He's mine :) 

Friday, February 10, 2012

Wanderlust by Farynar's Wings

How lovely are these colors? Beautiful, right?

This was Liam in September 2009 when we moved to Minnesota:
That's his "ba-ba", Squishy (she's a giraffe head attached to a little blanket and at the time we called her "Blankie Friend"), and Elmo - all buckled in with him. It's one of my favorite pictures of all time. He's always been such a character.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Smash pages in progress!

OK, I guess this one is done so it's not actually in progress. Don't tell the Blogger police!

Some trees on a page:

My leg while I'm peeing:

Cheeky on a school day:

And my sister-in-law and favorite little jelly bean:

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Book of Days

This is something Effy Wild is doing and I'm trying to play along...so far all I've done is the cover!! This is my current favorite picture of Liam, he was sitting next to me on the couch and I had no idea he was asleep.


I added some shimmery quin magenta, of course, and some yellow splatters:

And then a little bitty fairy:

All done :)