Not Much Happening....

Just popping in to upload my daily art journal page. HB and I are enjoying a lazy, relaxing Sunday afternoon. We watched fireworks from our front yard last night....sat out with our neighbors and enjoyed all the sights and sounds of the Fourth.

July 5:



See you tomorrow!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

photo from blogs.menupages.com

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

I hope you're all enjoying a cookout, or a picnic, or some other outdoor activity. Have fun. Here's my journal page for today....not Fourth of July themed.

July 4:


This was a fun page to do....brought back lots of memories. This trip was from our hometown in Decatur, IL to my aunt's house near Mullinville, KS. It was a family reunion of my dad's side of the family. It was the first time my kids met most of these relatives and some of them made a lasting impression! There were a lot of firsts on this trip....some good, some bad but it was a trip I will always remember.

Some Fun and Some Art....

I haven't done a meme in such a long time so when I saw this one on Rowan's blog I decided to do it. Feel free to take it and play along if you want....you know me, I never tag.

What is your current obsession?
Art and more specifically, my art journal....could you tell?!

What is your weirdest obsession?
I'm not sure I have one!

What are you wearing today?
Black shorts and a purple tee (what other color is there!) and I'm barefoot!

What’s for dinner?
Don't know yet but maybe leftovers.

What would you eat for your last meal?
That seafood collage we had for our anniversary, followed by lots and lots of ice cream. If it's my last meal I'm gonna have something sweet!

What’s the last thing you bought?
Groceries and a couple of tee shirts....surprisingly it wasn't something art related!

What are you listening to right now?
Mostly beautiful silence with the occasional bird song.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Probably somewhere along the central coast of California, overlooking the ocean.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Just an hour!! Whew! Maybe visit England and see where part of me came from.

Which language do you want to learn?
I've never been good at this but maybe French or Italian because they sound so beautiful.

What’s your favourite quote (for now)?
Not a quote but a prayer I recently saw on Lia's blog:
God grant me the serenity to accept the fact
that I can't make every room in this house a craft room:
Give me courage to clean the studio I have;
and wisdom to know the difference.

What is your favourite colour?
Hhmmn, let me think....wonder what it is? Oh, yes, PURPLE!

What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
After my little tirade the other day I think you know me and clothes aren't on the same page. I don't think I have a favorite piece of clothing unless you count my favorite jeans.

What is your dream job?
The one where I get paid tons of money for staying home and making art!

Describe your personal style?
Casual, quirky, sometimes flamboyant

What’s your favourite tree?
Never thought about this! I like weeping willows and huge oak trees.

What are you going to do after this?
Spend the day in my studio.

What’s your favourite fruit?
I eat bananas every day but I think watermelon is high on my list right now....oh, and blueberries and blackberries and....heck, I love them all!

What inspires you?
Looking at wonderful art on the internet, birds singing, sometimes something I've read....and all of you!

Your favourite books?
I don't have a favorite. I just love books....all of them.

What are you currently reading?
"The Joy of Living" - Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche; "The Land of Mango Sunsets" - Dorothea Benton Frank; and "Celebrate Your Creative Self" - Mary Todd Beam

Go to your bookshelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:
landmark style were immdiately recognized when Ward described him as the artist responsible for the immensely popular Coca-Cola advertisements and roadside highway billboards. This is from "Gil Elvgren" a book about glamorous pin-ups.

So after all that, here's my art journal page for today....

July 3:


Have a safe and fun Fourth of July!!!!

Fins Are In....Maybe Not!!

Thanks for all the great responses and emails I got from my rant yesterday! It helps to know I'm not alone. Now if we can just figure out a way to get the designers to pay attention!

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

My journal page for today was a fun one to make and it brought back all kinds of memories. I went online and found a photo of a car like the one I learned to drive in....a 1961 Cadillac Coupe de Ville....brand, spankin' new and it belonged to my boyfriend's father! I'm sure the dad NEVER knew his son was letting someone learn to drive in his new car!! And it was such a huge boat of a car, too. When I was a teenager I really didn't have any strong desire to drive. And strangely neither did my son when he got older. Guess we're just weirdos!

I drove for quite awhile without ever getting my license!! Kids, don't try that today! But finally when I applied for a job at our newspaper that required a license I went and took the test. I passed on the first try even though I can remember being very nervous. After all that I didn't take the job at the newspaper but instead went to work as a telephone operator for Illinois Bell (I did a post about that here.)

So here's my journal page for today....

July 2:

I love the angle of the photo showing those huge fins on the back of the car. Why on earth did we ever think those were cool???

Shopping is NOT My Favorite Pastime!

I managed to make it through yesterday and even got to visit some blogs! Days when I have a lot of errands to run are the worst! And I had several items to return. I'm a stickler when it comes to things I buy. I save every receipt. I make an envelope for each week and all the receipts go in there. No matter what it is, if I don't like it I return it! Recently HB and I bought new vitamins. We usually take Centrum Silver but we noticed they had special ones for men and for women so we decided to try them.

I'm one of those people who has LOTS of trouble swallowing pills. So when I opened the bottle and saw the size of them I knew they were going straight back to the store!! The ones for women were much bigger than the ones for men. I might have been able to get those down but no way would I swallow the horse pills for women!! HB said he didn't think they'd take them back because they were open but they did. I've returned all kinds of things....for all kinds of reasons.
********************************************

And once again for my journal page I used one that I had done some work on already.

June 30:

I just added a couple of stamped birds to the big stenciled bird (can you tell I like that little stamp!) some writing and a sticker and called it done!

Today I began the July A Prompt a Day with Kelly Kilmer. I love having a prompt each day. It makes me think a little more about what I'm doing.

July 1:

This one is so true. I'm all about comfort. In my younger days I loved to shop for clothes but now it seems harder and harder to find anything that I can wear. I'm not about to wear skimpy little tops and clingy fabrics. Do designers think everyone is 16 years old? I wish there was a place to find nice looking clothes that are age appropriate. And why do they insist on putting horizonal stripes on larger sized clothes?? And huge pockets right on the front of shirts? I sure don't need pockets on my boobs! What on earth would I carry in them? My other pet peeve is sleeves or the lack of. Most of the sleeves on tee shirts wouldn't cover my shoulder! I don't need to have my upper arm exposed to the world! It's bad enough that I have to see it. Are clothing designers just sadistic? I don't understand why it is that with people getting bigger why clothes are getting smaller. And if there are so many baby boomers out there why are all the clothes made for teenagers. I'm sorry to go off on a rant but this is one of my major gripes!!

Now that I got that off my pocketless chest, I'll end this little tirade and wish you all a great and creative day. Go out and have some fun!!! I'm staying home and playing in the studio.

Hurry, Hurry.....Rush, Rush!!!

Today is one of those busy days where I have lots of errands to run so this will be a quickie. I didn't get my page finished for yesterday so I did it first thing this morning and it reflects how I'm feeling!

June 29:

Not sure you can read any of this one because some of it is so dark. Mostly it's just me complaining about not having enough time to do everything! I'm sorry that I don't post larger photos but I try to keep them smallish so I don't use up my free blogger space too fast! This one is posted bigger on my flickr page.

Slowly but surely I'm making it around to visit your blogs. Last night I didn't do much on the computer though. HB and I watched a little tv and since so much of it is reruns I went to bed early and read. I have three books going right now!

Tomorrow I begin the July A Prompt a Day journaling class with Kelly Kilmer....the link is in my previous post. I'm too lazy this morning to look it up!! Sorry! At least I'm honest about it. So hopefully my journal pages will be better. I feel as if I'm sort of in a rut right now with them. I can definitely use some new

I'm Doin' it Again....

Monday morning and we are in the heat! I got spoiled with all that nice, cool weather we had for awhile but now it's decided to get serious and turn HOT! It was around 100ºF yesterday and expected to be hotter today. I may not be very productive today.

Recently I mentioned that I was not going to take any more art classes for awhile so that I could have time to absorb what I've learned from the ones I've taken. And I've been pretty good about not looking for them and not signing up for ones that I see. But for the month of July I'm going to be doing Kelly Kilmer's Prompt a Day art journaling class. If you remember I took the one in March and it really gave me a jump-start on my journaling, and she has some new things in store for July so I thought I'd give it another go. If you're interested, just click on her name above and it will take you to her blog where she has all the info.

Over the weekend I kind of cheated on my journal pages. I had some spray painted backgrounds in my journal that I just tweaked a little bit and used for my pages during my busy days.

June 26:


June 27:


June 28:


I hope these pictures look ok. I'm trying different photo editing. I had an older version of Easy Share from Kodak in my computer and I loved it for resizing photos but recently I decided to upgrade because it wasn't working smoothly anymore....and of course, the "new and improved" version doesn't have any of the features I loved best about the old one!! So now I'm using online editing through Picnik and I'm not too sure I like it yet.

********************************************
As many of you know, I'm behind again in visiting and answering emails and comments. I seem to always be saying this but it's true! I can't keep up anymore! So I hope you won't be mad at me if I haven't been around for a few days. You know I'll always make it eventually, and I do try to keep up with my emails but when I don't get them done over the weekend then by Monday I really have a lot to answer. I guess I'm just not a very good blog buddy!