Monday, February 24, 2014

Built a mini book to go inside a mini book to go inside a junk journal!

This weekend I continued my crafty experimentation and started building a junk journal for a very special person in my life who is about to embark on a new adventure :)  You'll have to just wait to see who it's for. 

It will hopefully hold lots of photos, tickets (the fun kind - not the speeding kind), receipts, journaling, drawings made by grandchildren, etc.etc.  I hope she loves it. 

I am having a BALL making it thanks to various YOUTUBE videos which have made it SO easy, and to my hubby who has kept the house calm and relatively free of general geriatric giant schnauzer problems and has run me to Michael's AND Walmart to get supplies. 

It's not done yet but it's getting there! 


Friday, February 21, 2014

Gelli Plate Obsession

Surprise!!  I'm obsessed with something.  I know, I know.  It's so RARE.  (HA!) I mean I'm only obsessed with a new thing like, what, every other month at least? 
Oh well.  At least it's not CRACK, right?
The gelli plate. GO BUY YOU ONE. It is SO FUN!!!!! I  can't stop !




 Now I've gone and bought a BUNCH more stencils....and stencil blanks......and a hot knife to cut my own stencils....and a bunch more paint......yeah.   I need to actually DO something with the prints.  I need to set a limit.  Like...I can't make more than 1,000 prints without making something with them ;).  OK maybe 50.  75?  Something like that.
Did this one with some of the stencils I cut myself.  Didn't even burn myself WOOT!

Thank you Karen!!

I arrived home today from a class in Alexandria, VA, to find a surprise package from my sweet friend and fellow zen-tangle addict, Karen.  She sent me a book called COLOR, by Victoria Finlay.  It looks really interesting!

I am definitely intrigued just from the very first paragraph:

" It was a sunny afternoon that still sparkled after earlier rain when I first entered Chartres cathedral.  I don't remember the architecture, I don't even have a fixed idea of the space I was in that day, but what I do remember is the sense of blue and red lights dancing on white stones.  And I remember my father taking me by the hand and telling me that the stained glass had been created nearly eight hundred years ago, "and today we don't know how to make that blue".  I was eight years old, and his words knocked my explanation of the world into a tailspin."

I can totally relate to that experience.  I also often just have impressions of color and feel and smell of places I have been.  My friend Tobie calls that a place's "atmosfeel".  AND I can relate because learning at 44 that there is a color of blue stained glass we can't create also sends MYworld into a tailspin.

WHAT?!!?  I mean, science and stuff!!

Also - I must now get to Chartres cathedral as soon as possible to SEE this amazing glass!  

Except it's in France.  And if you know me, you know how I feel about leaving the United States. Plus it's probably very crowded there.  So, yeah, probably not going to happen for awhile.  But in the meantime, I shall read and absorb the information in this book so that when I DO go, (you know, when there is a sustained period of world peace and we have reliable transporter technology and etc.), I will appreciate what my eyeballs are seeing that much more!

The book is an actual paper book, and I can't remember when I last read a paper book, so I'm pretty excited about that!  I'm wondering where I put my book-holder-upper so I can read while I am doing other stuff.  Hmmm.....  Now where would I have put that...

So, Thanks Karen!! That was too sweet of you and I am super excited to read this!   

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Sort of Valentines-y

I guess I think that just because there is both some pink and some red?