Time to get going on this...

Been wasting time with computer games and avoiding all the projects I have in front of me for the last few weeks... just wanted to get some reminders down for myself here so I would have to make more of a commitment to myself to do them!

But here is what is going on -- 

1. The purple and green lilacs fabrics will now be a table runner per my sister's request rather than a lap quilt. 

2. I have decided to move my sewing area back into my art/crafts room. I have not been doing a lot of paper arts lately and I am tired of not having a table to eat dinner on (it is covered with sewing stuff). So I will start this project this weekend  -- step one is to clear off the messy table in my art room!

3. I want to make some lavender eye pillows for yoga class. I have one but to me it is too heavy, so I wanted to make a lighter one. 

4. I bought a new sewing machine! It's a Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 960Q. But I don't have it yet! I got it right before a big Viking trade show and the order just went in last Friday so maybe another week or so. Photos when I get it! It is a top of the line machine (for me) and has twice as large of a neck/throat than my little Baby Lock Grace. This should help a lot when free-motion quilting. Which leads me to my next item...

5. I am going to start on what I have been calling my Japanese taupe quilt. I am not sure it really follows the ideas of that style, but it is various shades of taupe and has some Japanese fabrics so, good enough for me! I may even try a few of the more complicated blocks from my Japanese taupe quilt designs books.

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...

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

I finally got this cabinet for holding my decorative papers.

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.

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!

Linked to:
Creative Every Day
Art Journal Everyday

Weekend cleaning ...

Once again my arting area has become too crowded with "stuff" so I decided to go through some of the boxes I had along the hall wall and make some space to move things around. In my sorting I came across this little gem...

I was one and a half years old outside of my mom's parents' house. If you look carefully you can see I already had a full head of auburn hair (I always refused to call it "red") and I was already hanging out with a cat! That was Fuzzy, my grandparents' fluffy ball of fur.

This was a color negative, which I scanned against a very clean piece of white paper. Nice big 2" x 2" negative made it easy!

Art Room Cleanup and WOYWW #217

Ok there is NOT a before photo cause it was such a mess I could not even find my camera! So, many hours later, here is the cleaned up art side of the room. The other side is clean too although filled with storage boxes with things to put away! At least there is a wide expanse of floor for a change! My old cat Pandora still lives over on the other side of the room and the wall container shelves continue to the end of the wall. The rest of the other walls are book shelves and then my desk/computer, printers, etc.

Here is part of the room:

Then here is my table for WOYWW, nothing on it to show except for a clean surface!

And here are some postcards I made at Leslie's on Sunday. Got the ATCs done and mailed off. These are just backgrounds for one of the future post card swaps. I was in a "brights" mood on Sunday!

It's a slow start getting back to doing art after letting it go over the last month of summer. But now that I am home from my travels and with the prospect of work (school) approaching, I find I want to spend time doing some art. This is good. It gives balance to the work day for me.

Linked to:
WOYWW

WOYWW #201

WOYWW stands for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, a long running linky party I recently discovered. And it is really cool to see what other people are either working on or their work areas. Mine is a little more together this week than the last time...

Last weekend I reorganized my pens so I have many containers like this at the far edge of the table:

I had them upright before and not only were the cups always falling over, but I keep reading how it is better to store pens (marker type pens) horizontally so I brought home some small plastic bins I no longer used at school and repurposed them for my pens. I had been using them for desk baskets at school and had bought a dozen or so many years ago but I use something else now so they were just in my cabinet.

And then of course... there are the white pens... do I have too many? LOL (the answer would be "no, one can never have too many white markers/pens" in case you were wondering!)

And the also on my worktable at the moment: a journal page I just have color on so far...

And finally I decided this heart painting needed a quote and I think I have found the one for it, from "The Little Prince". Now I just have to decide how I will do the words, hand lettered or as collage to make it more multi-media. I will work on it this weekend when I have time. But here it is with just a printout of the words for layout so far:

So that is what is on my worktable this Wednesday! Linked to: WOYWW