Friday, January 31, 2014

Floral Friday...

A big thanks to all my new blog followers from the Grow Your Blog party last week! I am slowly getting around to all the blogs of the people who left comments from last week's post. Some great new (to me) blogs out there to visit! You can see the list on the Grow Your Blog page via the button on my sidebar or in the last post.

So I have been thinking about the blog and wanting to add more floral colors now that we are starting to get some much-needed rain and Spring is approaching... and then when I came home from work today I saw some of the Icelandic Poppies my husband had planted had gone crazy and bloomed up during the day -- what great color!

I think this poppy red-orange is one of my all-time favorite colors!





Linked to:
Orange You Glad It's Friday

Friday, January 24, 2014

Grow Your Blog Party 2014!

2 Bags Full Welcome to my blog, a ragtag mix of mostly paper arts and crafts, painting, yoga, photos, travels, thoughts and quotes, an occasional recipe and other assorted nonsense! If you are here for the first time and came via the Blog Party, I welcome you and would like to thank you for dropping by! My name is Rhonda and I am blogging from sunny (although we wish it would rain) Sacramento, California.

It is time for Vicki's Grow Your Blog Party and this year I am participating! I learned about it from my friend Leslie's blog last year and realized I had missed the cut off date by around a week, so this year I put it on ALL my calendars to be sure I signed up in time!

Her "GROW YOUR BLOG" event is designed "to bring more readers and FOLLOWERS to our blogs. The premise is simple-- just visit as many blogs as you wish and sign up to follow those that interest you. In turn, all the other folks will be doing the same thing~ we will all be growing our blogs!" Last year she had something like 500 people sign up! I visited a bunch of cool sounding blogs and found many I still follow today -- not all arts and crafts or cooking, but some just an interesting life somewhere else. So I am hoping some of you will visit my blog and find things you like that will keep you interested in more. Either way, I am so thrilled you have stopped in and would love to hear from you!

One of the keys to discovering new blogging friends is to leave a comment, which I always do when I visit a new blog for this kind of event. So please feel free to leave me a comment below if you are visiting for the first time or a repeat visitor! And of course, always feel free to follow or subscribe to my blog.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

New gadget...

I just got the coolest little gadget! It's a wrap around your finger knife (xacto knife style blade)... small and you can get close up when you cut. I saw someone using it on a You Tube video the other day and immediately had to have one! It will make stamp carving so much easier I think! Haven't had a chance to try it out yet aside from on a piece of cardboard and I liked how it felt.

There is a video on the Fiskar's website HERE.

I am looking forward to this weekend when I have time to try it out!! I got mine from Amazon by the way (less than $5). It is an add-on item -- one of those small things that ships free if you have Prime and add other items to your cart -- always such a problem for me... NOT!

Monday, January 20, 2014

For a new beginning...

I love this poem. I first heard it at the New Year's Yoga workshop I took and then oddly, the author, John O'Donohue's name has been popping up all over things I read on the Internet. I was in the mood to work on a page in my art journal today and decided to add this poem.


awaken


The page started out just as a gelli printed page in my journal. I was in the mood to work in purple and ochre last night and this was the page I opened to. I added the ochre glaze (part gel medium, part acryllic paint) over the stark white printed words and then noticed a little scene was presenting itself at the bottom of the page. I took it to be small mountains with trees and cattails around a little lake so colored it in that way with Stabilo pencils and black pen. These are some of my current favorite colors.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Back to Art and Blogging...

Time to move on and let this roller coaster of recent emotions come out in some art! And blogging... and what better combo than joining in on a Blog Party next week! I had seen it on my friend Leslie's blog last year and realized I had missed the cut-off date by a week or so so this year I put it on ALL my calendars to be sure I would remember!

This is what it is all about...

It is going to be on January 25, 2014 this year. A whole bunch of us will post on that day (or the day before for the other side of the globe) and we will all visit each other's blogs that day and following days. Should be fun!

2 Bags Full

So this week I will be working on a blog post for it and tomorrow have plans to go to yoga then get back to some art! Tonight I am digging out the tried and true gelli plate because that always gets me going... yeah I know, I already have a huge pile of gelli printed papers, and yes thank you I can always use more! Maybe I will work with a new or different color scheme... I have been liking purple and ochre lately... hmmm...

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Rest in Peace Elaine...

poppies in my garden

January continues to be a sad month for me...

My step-mother passed away on Thursday. Thank you Elaine for being part of my life. You will be missed.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Learning how to let go of sadness...

                is one of the things I would like happen in this new year.

Yesterday afternoon this art journal page came pouring out, after a lot of old memories and songs made me sad. It started out to be a wonderful day with a nice yoga practice in the morning but by mid-day I was sorting through some old photos and songs on my computer and I got sad. I let it fall on me for a while, made this journal page, and now it is time to let it go. That's the hard part for me:

How to do that and not keep coming back to the things that made me sad before...


sadness

Journal page info: Canson field drawing journal, gelli plate printed background, computer printed song lyrics with ink pads as coloring, color copy of old photo of me, pens, markers, rubber stamp star.


Linked to:
A Colorful Gelli Print Party

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Starting 2014...

Starting 2014 off with a bang! Went to a 2 hour yoga workshop on Jan 1 then have been working in my art room. I set up a new arrangement for my art pens. They used to be piled up on top of each other and I could never find what I wanted...

new pens arrangement and work table

And then made my first Art Journal page for the year.

new pens arrangement

I finally got this cabinet for holding my decorative papers.

paper shelves

Got it @ IKEA in West Sacramento and we put it together last night. I started putting my decorative papers in it and realized I really need to sort through them and label the drawers.

cabinet with papers

At least I have someplace to start putting them all together instead of boxes and bins here and there. I probably need around 2 more of these units but I will see how it fits then decide what to do about the extras.

And then today I made a second Art Journal page (when it rains it pours) using up one of the left-over paint backgrounds from my old journal. I was going to tear some of them out cause they were just pages where I cleaned my brayer from gelli printing mostly but I decided I would just work with them as is and see what happens. I can always gesso over something!

AJ what words


Linked to:
Creative Every Day
Art Journal Everyday