Tins and Lids ...Magnets?

A few months back my sister came to visit mom, and as always, we decided to do a little art while she was here.  This trip was no different.  The day came to play and she took out of her carpet bag, tin lids from glass jars, tea tins, bits of paper, buttons, 2 part epoxy and other embellishments. Ok, this has my attention.   I have always been an instant gratification kind of gal.  I am intrigued.  We lightly glued paper on the bottom of the lids, added buttons (we shaved off the shanks) and words from a book for typed it from the computer.  I found that to be the easiest. As you can see from the photo above the words from the book didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it to.  You can see the words from the other side of the page.  So, in the future I think I will just type out the words I need.  (Squirrel...much easier to read)  After placing all the do-dads you want in your lid, you mix up the epoxy according to the instructions and pour in the lids. Be sure and cover all your treasures. Sister has us take a straw and gently blow the bubbles out of the epoxy.  Let them dry over night and we slapped a magnet on the back and called it good.  All of our lids turned out so different. The sky is the limit, so have fun!

Good fun, good times and great laughs!

Grunge Meets Karen

Hello fellow journal people! Today was an awesome day for creativity! Mom and I went to another class with Karen O'Brien! Once again it was fabulous. We had been asking Karen to help us with the pages of our journals. She taught us how to create background pages....well, that's great, but what do we do with them now?? Today was just a small spattering of what we could do! With an image, glue, paint, tore paper and a few markers I came up with this little doll of a gal. Not sure what to name her yet, but it will come to me.

The left side of the spread is a grunge technique that we learned from a video we watched from Comfortable Shoes Studio. Leslie has some great videos on You Tube if you get a chance to see them.

My Painted Journal

This is the first time I have painted in a journal. What an experience! Last February, Mom bought me a class for my birthday. She didn't tell me a thing about the class, let it be a surprise, just said she hoped that I would enjoy it. And I did! This was our first (and defiantly NOT last) class we took from Karen O'Brien. We took a book and tore out pages, glued on images and other paper. Whatever you want, glue it....then we painted the pages with acrylic paints. Moving the paint around on the page with an old credit card, disinfectant wipes and paper towels. Let them dry, then added a little more color with oil pastels, watercolor, stamps, gel pens and more paint if needed. This gives a great place to start journaling....I have stayed away from journaling most of me life because, I am not a writer and I get hand cramps! But in looking at others artists work, you don't have to just write like we did when we were in junior high. It is all about art, color, texture, some writing, movement and exploring your world around you. Next, for me comes the "art it up" part of the journey. I now have unique pages to lay my art work.

Found Poetry

You can find poetry is the most bizarre places....recently Cat and I were at the Rogue River Rooster Crow. Our local library had a $3.00 a bag sale...yep, you buy a grocery bag for 3 bucks and fill it up. Well we found all sorts of books that were copyrighted in 1899, maps, books on yoga, love books, poetry and more...it was a blast. I found enough books to last me a lifetime plus! This is one of the "found poetry" piece I did from those glorious pages! The gray is actually silver tape. It's called "Asparagrus"