A Quickie Face-lift for a Notebook...

While cleaning up the "office" part of my studio in preparation for the new computer - the office is just a little niche that's supposed to be a closet - I noticed that I have a huge stack of those blank books that I can never resist. I usually use them to jot down ideas or recipes or quotes or books I want to read or any number of things that pop into my mind. I'm sure you do something similar.

Some of them have been gifts over the years, some were ones I acquired in book buys when I had my online book business, and I'm sure some of them came from the thrift stores. At any rate, they usually have something pretty on the cover and I've just left them as they are...until today.

I altered the cover on one of them and now I think I'll do the rest of them. Here's what I did...

Nothing fancy. Just some scraps of paper and an image from a postcard I made last year. I used some leopard print duct tape on the spine (LOVE it!) and here's the back...

I'm happy with how it turned out and I think it might have taken me the whole of 10 minutes to do! Just a fun little project to get the juices flowing. One down and many more to go!

Happy weekend!!

Blue Haired Ladies and Computers...

This will be a quickie post today. I'm just sharing another spread in my BOD journal. I'm not actually doing the same things that Effy is doing but I'm working in the altered book that I made for this class. As always, doing my own thing!

This is a spread that began with a magazine picture. I made it my own by painting over it and adding the blue hair. I'm not a little blue-haired lady even though I might be old enough...but I wouldn't mind having blue hair if it was bright like this!

I might not be around too much over the next few days. HB and I are having new computers built for us...one for him and one for me. I'll be getting a much larger monitor so I have to re-arrange my desk area to accommodate it. I'm really excited about this because the new computer will be very fast and have a lot of memory. This guy builds computers for gamers. He's going to add in all the things I want plus transfer things from my old computer to the new one. The computer I'm using now (my desktop computer) is one I got for Christmas in 2004!!! I also have a laptop that I got a couple of years ago. I mostly use my desktop computer because I hate the keyboards on the laptops. Lately my old computer has been freezing a lot and I had a blue screen a few days ago so it's on its last leg. I'll have the new one in about a week.

Have a fun week-end!!!

Playing in the Studio...

Yesterday we had some rain and it was the perfect day to just do nothing...which is pretty much what I did! But I did find a journal spread that I hadn't shared with you. I did this in my Book of  Days journal...

It began with a picture from a magazine, then I painted over it and added some UPC labels which I think are great graphic accents.

I also recently painted this face...

I did her on one of my hardback book covers. I layered on some old book pages and then painted her. She's given me a lot of trouble with her face shading. I just can't seem to get it right so I just gave up and called her done!

I also doodled around with these flowers. I wish I had added some brighter colors but for now this is what it is. They sort of remind me of octopus arms!! Maybe they're octopus flowers!

And that's what I've been up to recently. I hope you're all creating lots of fun art, too. Keep playing...

A Little Painting, A Little Stamping...

Hi everyone! Did you think I'd forgotten about my blog? Almost! I've been enjoying the freedom of just doing what I want, when I want, and posting something on my blog hasn't entered my mind! Don't get me wrong. I love blogging and I've been visiting lots of blogs over the past week but I haven't really had anything to share with you on mine.

I've been working on some things that I'm doing for a small swap with two blog friends. And I'm also working on something for a mail swap with a new blog friend...so there isn't much I can show you even though I've been making art.

I did start a 12" x 12" canvas recently. Here's the background...

LOVE it!! I used some spray paints, stencils, Adirondack spray washes, and a light wash of cream paint to tone it down a bit.

Then I began adding some shapes and decided to make a vase of flowers...which is not something I usually paint. Here's where I'm at with it...

Very, very preliminary. I think I want to keep the color scheme with just that pop of red and maybe just a couple more small spots of it.

I also did some more painted papers...

And carved a couple of small stamps...

Other than that I can't show you anything else I've been doing. Oh, wait...I can share one thing I've been doing. I've been looking for an exercise program that I'd like and I found one here. I've never been one for a lot of jumping around like in aerobics but this program is perfect because it's more fluid movements. So far I'm enjoying it and I seem to have more energy. There's one video on the website and then I ordered one of the DVDs from ebay where I got a better price.

Okay, that's it from here...I hope you're all having a fun weekend. I'm going to work on my swap projects and my new painting. See you soon...

I Am....

No art today....at least nothing I want to share yet. But I do want to tell you about an amazing film we just watched last night and one that I think everyone should see.

photo from Google images

I first heard about this movie on Oprah's show and I knew I wanted to see it. We live in an area that has somewhat limited access to films other than the big blockbusters and anything that involves mayhem and madness. So we had to wait for Netflix. It was well worth the wait.

I Am is thought provoking, inspiring, uplifting and gives us hope for the human race. I hope more people see this film and take its message to heart. Here is a link to their website with more information.

Now back to the studio. I'm playing with watercolors today. Stay tuned!