Journal Spilling

I recently picked up Diana Trout's book Journal Spilling and WOW is it awesome.  This is my version of one of the exercises she describes:

It was supposed to be a self-portrait but it didn't quite end up that way - this doesn't resemble me at ALL.  (I wish...)  Anyway, it was still a fun page to work on, and I still love working in my newsprint journal.  In fact I think I might make more pages and add to it.  That's the beauty of making a book with binder rings, it's so easy to add or remove pages and to work on one page at a time by removing it from the book.   Plus the pages are 9 inches SQUARE and sometimes I just love to work on a square page for a change. 

Okay, back to the drawing board!

Love Shelley!

Shhhhhh....

This is one of my favourite recent pages.  I don't think the colours are exactly true on this picture but at least you get the idea.  It's a pretty bright and fun page!  Lots of watercolour crayon, and of course alphabet stamps.  Where would I be without my alphabet stamps?  I'D BE SAD AND LOST, THAT'S WHERE.

The quote is about not announcing your plans to the world.  I think that for some plans, it's great to spread the word, because you get help and support from the most unexpected places.  But sometimes, things happen much more easily if you just go ahead and make something happen instead of talking it to death first. 

By the way, I hope you don't come here looking for me to say something intelligent.  HA!

Anyway, that's all for today.  I'm off to Minneapolis tomorrow for the weekend and hopefully I'll have some good road trip stories to share when I get back.  I'm going down with a toothbrush and a pocketful of bail money.  What could possibly go wrong??

See ya Monday!

Love Shelley

Cookie Therapy

I was recently given a piece of really good advice in the form of a quote:

"We each have two cookie jars inside of us. One is for ourselves and the other is for all the people around us. We have learned to fill the cookie jar for the others and we bake a lot of cookies for this cookie jar. We have been trained not to bake cookies for our own cookie jar and we have also been trained to not even think about doing this for ourselves. Somehow, if we keep on baking cookies for others, our cookie jar will have cookies in it. Supposedly, others will be baking for us and everyone will be happy. But in reality it does not seem to work this way. Our cookie jar is usually empty and if someone does put cookies in it, they are never exactly the kind that we want at that time. No wonder that we start to feel deprived and resentful and angry as we watch others eating the cookies that we have baked. The paradox is so simple: fill your own cookie jar first with exactly what you want and let the overflow go to the other cookie jars. Keep your cookie jar full. Teach your family members to fill their own cookie jars first.” (Susanna McMahon)

I had this page started in one of my art journals, where I had tried out some copper paint and just basically played with some colours and made a mess.  So I came back to it to do this page - and where I tried another experiment on the bottom right corner and it bombed, I just stamped that number stamp over top to hide it.  Nobody was more surprised than me when it actually seemed to balance out the page!  Another happy mistake... I love those.

This is making me hungry for cookies!!!  Maybe I'll bake tonight.  I love baking cookies from scratch but right now I'm thinking of Pillsbury rolls of cookie dough and it's making my mouth water.  What's your favourite kind of cookie?

Love Shelley!

Personal Growth - No, Really

A few weeks ago I was at an annual conference that I like to go to because I ALWAYS win a really good door prize, and also they serve grown-up dainty food like wee bits of toast with salmon and goat cheese and I get to pretend to be fancy for a couple of hours.  

Anyway, this year's speaker was a local woman named Stephanie Staples and honestly, she was one of the best speakers I've seen.  Maybe because she seems so refreshingly normal - she shared stories of goofy things she'd done, which made me admire her unself-consciousness, and was very encouraging, with lots of practical ideas.  She seems like the kind of person you could drop in on for coffee in your pajamas.  Anyway, one of the best things things I learned was this:

This explains A LOT.  It's not that it's BAD - this is probably the quality that lets me strike up conversations with strangers in public washrooms, and long lineups, and elevators.  And put all my ridiculous ramblings up here without really giving much consideration to my own public speaking career... HAHA!  Just joking.  Really though, the less I care what other people think, the more satisfying my life becomes. 

Aaaaaaaand, that was probably my last heavy thought for the week, hope you enjoyed it! 

Love Shelley!

I love my penpals!

I think my friend Holly will have received this book in the mail by now, so it should be safe to post.  We've been writing to each other for a while, but this last time she wrote to me, she had the genius idea of writing in a notebook so that a) we can comment on each other's letters, and b) so that we can remember what we wrote last time.  Anyway, the front cover was a plain yellow classic scribbler cover, and I decided to alter it.  I hope she doesn't mind.  Moooo hoo ha ha ha haaaa!  Actually at the rate we're going, it will only have to go back and forth one more time and then it will be full anyway.  I think next time it will be her turn to decorate; I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

And while I had all these colours out anyway, I also did a journal page - I didn't take a picture of it yet though, so you'll have to wait to see that one.  Actually come to think of it, I haven't even done any actual journaling on it!  Maybe I should think of something to say first before I start showing it off and calling it an art 'journal' page.  : )

So yeah, that's all for now, but yes, I'm alive and slowly working on a couple of things.  More soon... I promise!

Love Shelley!

Why yes, I HAVE been busy this weekend.

Lately I've been using up a lot of discarded paper goodies that were destined for the garbage can at work.  They make GREAT mail art!!  This time, however, I got my trash art supplies from other sources.  When I see promising bits and pieces, my eyes light up and my pulse speeds up and it's as if I had just seen a big plate of hot gooey cinnamon buns, not some junk paper.  But hey, whatever rings your bell, right?  

I have a few penpals that I just love writing to (and receiving letters from) and this is a blank booklet that I made up on Friday night.  I've already filled it up and it's going in the mailbox tomorrow morning. 

And if you're planning on making booklets like this, I really recommend picking up one of those loooooooong staplers so you can easily put them together.  I use mine all the time, and I think it was only around twenty-five bucks.  My kids love making their own books too, so it gets a lot of mileage.  

Anyway, here is the envelope that that little booklet ended up in:

 

(front) 

(and back).

That one... is sideways.  (I'm saying that in my very best Horatio Crane voice, where he says one line and then they cut to a commercial.)  (THIS is where I should have mentioned the looooooooong stapler!) 

Um.  Where was I?  Oh yeah!  I think I may have overdone it with the spots on the back of the envelope, because it looks a little chicken-poxy, if chicken pox ever showed up in a uniform sort of way.  It's just that I was having so much fun with the ink and I might have gotten a little carried away.

Also, you should know that I didn't intend to end up with this colour scheme again, but I guess I haven't worked it all out of my system yet.  Will there be more?  Yep, probably.  I still really like it.  I just have to remember who I've sent these ones to so that people don't end up getting repeats! 

But no worries, my little chickadees - I still remember how to use colour.  Here are two more envelopes that I worked on today while my kids were out bowling with their Nana.  I think I might send her flowers tomorrow... 

And now, since Blogger is acting so weird and I don't want to lose all this stuff that I just typed up, and plus because it's getting really late, I'm going to wrap this up.  It's time for a bowl of cereal and then bed.  

Goodnight everyone,

Love Shelley!

Just a little snail mail

Well, this started off as just a manila envelope, and I decided to draw a little birdie on it.  Of course, once I drew the little dude, then decided that he needed a proper tuft of hair, which was soon followed by the scallops at the top, and soon it got completely out of hand.  So much for a simple bird doodle!

This pic looks a little washed-out; it's a bit more vibrant in real life. 

I'm a bit behind on my mail so I'm trying to get caught up.  I'll show you all the outgoing stuff as it's completed.

Love Shelley!