Share the Joy Thursday–The Space Between

From this week’s Joy List :

1. Being there for a friend who really needs an ear and some extra love.

2. Pride in a hard-working husband who received some much deserved recognition.

3. Kitty Cats, kitty cats, everywhere ! Their purrs are music to my heart.

4. Sharing Rock My World rocks in new ways – this time through a high school guidance counselor who wants to share them with her kids.

5. A return to the Artist in me – I am in love with my journal !!!

So if you remember, the page in my beautiful Moleskine started like this…

And when last we saw it, it looked like this :

                            

The last stamp to use on the page was this Invoke Arts “Art Queen” stamp.

So, with some sweet tunes on Pandora, ink and a dip pen, Twinkling H2O’s, acrylic paints and some great play time

(you can tell it was great but the mess !),

this is where we ended up…

The fold of the page actually falls along the nose of the large face.

And the Art Queen stamp forms part of the “vision” in the eye.

I ended up cutting a window into the page.

I love how the purple “rock wall”

becomes a frame around the first two “ladies” when you turn the page.

I added some paint, stenciling and ink work onto the second page spread…

And now it is ready for more art journaling play !

The journal entry I wrote says it all for me right now.

I am choosing to LIVE in this space between, and be as present as I can be in this one precious life.

And soak up the joys of this place.

Happy Thursday, Beautiful Ones !

 

More joyous musing can be found here.

Haiku My Heart– Love is right.

I want to be right.

But I want to dwell in Love.

Love wins every time.

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Something I am working on.

This inner battle between wanting to be right and

wanting to come from a place of Love in the decisions I make.

It comes up a lot in marriage, I find.

Going back to the roots,

back to Love,

feels a lot sweeter than being right does.

Once you swallow that lump.

 

The piece above comes from the second section of the journal page I started  and posted about yesterday.

Blank page divided up…

Michael’s $1.50 butterfly stamp…

Some playful thought…

a lot of India ink and dip pen work,

plus some Inktense pencils and Twinkling H2O’s

and section two looks like this…

Lady Metamorphosis reminding me to be the change I want to see in the world.

Baby steps, Beautiful Ones, baby steps…

Happy Friday !

 

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Friday means there is more haiku to enjoy at recuerda mi corazon. See you there !

Share the Joy Thursday - Give it wings…

It is a snowy day today. Our first since October so no complaints here.

In fact, I am a little joyful about it, as I have no where I have to be,

and other than some house work,

nothing I have to do !

I am still trying to get back into the swing of working in my art journal more often.

I have to admit that while the paper in this meaty Moleskine Watercolor journal is delicious,

the size of it (81/2 X 11 or 8X1/2 X 22 full page spreads)

is a little intimidating, even to the fearless paint slapper in me !

I decided to do a few pages sliced up into sections…

three per page.

I also wanted to make use of some of the stamps I have been buying but never using…

Believe it or not, this funky winged pen stamp is from Michael’s $1.50 bin !

As is this gorgeous butterfly stamp.

I bought this Invoke Arts “Art Queen” stamp from the awesome Absolutely Everything store in Topsfield, Mass., way back when but it had never been used until today !

I like Stazon ink, since it doesn’t run with watercolors…

Rather than think too much, I just stamped them wherever, one in each section, as a jumping off place.

The pens and wings looked like a body to me.

I added a head, cut out from an old dictionary page.

I added some color with Twinking H2O’s.

While I was painting her, I was thinking about what kind of angel she was,

and what would she would be writing…

Love note…? Messages of kindness…?

I added in some printed words in little boxes with wings.

And then a little phrase to bring it together, written by hand with my dip pen.

Okay so she isn’t anything fancy or really profound,

but

I took the time to play and experiment.

And now, I am taking the time to share it.

That brings JOY to my artist heart !

As do these next sections in my journal, ready for me to play with when the time comes around again.

I hope you are finding many little things that bring you to a joyful place, Beautiful Ones.

Happy Thursday !

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Meri and the gang have more joy to share here.

Slapping some paint down !

FINALLY !

A little art !

Today, my to-do list includes a post office run, the grocery store, the Pet food store,

plus I think it would be a good idea if I took the time to make myself presentable to head out on all those errands, ie :  shower and blow dry my hair.

But I decided it was all going to wait !

Wait until I had taken some time to get some art out of me and onto a page.

I wasn’t even sure what would come, I was feeling so rusty !

But no expectations other than filling the page resulted in this.

The red flowers remind me of these red and white placemats we used to have when we were kids.

Vinyl ones with a design by the artist Eva Zeisel.

I remember her simple “Eva” signature on them.

She passed way at the age of 105 in December.

Maybe her design spirit was visiting me a little as I played ?

Whatever spirits were there to play with me, it sure felt good to take this hour for myself, for some therapy, if you will.

This week has be a little wonky, hormonally, emotionally and physically.

I suppose that makes sense for January, if I think about it.

But I need to get back into the practice of art making to help maintain some better balance when these wonky times hit !

Well, the arty part of me feels a little more satisfied.

Off to fulfill my other duties !

Happy Wednesday, Beautiful Ones !

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PS : It was nice to have Miss Pumpkin in the studio with me while I was playing.

She is still adjusting slowly to the other cats…okay, she hates them!!!

But she lets the big white pooch hang out beside her, no problem !

She knows the sweetest heart in the house, I guess.

Meow, meow, meow, woof woof, from here !

What color is gratitude ?

Sunday morning.

The Queen of Arts Studio and the Rock Fairy have had a busy business week so I was working on getting some trays of rocks painted so I could have some rock inventory on hand.

Painting the Rock My World rocks in their nice bright colors is actually my least favorite part about the whole Rock Fairy process.

It is kind of monotonous.

The repetitive movement puts a lot of strain on my beat up right shoulder.

I have even considered not painting the rocks anymore and leaving them in their natural state.

But people have expressed to me how much they love the colors.

So I do them in big batches, a different color on each tray.

Usually while I sponge the paint on the rocks, I listen to music to help the time pass faster.

But today, I decided to just enjoy the quiet of the Sunday morning vibe.

Instead of losing myself in the tunes,

I let the quiet fill me up.

I started to make a list of all the things I am grateful for, just like on of the meditations we do at my class on Monday nights.

The list was very, very long today.

The holidays were sweet…

My home and marriage feel oh so cozy…

I have such great friends that I love dearly.

My family loves one another really well, in spite of how very different we are.

I got a “new to me” car this week that makes me feel so special and cared for when I drive it.

(2010 Nissan Rogue in Wicked Black )

My writer-lady friend, Patti Digh launched her new fabulous 37 Days.com website this week with an awesome Live Stream cupcake party.

My rocks are a special part of it, with our new “Your Daily Rock” feature there…

I feel like I am doing a lot of things that I am meant to be doing on this planet, and it feels oh so good.

It is giving me strength and courage to face some of the things I want to do less of and/or improve on.

The word of the year I chose, LIVE, seems to be just the right one at this time.

Living this one precious life as fully as I can each day.

With gratitude.

Always.

Have a cozy Sunday evening, Beautiful Ones.

Cheers !

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The sweet, little 2012 Word of the Year Rock in a Box is still available in the Queen of Arts Studio Etsy shop.

LIVE from the Queen of Arts Studio

I have chosen my Word of the Year for 2012.

The word is LIVE.

I love that it can be used both as LIVE, as in “I will LIVE for today”,

and

as LIVE, “LIVE from Manchester, It’s Kim, the Rock Fairy/Queen of Arts !”

I have to admit that choosing a word was not a sweet, meditative contemplation thing for me this year.

In fact, it was kind of more in response to how intimidated I was feeling by all the incredibly deep thought and soul searching some of my friends in Blogland were doing to begin their 2012 off right and to choose their important Word of the Year.

I think I am in a place where I want to spend a lot less time thinking and planning how I am going to Live this one precious life, and instead get on with the actually Living I want to do.

So the word LIVE feels like a really good fit.

While my  word was percolating, I also thought about how I would want to have my word on a Rock My World rock with “Live” on it for me, and how I have painted rocks for friends in the past with their own Word of the Year on them as a keepsake gift.

And then, I came up with this sweet little box idea :

This small white ceramic box comes from a local craft store.

I added the painted paper flower and the 2012 under a coat of Glossy Accents to create a cute dimensional decoration on the lid

and here we have a lovely place to keep your 2012 Word of the Year Rock !

I also made a second design with a sun.

I have made these sweet things available in the Etsy shop and I would love to send you

your very own customized

2012 Word of the Year Rock Rock in a Box keepsake.

For the month of January, I will be including some extra Rock My World rocks in every package I send out, so you will have your own Word rock in its pretty box and also a few other rock love messages to share.

Also, if the box isn’t your thing, but you would like to have a Rock My World Rock with your Word of the Year on it, the bag of 13 rocks are also available in the shop and I will customize them as you want me to.

Along with enjoying the rocks, you can be glad to know that part of the profits I make from selling the Rock My World Rocks always goes to being able to donate, ship and offer the rocks for free to charitable causes to use for their fund raising efforts.

Here’s hoping that 2012 is full of lots of juicy LIVING for all of us !

Big Love, Beautiful Ones !