"Soar & Fly" Art Journal Page

From this ...

... to this ...

... to this! Ta da!

This page had more planned for me than I did for it! My muse was here in my presence. I could hear her whispering to me to "let my Little Bird fly". 

Fly, Little Bird. 

Fly and soar. 

Trust your wings. 

Sing your song! 

Your amazing tiny heart 

will take you anywhere.

This bird stamp is my design, and is made from foam sheet and cardboard. It is outlined in orange Copic marker and then black Stabilo pencil for dimension. The bird cage is white-out pen. I drew over that with a sparkly gel pen to make the bars look shiny and metal. 

The purple circle and scalloped dictionary page were scraps laying around. I added my handmade button stamp to the circle and layered them. I used my label maker to print the words because I was in a hurry. They are pixelated, and that bugs me, but it's not a deal-killer on this piece. 

The letters for "soar" were brown to start with. I painted them and stamped some dots and lettering on them with paint. The dimension the raised letters add is lovely! 

The little heart banner is punched hearts from book pages and baker's twine. A little watercolor splashed on the hearts creates some interest. 

Look! I managed to sew in curvy lines - not jagged straight-ish arcs! The paper itself is created with gelli plate printing and white gel pen. This is before I drew the heart and swirly black line.

To connect the theme of singing I glued down some tissue tape with music on it. That needed some color so I washed a little acrylic paint over the tape. Using a Molotow white paint pen I wrote the words "sing your song" and added black to make it more readable. Some little doodles and stars here and there finished the piece nicely. 

There you have it! This is the first art journal page I have completed this year. It took several days to work out. I printed the background about a month ago with my gelli plate right into the journal. 

I worked on it here and there for a while until the full image finally came together. I wanted to experiment with some ideas I had in my sketchbook, and this piece gave me the chance to work those ideas out more thoroughly. That's what I love about art journaling! Mad science experiments! Focusing on the process! Mastering techniques! Practice  Practice. Practice!! 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Happy Easter if you celebrate! Also, Mr. M turns 40 this weekend! Huzzah!

- Vickie

{be creative everyday} 2013

Last year, although many, many wonderful things happened, I didn't feel I was doing my best work or giving my creative life the room it needed to bloom. I was left feeling empty and aimless when I thought I was doing the right things. I kept asking myself what I was missing. I finally figured it out. I was missing a plan. I didn't have a specific enough quest. 

My creative life needs challenges. It needs attention or it withers. It needs planning and brainstorming. We all know that nothing comes from nothing. And I'm sick of all this nothing. 

What does my uncontainable need to create cry out for? 

TIME. ROUTINE. FREEDOM TO PLAY. COMMUNITY. 

Above all: PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. 

I need art more than I need oxygen. I want to fill my days with awareness and find the creativity in the world around me. My creativity needs to be a part of my daily routine. I've been taking my creativity for granted, which prevents me from seeing it as infinite potential. 

I am on a mission. A [wide-open] secret mission. Since I like you very much, I will let you in on the [wide-open] secret mission. I am going to {be creative everyday} in 2013. Yup. Every. Single. Day. For 365 days. As of today (01/12/13) I am on track for all 12 days of January. Woot! This blog post counts! 

I am embarking on learning something new and creating new habits. Right now the novelty of {be creative everyday} hasn't worn off and I've attacked my projects like wildfire these past 12 days. Some mornings I can't wait to get up and get creative. (Remember, creativity come in many forms: doodles, music, painting, writing, cooking, brainstorming, doing puzzles, teaching, blogging, etc.) 

I know at some point that novelty will wear off a bit. That's ok. In learning a new habit, at the start it's ok to kind of stink at it. That's how this learning and practice thing works. So my plan is simply to show up. Be there in my studio and bridge the gap from crap to "I MADE THAT?!?!" with sheer volume. Maybe it will bring my muse tiptoeing around to see what all the fuss is about. 

I won't be sharing every single creative endeavor here. Some things are a little too mundane to post. My plan is to post weekly wrap-ups and highlight specific projects as they come up. Some months will be dedicated to other specific everyday projects like Index-Card-A-Day 2013 (ICAD3) at Daisy Yellow's blog in June and July. I'll be making cards for Operation Write Home throughout the year. Some art will be abandoned. I'll be entering shows like 6x6x2013 at Rochester Contemporary, and taking advantage of my Honorable Mention award at last year's Artists Row with free booth space in 2013. 


I am keeping track of my daily creativity with photos using an app on my phone called Photo365. It lets me post pictures for specific days to tell the story of {be creative everyday} 2013 in a calendar of images. 

Tons of everyday projects are starting up and it's never too late to join some. Hanna is doing 365 somethings in 2013. Tammy at Daisy Yellow is also joining in for 2013. If you want to join in on 365 Somethings go join the flickr group for #365in2013 

I'm looking forward to keeping you up to date on {be creative everyday} 2013. Please let me know in the comments if you have a project going on! 

- Vickie

Happy Father's Day : A Card

We are so blessed to have Mr. M's father in our lives. Father's Day has been hard these past two years since I lost my dad. But Mr. M's dad is such a wonderful guy that I'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate him! 

Most of the time when I start working on something I really don't have the "Finished Piece" visualized in my head. There may be parts of it or just a color scheme to begin with. For this card I was reaching toward handsome and manly. Mr. M's dad is an outdoorsman and enjoys fishing. So I went with earthy tones and unusual textures. 

I started with a blank piece of ivory cardstock, cut it in half, and folded it to make the card part. Using a foam blending tool I inked the edges of the card with some brown inks. Using two shades adds a lot of dimension and is worth taking the little bit of extra time to do so. 

Next up was my choice of papers. Pretty much went all out brown on this one. Using that large of an area of bold vertical stripes was stepping out of my comfort zone. I like swirly backgrounds. But for a guy simple and stylish is the way to go. I distressed the edges heavily. Even tore some off to make it look really tattered. Then I inked the distressed edges to, once again, add more dimension. 

At this point a plan does need to begin forming. I pulled out a couple scraps of paper and moved them around the face of the card until it looked pleasing, and I could decide where I was going. Eventually I chose a strip of map paper, a dark brown cardstock, paper that looks like burlap, and the sentiment printed from my computer that I designed in a font that looks like tire treads meets tweed meets stenciled lettering. How manly is that?!

I wanted a layered look so I put the strip of map paper between the two mats for the sentiment. That helps tie the elements together. 

When deciding to use my sewing machine on cards I find that if I don't really have a solid plan from here I mess the stitching up. Or sew the card itself shut. (Come on. Don't act like that never happened to you.) 

First I adhered the map strip to the dark brown cardstock with the dark brown behind the map paper. Then I adhered that to the card. Time for the sewing machine! 

I stitched all the way around the card twice and then ran border stitches along the map strip edges. On cards like this where distress is good neatness doesn't count. I wobble the line a bit. It's more interesting. 

I glued the sentiment to the burlap paper and then glued that down over the map strip and stitching. See how planning ahead on the stitching prevented me from sewing through the sentiment? :) 

(Can you tell I'm not a seamstress? 99% of the material put through my sewing machine is paper. I think the only fabric I stitched was my craft show tablecloth hem.)

I love using buttons on cards, and for guys it's especially appropriate. I chose an assortment of brown buttons from my extensive stash. Whenever I use buttons I pretty much always add thread through the holes so it looks like it is stitched to the card. Buttons on my cards without thread look "unfinished" to me. Again since I was going for a distressed look neatness didn't count and I left some straggly threads hanging on. 

I adhered the buttons to the card using Glossy Accents. I did so because it is wicked strong at holding 3D embellishments, and it dries quickly. Regular white craft glue would take hours to dry in that situation. This took 15 minutes. Joy! 

I thought at this point I might be done, but there was this big blankness in the bottom right corner. It looked unbalanced. I had to come up with something to put there. Digging through the piles of paper options on my messy work table I came across a coffee shop cardboard cup sleeve that had been striped down to the corrugated inside part. Texture! And brown! Perfect!

I'm in love with bunting and banners of any sort right now. I thought this corrugate would make a cute flag. I trimmed it down to size and clipped the end to make points. The edges were inked in a dark brown and a little black. A tiny voice in my head wondered what this would do if I ran it through the sewing machine. Hmmmmm. Tiny Voice, you may have a good idea! 

I tested it on a small bit of scrap corrugate. The heavy flattening power of the sewing machine foot smushed the wavy texture down. But it was usable by bending it back into shape. Then I stitched the one for the card. 

The card still didn't seem finished at this point yet. Hmmmmm. What to do? What to do? 

DYMO! A solid go-to when stuck! I punched out the word "hero" and then used a regular 1/4" hole punch to pop out the letters so they would fit my flag. I glued them on lined up with the stitching. 

I have a thing for using odd numbers of items in my design. "Hero" is four letters. Gah! It had to be balanced out so I added the three hearts. Ahhh. My OCD is calmed.

The spot where the flag met the seintiment mats looked stark. Another solid go-to for masculine cards is raffia. It's a good, natural material to get away with making a bow not look too foofoo. And, yes, I did ink the raffia a bit to make it look old. Once again, the Glossy Accents is the glue to use for sticking raffia bows to cards.

I'm wishing ALL the daddies out there a very Happy Father's Day!! I don't care how tough and gruff you are. If a two year-old hands you a toy phone, you answer it! :) xoxo

For the rest of you, have a shiny, sparkle filled Sunday!

- Vickie

Collage Paper Prepping

Lately I have been creating my own papers for collaging. I’ve needed a couple specific colors for some new ideas that I could not find in my scrapbook paper stash. Gasp! How could that even be possible? I know! But it is indeed true!

My process starts with a generous coat of gesso on regular white cardstock. Nothing fancy… just a pack of white cardstock from the craft store. I kind of lay the gesso on thick creating a great deal of texture. This step is best done in batches so I do between four to six pieces of paper at a time. I bought some of those giant plastic carpet protectors so my chairs could scoot on the carpet in the studio. They have turned into great carpet protectors from painty projects (not that we are really attempting to save the carpet in the studio anymore at this point)!

I don’t know if it’s a throwback from childhood or what but I prefer to sit on the floor when I work. My body is displeased with this however and only lets me do it every so often. But painty gesso on paper calls for the floor! Huzzah! Also, there is not enough room on my worktable to accommodate the drying of four to six pages of paper.

The gesso dries quite quickly and I get to paint them soon. I think today I need more yellow and orange. Maybe some red and green for domino Christmas ornaments. Pink for cupcakes. I will also play around with some glazing and layering for visual interest.

This is a page I painted for a project a few weeks ago.

So what becomes of all this painted paper? It gets cut up into ridiculously small pieces for decorating dominoes. I’m talking about pieces smaller than half an inch, mostly much much smaller. Often I wade into dealing with one millimeter by one millimeter pieces. Yep. I do. Why? I’m still looking for the answer to that question.

- Vickie

I’ve Got Class. No, Really!

I've been working on my art journaling this week. If you have not started doing this already, I really recommend it. It’s fun and a great way for us visual types to learn about ourselves. I can’t say I’m really good at it yet. Something just hasn’t clicked for me with the process. I’m missing something. So when I found the book, The Creative Entrepreneur, I knew it was the right one for me. It’s full of visual journaling prompts and interactivities. My brain is soaking this stuff up like water!

I blogged recently about this book. As I did some digging for links for that article, I came across a class the author is offering about art journaling. Usually the class is $39, but it was on sale for only $19 as a Summer Camp Special. I signed up post haste!

The class is called “PowerFULL, Magical Visual Journals” and is described as “Life changing ways to create with a purpose. Learn how to create a visual journal from the plainest of blank books and turn it into your own unique tool to navigate your life and work.”

The class includes a 90 minute self-paced mp3 tutorial, full-color course workbook loaded with examples and visual journal prompts, and access to a private workshop discussion forum moderated by Lisa Sonora Beam (the author).

Wheee! Just what I need to take that extra step! I’m so excited!! In fact, I’m too excited still to even look at the materials! So I’m waiting for my brain to stop saying, “Wheeee!” so I can look at this stuff with some mental clarity. C’mon, brain, don’t fail me now!

Kristen, the Etsy Twitter Team Co-Leader, is also a Creative Entrepreneur Junkie. I let her know about the super good deal on the class, and she signed up, too. I look forward to sharing notes with her and looking at her work. She is extremely talented. She’s the brains behind the whole Etsy Twitter Team operation, actually. She comes up with the best ideas ever.

If you’re into this kind of thing, why not join us? Let me know if you sign up, too, and we can share our experiences. Remember – you cannot make art in a vacuum. It takes community!

Orlando or Bust

My sister works for Booty Parlor and they had a convention a few weeks ago in Orlando, Florida. I jokingly asked if I could go with her, and she promptly got on the computer and started quoting me airline fares. She’s spontaneous like that. It was surprisingly cheap to fly there so I said “What the heck!” and bought tickets. I think the Universe was speaking to me and told me to go to Orlando!!

I had no idea what I might do for the weekend or where I would go. It turned out that the hotel where we stayed wasn’t that close to anything that I could get a free shuttle to. So I spent most of my time at the hotel, which is fine because I really like hotels.

I brought more art supplies with me than clothes or toiletries! Seriously! More than half of my suitcase and carry on were taken up with colored pencils, paper, glue, scissors, and collage materials! So I turned my trip into a mini creative retreat. And it worked out beautifully. I had a great time. It was surprisingly refreshing to be devoid of responsibility for three days. I didn’t know how much I needed that. I’m known for constantly underestimating time off.

On my creative journey this year I started working through The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam. This book is awesome! I cannot recommend it more highly. I’m having some trouble getting things done lately due to the chronic pain. This book actually covers stuff that I need for my personal life as well as the business. The part I worked on at the hotel was about sensing, thinking, feeling, and acting – all areas of my life that I’m struggling with personally and professionally.

The author lays it out for you – destructive and constructive ways to think, sense, feel, and act. I am doing way more destructive stuff than the constructive stuff! Yikes! A real eye opener! But the cool thing is that she writes, “Destructive thinking is remedied through constructive feeling and action.” Makes perfect sense, right, since they are all so interconnected? So that means that destructive feelings are remedied through constructive thinking and action. All related! When I read that, my mind opened up like a blooming chrysanthemum! I had a serious “A-ha” moment right there, let me tell you.

I came home feeling more positive than I have in a long time about things in general. My energy is restored, my attitude is better, and I’m not so dragged down by the pain like I have been for months. As I continue to work through this book, I am learning more about myself and my process and how I got to this place I’m struggling with. My plan is to continue to take a good hard look at things I do that affect my mood, thoughts and therefore the pain. It’s really nice to have my art to fall back on when words fail me as I explore a more productive way to do things. So you can expect to see some more art journaling here as well.

So thank you, Orlando, for giving me some space to work things out! And I must say that laying out at the pool also helped!!

A Work In Progress

More work was completed on my art journal page that I shared with you recently. I painted a woman with flowing red hair. I don’t do a lot of painting so this face was kind of hard to do. Not sure I’m 100% happy with the results, but that’s what an art journal is for – to learn and try new things.

I like how the texture of the paper I collaged with gel medium creates visual interest in an otherwise boring portrait. Here's a close up view.

She still needs a body but I thought you might like to see my process. Not sure when I’ll have time to finish her body. I took a class, which I will share with you soon, so I’m swirling with thoughts from new technique information. I want to experiment with some of those things first. This whole new-to-me-painting thing has me full of ideas, too.

On another note, I had a lovely Memorial Day. Spent it hanging out with my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. They're only in town for part of the week so we're squeezing in as much family time as we can. They live in Atlanta.

My mom has been so funny having all her children here. She even cried tears of joy a few times. We all miss my brother and his family very very much. I hope to get to see them before they go, but I know they have other folks in town to see as well. I need my computer genius brother to come over and fix my router so it allows access to the web for my iPod. And I want him to see our new house! And my studio! So they better squeeze in a trip over here some day this week.

And Hopefully They Don’t All Fall Down

Today has been all about sealing dominos for the upcoming show at Spot Coffee. Yesterday I managed to complete a lot of them to the point that they need to be sealed. The process involves an acrylic glaze medium and my finger. Or my mom’s finger as she actually does most of the sealing for me. She rocks. But I have digressed.

It’s sort of fun to line them all up like when I was a kid and would make complex set-ups of dominos in elaborate designs. I would carefully craft stairs or obstacles for the dominos to navigate. Then I would push over the first domino and hope they would all fall down in a giant chain reaction. We had a huge living room/family room and I would take over the whole thing!

But here if they fall down it is a problem. So I put another domino next to them to keep them upright. The white you see on top of the dominos is the sealer that has not yet dried. Preferably, I like to let them dry on each side for a day so I don’t smush fingerprints into uncured sealer. However, I was careful today (and brave) and sealed five sides out of six for 21 dominos. Cords and beads are the next steps after adhering bails. That’s a fun part too.

I really like making altered dominos! I’m using many skills I have acquired over the years like graphic design, using a drill, wire wrapping, basic jewelry making, and rubber stamping. There really is no limit to what you can do with them. I’m beginning to think about doing original drawings on them. But I’m having some self-doubt about my drawing ability and what people will like and buy. I need to get over that and just do it!

I will be at the
First & Last Arts & Crafts Show
May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
5 – 10 PM
Spot Coffee
200 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14604

Get your Mother's Day gifts at the show and buy Mom something really special! It's local and handmade! She'll love it!

Creativity and Process

I’ve been thinking about creativity and processes and patterns this week while I work. I’m trying some new techniques out and am having a lot of fun just playing. Plus I’m liking the results so that helps! Good results for me inspire more good ideas and things snowball from there. I’m getting a lot of work done, which is good because I have a three day show coming up on May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

I read that Pikaland was giving a workshop on “Inspiring Creativity” in the Etsy Labs last night. The room was really crowded! It was a good presentation and I learned some neat things. Some of my favorite quotes:

“If you don’t stumble on mistakes, you won’t stumble on new things.”

“As an artist, your goal is to innovate.”

She also spoke about creativity and business. Having a small business puts you in the perfect spot to change direction quickly based on what kind of results you’re getting from your marketing and sales. Using creativity, we as artists, have an advantage over other businesses! We think more outside the box. If you’re struggling with your business try taking a more “off the wall” creative approach to the problem. Sit down and brainstorm with yourself. Write down even the crazy ideas and see what you can do with them.

Another thing she suggested was to get to know the person behind the blog before you send them an email asking them to promote your work. Read the blog. Make comments. Form a relationship and you might have better odds of getting featured. I intend to put this into practice. I know it will take time, but if I get featured on a well-known blog the work will be worth it.

Pikaland has a great blog going at Good To Know. The topic right now is "What is your biggest stumbling block to creativity (or expressing yourself artistically) and what works for you in overcoming these setback(s)?" You should really check it out.

I’d love to hear about your creative processes and patterns!

Art Journal Pages: Unfinished

I have a lot of pain problems, one of them being almost constant migraines and cluster headaches. The cluster headaches make me restless and agitated. And I have one today so I used my agitation to paint pages in my art journal. My poor art journal has been neglected very much lately. I had planned to keep a page a week going but my pain does not always allow me to work when I want to work.

I thought I would share a bit of my art journal process. These pages were done with specific words in mind that still must be written on the pages. But this is how I start out… painting or collaging backgrounds for future writings. Frankly, I like these pages as is but it’s an art journal so some writing should happen.

The first layer I do is gel medium to add the texture. I also glued some kraft paper down for more texture. Then comes a layer of gesso. Paint colors were picked kind of randomly today as was their placement on the page. I get impatient for paint or gel medium to dry so I force it with the heat gun. This can alter the texture and color a bit, and I like not knowing what I may end up with when it has cooled off.



I looked around the studio for things to print on the pages. A plastic cup, a piece of that rubber non-slip shelf liner stuff, a rubber stamp of a compass, and my own fingers were carefully painted on and printed. The smaller circles are stenciled from sequin waste punchinella I bought on Etsy. Love that stuff. So useful for collage!





This is my paint palette. It is just a plastic plate. I let the paint dry on it and reuse it over and over. This one could easily be three years old! I like to use something up until I cannot use it anymore. Less waste that way.

When I get the writing part done, I will share it with you. Right now I need to go pace off some cluster headache pain. See you on the flip side!

If you click the pictures you will visit my flickr page!