Running Rainbow!

Look at this crazy, cool, colorful kit! I freaking LOVE it. It's by Piccolina Designs, one of my all-time favorite designers and is available at Ahhh Scrap. 

These are my crazy friends before and during their Color Run:

And after, looking beautiful and slightly crazy:

I absolutely adore this kit and am SO GLAD I had an excuse to get it! :) 

Back to my first love: Moleskine!

I haven't been journaling lately, I have no excuse for why. Just haven't really felt like it. But getting back to Moley felt REALLY good! The color is Faber Castell gel sticks (NOT the gelatos). Suzi got them for me and I really like the way they feel when they're dry! They're matte, which I really like, and the color doesn't rub off, like watercolors can tend to do. So I'm happy! 

Here she is with the detail added back in after painting:

And some journaling on top (bad picture!):

September Soul Garden

For June, July, and August I used patterned scrapbook papers as the "base" for my planners. I might have already told you I'm using a sketchbook this month and so far, I LOVE it. Here is my September page:

 I wanted to experiment with backgrounds, so this one was lightly sprayed with alcohol ink:

This one completely blank:

And this one covered with papers:

So far, my favorite is the sprayed background underneath the notecards. I'm having LOTS of fun this month!

First day of school!

He said it was "fantastic"!

Watercolor Pages, again

OK, so I got some artist's tape in 1/4 inch (Suzi bought it for me) and tried again. They came out MUCH better! These ones are watercolor:

 These are alcohol inks:

 The only problem now is I don't really like trying to FORCE myself to use them. It feels like what I was doing with cartooning. I know a lot of artists say that they had to force themselves to sketch every day before it became fun. (OK, most of them say "a joy", which is something I will NEVER say.) But I already have to force myself to do things. Study. Cook. Clean. How many things in a day should I hate and make myself do anyway? And should art be one of them? I guess it should if it's something I want to get better at, but for now I'm just going to hang on to these pages and maybe use them when I go to Florida as a travel journal.

An Album for Kelly :)

I have hundreds of pictures of me and Kelly and our boys (none of her daughter, she was always at work whenever we were hanging out and now she lives in Manhattan). I've scrapped some of them before, but I thought it would be fun to make her a birthday album, so I did! I have an awesome printer, and old HP, so I print my scrapbook pages myself at home on cheap but wonderful paper I get from Sam's Club.

Here we are drinking margaritas:

Kelly's teaching me how to stamp:

Shoes :)

The first time I hung out at her place. I'd convinced her she needed a Moleskine journal and she loved it!

Look at how she's always looking at me, so suspicious:

 Here she's giving me copic marker lessons:

 And here she is just being Kelly:

The pages are ALL made with a kit called Life's Lemonade by Sweet Digi Scraps, and using templates from Life's Lemonade and Finding Yourself - both by Sweet Digi Scraps.

September

It's a new month. Lots of "stuff" going on, lots of stuff to do, lots of thoughts in my head. So, this is the first page in my new Soul Garden planner. She makes me SO happy, but I was totally terrified to add color to her. Usually color is the part where I fuck everything up. But really, what's the worst that could happen?

I inked the flowers but not the face, then shaded her with prismacolors.

This is the part where I really hesitated. I carried her from couch to table to couch to table almost all day before I finally decided to add color to the flowers. I'm REALLY BAD at knowing what colors "go" together, so I just picked some random ones and went for it. They don't look bad. Maybe not awesome, but not awful.

When she was all done, I added watercolor around her. Since it's not watercolor paper, they don't act quite right, but I'm still really liking her!

Then a little stamping and Sharpie pens.

See those green spots? NO IDEA how they got there. I haven't used any paint that color today.