Pink Pillow before

Pink Pillow before, a photo by Cali-rhoz on Flickr.

I think I have a new obsession -- crazy quilting! I have been devouring how-to's and ideas from online and finally decided to just make something!

I decided my first pillow would go to my niece who loves pink. This is the pieced together front piece before any embellishments. Then I will add borders to make it pillow form size (14" x 14") and then add the back.

Fabric Book covers so far

Fabric Book covers so far, a photo by Cali-rhoz on Flickr.

What has taken center stage... art journal on back burner this week while I play with my new sewing machine and get some quilting ideas.

Evenings with my art journal...

I have been spending the last few evenings playing around with paints and techniques in my art journal.



Maybe these will be backgrounds for something...



Or maybe not...



I also made the realization tonight (as seen on an older very pink page) that I can just have experiments (ugly or not) in my art journal, that I can just use it for experiments and pages don't HAVE to be "finished", and that I can have fun!



That is the most important part of it all!

Rainy Sunday and finding a stash of old inks...

It is one of those gray days that I am glad to be inside and putting more of my art supplies away. In fact, this morning I found a whole box of old inks and liquid acrylic paints that I knew I had but wasn't sure where they were...



So I spent some of the morning testing out each one and logging it (guess that is the science side of me) so I would know what I had before I went and bought more (which I almost did when I saw a couple of online sales but thought, well maybe some of my old inks are still good... and a lot of them were)!



And this is where they will live... (those are Twinkling H2Os in the other box):



And THIS is my art room organization best friend:

Geocaching Again!

I had a ton of fun this afternoon geocaching with my friend Jan. We found 8 new caches and then another new one for me that she had already found but wanted to show me just cause it was so clever. AND we walked around 2.8 miles while doing this so it was a double bonus!

Without giving too much away here are a few photos...









This next one eluded us for a bit but I found it! (Then she had to climb the tree cause I am too short!)

A few hours later...

The room isn't finished by any means, still a lot of junk to put away but here is a start...



and

Old Favorites and a New One...

Yesterday and today I have been looking at some art and videos by some of my favorite art journalists. Some of them I have been lucky enough to take workshops with (so inspiring!) and others I look at from afar but all inspire me and motivate me to create more.

I have many, many favorites but for now, here are 4 of them:

JULIANA COLES:
Juliana Coles website and her Institute for Extreme Journalism website.
Juliana Coles You Tube Channel.

TEESHA MOORE:
Teesha's website which includes her amazing journals.
Teesha's techniques videos page.

TRACI BUNKERS:
Traci's blog.
Traci's You Tube techniques channel.

The above three I have taken workshops with. The next one I recently discovered and enjoy seeing her Inspiration Wednesday videos.

DONNA DOWNEY:
Donna's webpage.
Donna's Inspiration Wednesday videos.

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Spent some of this morning still playing with Pinterest and looking at the above websites and other journaling pages on the Internet.

But my main task for the rest of this weekend is to continue reworking my art room (well art and everything else!) into a better usable space.
Today's goal: take everything out that is on the floor and clear off my work table.
Here's why:



and

Inspiration

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
~ Anais Nin

Discovered Pinterest could help me as an Inspiration board without having to print out things that inspire me.

Later that same day...

Pinterest captured my attention this morning and I spent way too much time on it looking at interesting things other people had pinned, then found a few (lot) others to pin to my page...

Pages 4 and 5 of Art Journal

Pgs4-5, a photo by Cali-rhoz on Flickr.

Making a little more art tonight. THese are the last of the orangish pages (which don't seem to photograph all that well).

2 more pages!

I just got inspired and wanted to start!!



Page 2



Page 3

Why I like Art Journaling

Since it is a New Year I thought I would get down a few thoughts about WHY I like to work in my Art Journal. The reasons change over time but here are the ones that are on the front burner at the moment:
I art journal as a way of experimenting with ideas and techniques.
I art journal to express and process my feelings.
I art journal to use supplies I haven't used in a while.
I art journal to allow myself to fail. (although that is a hard one for me and I want to work on that a lot more this year)
I art journal to learn about myself.

When I travel I also like to use my art journal as a travel diary. It didn't work last summer because I got so caught up in having to blog about my trip so between that and the actually traveling I never had time to do art. I think next time will be easier. That was the first time I had traveled with my Netbook and I think I have some ideas for how to lessen the online time and do a little more journaling when I travel next time. Only way to tell is to get out there and try it!

Art Journal 2012

This last week I have gotten very inspired to start up my Art Journaling again. I have been watching free video blogs for ideas and looking at all my favorite journaling artists for inspiration and last night it hit me that I just needed to start! Just do it!



Repurposing some of the pages I salvaged from the travel journal that didn't happen last summer to jump-start my 2012 Art Journal. I forgot to take a picture of the "before" (just background) for this one but my plan is to take a shot of the background, then the final page for the pages this year. The first 12 or 13 are already done from last year's journal that didn't happen (because I decided to blog the trip online instead). So as I get a page done I plan to upload the "before" photo and the "finished" photo for each one.

Kale Chips, take Two...

Trying them dehydrator style this time...

Sunday Update: they were really boring! The oven must bring out other flavor cause these are still sitting on the kitchen counter 2 days later!

Another new experience and it is only Jan 2!!

I finally bought and cooked KALE and found out that I LOVE it! I had always heard kale was too bitter and the couple of times I had ever had it from anyone else it was awful. But lately there has been so much written about it on the blogs I read (Paleo food ones mostly) that I thought I would give it another chance. And I am so glad I did!!

I find my previous reluctance similar to this blogger's... and probably to many people. But boy oh boy kale is sure good for you!



First of all I found Lacinato Kale which everyone had said was better than the other old fashioned kind you find. I guess this one is sometimes also called Italian or Tuscan kale. I don't remember ever having it when I lived in Italy a few summers ago but I may have. Anyway I found it at Raley's and got two bunches to test out.



A few leaves I tried baked kale "chips" which are ok but so thin they just crumble and then you end up with really green-spotted teeth so these might not be a school food for me. Just sayin...



The I choose a recipe from one of my fav Paleo blogs, Nom Nom Paleo, and tried that. It had to be good since it also had bacon and we all know, say it together now: "Everything's better with bacon!"

It turned out yummy! So now I am a kale convert and plan to research other yummy ways of having this new (to me) leafy green. AND it was part of one of my short 2012 resolutions: Eat more leafy greens! Check!

My First Geocaching Experience...

My friend Jan (pictured below) took me with her to a few Geocaches that were in my neighborhood and I am hooked!





I actually had signed up on the Geocaching site years ago then never did go or try it. I have a few teacher friends who enjoy this hobby so I am glad to find I had a ton of fun testing it out too!



I am not going to say where these are because I don't want to give too much away but these were my photos from my first Geocaching trip!

I want to try some countryside ones in the Spring -- it seems like it would be a great way to get outdoors and enjoy the scenery as well as have adventures finding caches. And it is so popular in Europe so who knows, maybe next time I go abroad I can do a little geocaching there too! For now, let me get my feet wet in and around Sacramento!

My six-words resolutions...

In the spirit of the Six-Words Memoirs Project, I thought about things I might resolve for 2012 in just 6 words... a few of my attempts:
1. Move more. Stop making same excuses!
2. Eat more leafy greens and proteins.
3. Discover what is under the clutter.
4. Play more. Have more art fun!
5. Smile. It will not break anything.

Happy New Year everyone!

Testing out posting from my new phone ...

I broke down and finally moved into the 21st century... I bought a smart phone! So now I am testing out how to write a post on my phone and upload it to my blog. Let's see if it works now...

More photo filter play...

The original photo.


Just using the filter Anne.


Now using filters Anne and Shine.


Using filters Ramona and Burn.


Using filters Karen and Kryptonite.

Playing with online photo filters...

I am a big fan of the IPhone Instagram photo look but since I do not have an IPhone, that somewhat limits me. So today I spent some time looking online for some PC photo filter programs and came across PIXLR which seemed to work pretty well for what I was looking for.

Here is an example:
My dog Maggie...

and now Maggie colorized...

There are tons of effects and I have just begun to play!
(As you can see I also colorized my photo to the right -- looks so much better that way!)

The dragon speaks…

okay here goes… I'm speaking into a microphone and the computer is typing this post. and the (sigh)… Andy… This damn program will not recognize his name exhibition point! It needs more training…

My husband bought me this Dragon program to be able to talk into the computer instead of having to type. It's not doing too badly but it needs recognition training for names and things that I normally say I to get back to you on this one but it's really frustrating when I want to say my husband's name and it comes out and the (GR are) no no… That was supposed to be grr…

Definitely needs more training!!

Okay I just taught it to listen to the name Andy so now it types properly whenever I say Andy. Yay!

I have to remember to tell it the punctuation where will put anything there. Otherwise I have a feeling it would write the longest sentence of the world which I tend to do anyway but it's probably not a great idea in this posting to have a sentence that goes on and on with the really should be some punctuation if you know what I mean LOLand now I have to figure out how to do the correcting without doing it manually there's a whole methodology to all this but it's going to take a learning curve for me as well as this program.

Anyway time to start dinner it's Christmas and I am making lamb. Yum!

.

I really liked this article...

And it gave me things to think about for myself. I have been thinking of the food aspect of Primal so much over the last 6-8 months that most of the rest I have let go. I know I do not MOVE enough, and the rest I need to focus on more this coming year as well. HERE it is. It's not just what we eat...

Easiest jury duty ever!

"Your group is not needed. Your service is complete. You do not need to check back. Thank you for making yourself available to serve as a juror."

Vicarious Vacation

Ok I am on vacation here but this woman (Mary Ann Moss) is REALLY on vacation! I follow her blog regularly and am so envious that she is still on year-round schedule so she can go to such amazing places during non-touristy times of the year! Plus of course she is an artist and I am so in awe of her travel and visual journals so you just HAVE to see her blog HERE!

And it was THIS set of entries on her blog that make me really want to go to Budapest next vacation! She travels like I like to -- capturing a lot of the little aspects of daily lie rather than the major touristy sites. I like that and Budapest seems so inviting...

2 weeks of vacation!

We are off for 2 weeks now yay! Saturday was the first day of Christmas vacation aka Winter Break. And I have Jury Duty! I had to check on Sunday and found out that I have to check again tonight. My group was next on the list so I will probably have to go in tomorrow. But... I actually wanted it this way. I postponed it from summer (when I was traveling) to now, mostly thinking "Who is going to want a trial on the week before Christmas?")... I guess I will find out tomorrow!

I hesitate to make it a goal for 2012.... keep this blog up more? I think the main problem for me is the addition of photos each time. I mean it isn't a hard process but sometimes I don't have anything to upload and then I talk myself out of writing anything. Since I used this blog so much for travel I got used to mostly putting photos on it. I have to get over that! Then a month goes by and I am writing stuff like this.... again!!

I'll get over it -- I usually do eventually.

I forgot to plant bulbs again this year. Wonder if it is too late?

Andy got into Nursing School!

Finally!
After applying for 5 semesters! He was beginning to wonder what he was going to do -- he had taken all the pre-requisite classes, was doing an EMT internship, and just wasn't getting selected. I hate that lottery way of admissions -- doesn't take into account a lot of things that need to be considered (in my opinion). So now they have a test every applicant has to take and Andy scored way high on that which I am sure helped.
Long and shot, starting January he is in for a fast paced year of nursing school then he can go be a nurse which he has been wanting to do for several years. Seems like his days of being a computer person are so long ago. Mixed blessing I guess, of one's job being outsourced to another country. (If you are reading this and don't know me, Andy is my husband)

And now it is already November. I have 2 more weeks of school before a whole week for Thanksgiving Break. We used to work the Monday and Tuesday of that week but now those are furlough days off (without pay), part of the 9 days we lost the year before last just so we could keep most of our health benefits. (Oh and there was the pay cut too but don't get me started on that!)

New food I discovered I like: Bison Hotdogs from Costco!



I am not a big hot dog fan to begin with (although I also liked the lamb hot dogs that I tried in Iceland a couple of years ago). These are yummy though! Chopped a couple up and mixed with scrambled eggs and a yummo breakfast!

And a second thing I like: purple potatoes!



I had tried them once before and found them sort of mealy. But this time I roasted them in the oven, cut into quarters and sprinkled with olive oil and they were delish. I don't eat many potatoes any more (sometimes yams) so these were a nice treat. Plus they have a lot more phytonutrients than regular white potatoes. AND they are purple!!

Oh and finally...



Lowest is around 30 years now? Getting there, slowly but surely!