Cookies, lesbians and assassins.

So this past weekend, me and 9 of my besties got together and rented a church hall for the day.  We each brought a potluck dish and kicked in five bucks for the rental, and we got to sit there ALL DAY and work on our scrapbooks, art journals, and Christmas cards.  It was pure bliss.

I had already started this journal page but was able to finish it on Saturday.  I think the scanner cut off the very left and bottom edges, but you're not missing much... you still get the idea!

Turns out I'm not the only one with this problem - the person who sat next to me (no, not you Mom!) said that for some reason she attracts crazy people too, but also lesbians!  Interesting...

Hey, did you hear?  There's a new movie out called Ninja Assassin!  I only heard about it on the radio, but I'm definitely going and I'm making my sister come with me.  I bet we'll be all "Haki saki HA!" when we come out of the theatre.  Hopefully I don't pull a muscle in my butt again doing those crazy roundhouse kicks.  I have no idea what the movie is about (do you think there will be a plot?) but I'm going anyway.

In the meantime, we're going to start making our Christmas sugar cookies tomorrow night.  Hijinks will definitely ensue; photos to follow. 

Love Shelley! 

More Mail Art!

Oh you guys, I had just the BEST weekend.  I got to get together with some great friends and we all sat around and worked on our creative things.  Among other things, I made a couple of envelopes to mail out some goodies (with addresses whited out to protect the privacy of the innocent):

The first one was a plain white envelope that I painted with watercolour crayons, then doodled on a little bit:

And the second one was a plain red envelope (very heavy, lined with gold foil paper, and huge!  I've been saving it for a special occasion) that I just doodled on with white paint pen.

I know you're envying my MS Paint skillz.  Let me know if you want any lessons me to stop it already.

Hope you're having a magical day!

Love Shelley!

The cover... so far.

So.  Even with a pretty pink hat, everybody that I've shown this to thinks that this chick is downright creepy.  I found the skull (and all the extra arm and leg bones) in a National Geographic magazine in a story about an archeological dig site.  But I think the red shoes, purse and cocktail sort of bring it all together, don't  you?  I am a good accessorizer.  Yes, that is too a word.

Anyway, everyone so far has been pretty repulsed by this one.  I may have to change it to something a little more... socially acceptable.  I did have one brainwave: LIPSTICK!  But oh yeah, she has no lips. 

Now what?  I can't decide whether to make her even more disturbing by painting on some bright red lipstick like old ladies do, completely disregarding the actual shape of their lips; or if I should just ditch the skull and put in a regular lady head instead.  Suggestions?

Oh hey, and while you're telling me what to do, what about the background?  Leave it as is, or add white swirlies and stuff?  Or something completely different? 

HELP!  I'll wait here.

Love Shelley!

Journal page AND mail art!!

So here's the second page, all fluffy and cheerful.  (Wait till you see the cover, yikes.Not fluffy, not cheerful.  May still need some work.  I'll let you express your opinion once I get it up on here!) 

Please note that I kept the language clean.  Instead of "buttload" I really wanted to say "metric shit-ton" but sadly my kid can now read.  Which is kind of a bummer when I'm trying to EXPRESS MYSELF! 

And here is a piece of mail that I made for Ginny at Small Studio:

We don't know each other; I just absolutely adore her blog, so when she put out a call for decorated envelopes, I was all over that.  Of course, I second-guessed myself all the way to the mailbox, but hey, maybe this will lead to a beautiful lifetime of correspondence and I'll get more chances to make pretty stuff for her.  The end.

Yes, welcome to the non-stop dialogue in my head.  How do you like it so far?  : )

I hope you're all having a magnificent day!

Love Shelley!

PS: The art journal is hand-lettered; the mail is stamped and then doodled on.

I'm a copycat, and I'm okay with that.

So yeah, I'm sure I'm the last one on the Teesha bandwagon, but now that she's posted all of the COOLEST. VIDEOS. EVER! I had to try a journal like the one she demonstrated.

Here's the first page I completed:

And I'll have another one for you shortly.  We've figured out some of our technical difficulties so I think I'll be able to post on a fairly regular basis again!  YAY!  (Of course, I'm still crap at photo editing, so if you see big areas of white space that shouldn't be there, just squint and pretend, k? Thanks.)

Love Shelley!

PS: That is not a quote, I actually made it up myself.  It's about a cat we don't have.