Share the Joy Thursday–Finding that momentary sunbeam

From Today’s Joy List :

1. The perfect rock for me today found in the bottom of my purse when I reached in for my phone.

2. New art journal supplies, ready for play !

3. Today’s quote in my new little quote notebook : “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Thank you, Gandhi !

4. New eggplant colored El Naturalista clogs in a sunbeam that showed up for a few minutes in the studio.

 

Today, on Share the Joy Thursday,

I needed to create a joy list today even more than I needed to share one!

I woke up icky, pms-y, rainy day grey inside and out…

I am realizing the importance of keeping myself filled up in order to have enough energy to keep on giving where I love to give.

When I don’t, the blahs can easily move in.

Looking for simple joys, listing them, celebrating them and sharing them

really does help deal with those blahs…

They are not gone but now feel much more balanced by

the sweet joys around me.

Time to crank up some tunes and go lose myself in some art making for a bit.

Another tool I know that fills up this loving Soul of mine.

I hope you fill yourself up with joy today, Beautiful Ones !

*************

at Meri’s Musings.

Today is Tuesday Treasures

Today is Tuesday.

Today, lots of things popped into my world to be shared.

So here they are :

Today’s Quote :

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

(Re-read that a few times. I did.)

 

Today’s Rock :

“Help” as in “I need help”, or “help” as in “the help I need  is here”…?

 

Today’s Song :

I loves me some Jason Mraz.

His new album is coming out in April. This song is on it.

The title ?

“Love is a Four Letter Word”.

Yes, Jason, yes.

 

Today’s Art Journal Page:

Silly pillow pictures of me taken with my IPhone Photobooth App.

They were printed out on David’s laser printer on regular photocopy paper.

Wirelessly.

Technology rocks !

Today’s Art Supply of Choice :

BIC Wite-Out Shake -N Squeeze Correction Pen, White

Kind of stinky but great for adding bold white lines on top of whatever you have on the page, or serving as a resist. And it dries very quickly.

Thanks to Traci Bautista for teaching me about this tool.

All of these little treasures came to me this morning to help me start my day.

Happy to be able to share them with you in the hopes that they make your day shimmer a little brighter too.

Big love, Beautiful Ones !

Semi-Wordless Wednesday…

Happy Hump Day, Beautiful Ones !

Everything has a place...

A lovely friend of mine, Kriss, is moving to California.

Because she is unsure where she will be living right now,
she is storing all of her stuff in one of those POD storage things.

Because those things get hot, she decided that she didn't want to have all her art supplies get ruined and that she should give most of it away.

She asked me if I would be willing to take her stuff.

I said yes. I figured that whatever I couldn't use, I could find good homes for.

The thing was that my own studio was kind of bursting...

Especially my art armoire from Home Depot. The shelves were a mess and I couldn't take a lot of things out without causing a bit of an avalanche.

So my friend's need and my own obsession with art supplies meant time for a big clean up !

Purging, re-organizing and prioritizing...

It took entire three days...

I didn't take before pictures (I always forget that !!!)

But I did take a couple of during...

After three long days, two full garbage bags, five bags of art goodies for friends, two boxes of art supplies that need to go to a classroom somewhere, two large bins of fabric that are now in another room and about $50.00 in plastic storage containers from Walmart

I now have a studio that looks more like this :

The top of the armoire - tidy and accessible tissue paper and canvases...

The inside of the armoire - everything organized, paper on top according to colors, and no avalanches in sight !

My altar back in order...

Instead of junk piled on it, I have inspiring things

Like my newest addition,

a little box

that came from Kriss that houses my funky mermaid from Mexico and some of the rocks

from my friend Lynne very nicely !

My work table still has a lot of stuff on it but that is how I like it - everything I need at my fingertips !


A place to paint and journal...

and a secondary place where I can set up the sewing machine or do jewelry making or even have a friend over...

Even the Computer desk got a bit of a purge and a tidy...

It all feels so wonderful to have a place for everything and have everything in its place.

I know it won't stay like this for too long but it is fun to jump into a summer of creative fun with this clean space just for me to play in !

Speaking of creative fun...

a little while ago, the lovely Deb from what's deb doing asked me for a 5x7 print of the

"Leaves of my Heart" piece I had done.

I sent it to her as a gift, and in return she sent me this gorgeous hand-made creation :

It is a lovely banner of flags made from bits of soft and sweet vintage fabrics.

Deb also embroidered words on extra bits and added them to the flags.

So pretty and so feminine. I loved it !

I though maybe it should go in my studio

but then I realized that the colors, the mood and the words fit perfectly into my other sanctuary

in my house..

our bedroom...

I hung the banner over two of the four windows that make up our bay window...

See how perfectly it works with the lovely bright flowers of my Pottery Barn duvet cover ?

I slept well last night with the words "breathe", "bliss", "allow" and "relax" hanging above me...

Little Boo says he likes the new addition to his window just fine too !

Thank you for your gift and your sweet friendship, Beautiful Deb.

Time to go put all those glorious and organized art supplies to work !

Happy Sunday, Beautiful Ones !

Thankfulness Thursday - Tylenol

To tell you the truth, it was a little hard to come up with a post on the Thankfulness Thursday. Not because I don't have hundreds of things I am truly thankful for.

But because of a sucky sinus headache that makes it really hard to concentrate on anything for too long.

So today, I am most thankful for Tylenol and how it eases the head, eyes, teeth and face pain just enough to get by...

Also thankful for having won the "Crafter's Workshop" giveaway that Julie from Land of Lost Luggage had on her blog recently. Check out the luscious loot I won - a whole series of templates which I will be thrilled to use in my journaling as stencils etc... Such a juicy prize ! Thanks Craft Workshop and Thanks so much Julie !

I am also kind of thankful for Michale's 50% off coupon this week and a Michael's Store in Concord, NH that carries these magnificent Derwent Inktense Watercolor pencils !

My pal Colleen and I hit the shop yesterday and I got the 24 pack for $25.00 instead of $50.00 !!!

Having these lovely tools makes me feel very very lucky. So beautiful...

You can also see my other little purchases - a package of origami paper and a roll of pack tape with a beautiful red scroll design.

Here is my latest journal page. A little all over the place, just like my head feels today !

But I did use my Intense pencils here and there, bits of my origami paper and I also reused some pieces from older journal pages -colored photocopies of the flowers which I like.

I am off to rest my eyes and head again.

Luckily my wonderful computer geek/man just loaded some fun audio books on the old IPod so I can "read" while I rest.

Thankful for him too.

Oh, and you ! ;)

Catch ya when the head aches eases...

GPP Street Team Crusade #36 - Braving the Elements

So yesterday was pretty cold here in Manchester, NH. Not the kind of weather where you feel like hanging out outside. The good news was that I had $70.00 dollars worth of gift certificates (Thank you sweet hubby !!!) to my favorite craft store, Absolutely Everything, they were having a 40% off all Xmas stuff sale and I had a sweet friend ready to head out shopping with me ! The lovely Colleen from Candia even drove us to Topsfield, MA for our shopping spree!

A few of the things I bought with my juicy gift certificates were perfect for the GPP Street Team Crusade Crusade #36 - Braving the Elements ,where Michelle encouraged us to take simple elements, like hand cut snowflakes, and use them with a variety of painting techniques we have learned from past Crusades.

Today was a perfect Sunday morning to "brave the elements" - it was freezing outside but the sun was beaming in the studio and I had lots of free time for experimenting.

Look at this incredible snowflake doilies Colleen found for me in the Xmas Clearance !!!

Talk about a perfect mask !

and these chip board snowflakes are perfect for this project but will also be perfect on the tree next year and they were only $2.00 !

I can't use spray paint in the winter but I thought about these glimmer sprays

and the alcohol inks and misters from Ranger

and gathered them up along with my acrylic paints and make-up sponges

to get my play time on !

I did cut a couple of snowflakes myself as well - you can see their outline here, where I misted over them with the alcohol ink in demin and pearl.

The two shots above show the doilie used as a mask (top portion) as well as those chip board snowflakes.

This page was done using the snowflake I cut myself used over and over with the misters and with acrylic paint and a sponge.

I ended up gluing the painted snowflakes down on to my two page spread...

along with some other collage elements...circles, the front of a gorgeous angel Christmas card we received, a piece of paper napkin, an image of a sweet little one, and a photocopied dictionary page.

So this is what the two pages looked like before I added in my journaling, some pen work and some extra touches of acrylic paint...

And this is the final Winter two page spread after my hour or so of play time...

(click to enlarge)
It is not quite finished - I will probably add in some more journaling about winter in the section on the bottom right. Lots more winter left too !

(in this detail, you can see the other cool rubber stamp with boxes for the date that I got for $2.50 - it will be great for many, many journal pages !)

So there you have it !

As I wrote in my journaling, I still dislike...okay, hate...winter in lots of ways. But I am finding the silvery lining in this one. I bundle up and go where I have to go, with not too much complaint. And I am enjoying my inside time very much as a lot of it is being spent in the studio. Doing projects like this is such wonderful therapy and fun !

I also loving watching the beauty of this coldest season through my windows...

I will leave the outside stuff to this brave little guy as much as possible !

Head over and join Michelle and the other Crusaders for some winter play time fun ! It is always a pleasure no matter what the weather !