The Documented Life Project

February Theme
Layers You Will Love!
February 21
Art Challenge:  Repeating Elements
Journal Prompt:  It's Worth Repeating

This page ended up being way different than what my original vision was but I don't mind because I was happy with how it all turned out.

What I'm finding totally fascinating with these last few pages is how you get to a point where the background you're making starts to look really ugly and you think the whole thing is going nowhere. Then, before you know it, it's turned in to something pretty spectacular.

Another thing that is truly amazing me is that I'm able to get past that point where it gets really ugly. That's the point when every other project I've ever done would end up in the trash.  Had I only known that it wasn't a mistake I was making it was just incomplete. 

So this is my page for this week. My repeating elements are circles. I used tissue paper again on this page. The face was drawn on tissue paper before being glued to the page. I also got to a point where everything was looking too bright and bold and I wanted a softer look. First I tried adding a layer of gesso but it still looked too bright so I took a sheet of tissue paper and glued that over the entire page. It softened everything up to where I liked it.

The picture isn't the greatest. I tried getting one with my camera and then I tried with my phone. Unfortunately I didn't have enough light and I was running out of time to get a picture for today's post. You get the idea thought. 

A prayer for Friday

Lord help me make it through the day and if it's not too much to ask could you turn up the heat just a bit. Amen

Bonus Page

After doing the last art journal page and while waiting for the new challenge to come out I thought I would do another one.

Take two

Hi Gibbs, can I take your picture?

Why certainly. How's this?

That was great. Can I take another?


Nope, sorry, gotta run.

What's the question

Thought I would do another hand written blog post

I spent most of my Monday the same way I spent my Saturday. About the only difference was I didn't stay in my pajamas all day long again. Needless to say I wasn't feeling very inspired.

Project 365 week 7

Can you believe that we are already looking back on the 7th week of the year? Even more amazing is that I've kept this up for that long.

2/15 Sunday was a vacation day for me and since Wade and I hadn't gone out for breakfast in a long time we thought we would. However in order to get out of the driveway shoveling had to be done.

2/16 Don't let that sunshine fool you. We started the day out at -22 degrees

2/17 Running water never looked so good. In the morning before we left for work the water was coming out at a slow trickle and we couldn't even flush the toilet. I was a bit nervous leaving for work afraid of what we might come home to. Apparently there had been a water main break down the road. I went home at lunch to check on things and by then the water was running fine again. Such a relief that it wasn't frozen pipes.

2/18 I want to curl up under a blanket but someone else wants to play.

2/19 The head cold or whatever it is I've got was hitting full force. I took a picture of this ugly painting hanging in our break room at work. Good thing I did because it's the only one I took all day. I went home,hit the couch and went right to sleep. Didn't even touch the computer.

2/20 Still feeling horrible, left work at 11:15 and took home some cold medicine and chicken noodle soupl

2/21 spent the day in my pajamas lounging around, resting and catching up on blog reading. There was still time for a rousing game of tug of war though

The Gibbs Report

Happy Sunday to all my blog friends.

It is I, Gibbs, the lovable and adorable canine who knows all and tells all about what happens in my neighborhood.

It's a very snowy world here. It snowed all day yesterday. Dad and I had to go out and shovel off the deck because it was at least 3 feet deep out there.

Mom did nothing but lay around in her pajamas yesterday and take little yellow pills. She also did a lot of nose blowing and sneezing.  I hope she doesn't sneeze on the donuts at work today.

We are all getting really tired of winter around here so if you have some extra sunshine where you're at could you please send some our way

Mom wanted me to pass on a bit of information to you. She said that if she used to reply to your comments and hasn't been lately it's not because she doesn't like you any more. If you have a yahoo or aol email address for some reason, even though your comment gets published google won't forward that comment to her gmail. I don't understand it but have read about it on other blogs.

The Documented Life Project

February Theme
Layers You Will Love!
February 14
Art Challenge:  Cover Up Good Stuff
Journal Prompt:  Going Undercover


For some reason an umbrella was stuck in my head when I started this page so that's what I went with.
At one point while I was doing the background I thought this was going to be a complete waste because it was starting to look pretty ugly. The more layers I added thought the more it all came together.

The umbrella top was cut from a piece of scrapbook paper and I drew the lines on with a marker. The handle and the raindrops were drawn on a piece of tissue paper. I glued the tissue paper to the page then glued on the umbrella top.

The words at the top of the page were also done on tissue paper and glued to the page. With a marker I added words around the top of the umbrella and along the handle.

Selfies

Why do I try and take selfies? I always hate pictures of myself. I never leave them as they are I always have to edit them to hide the flaws that jump out at me. 

Maybe it's just boredom. How many selfies does one need any way?

I've got a ton of them so I must be very bored, quite often.

I added a vintage look to this picture and since I'm doing it on the phone you get what you get. There are no layers, there is no erasing parts. Therefore, this picture loks like I have a dirty nose. Kind of like I had my face stuck in crushed oreos or something. 

Then there's this one, another vintage look. Since I'm kind of a vintage person it's only seems appropriate. 

This nice thing about being a bit older is that you can do pretty much whatever your little heart desires and you no longer care what other people think. For example, if you want to look down in to your phone and take a picture of yourself screaming, go for it.

I keep this on my phone so I can laugh at it every time I see it.

Hand written

A little experiment

A while ago I came across something on Pinterest for making Borax Crystal hearts. I thought it was rather cool and knew I had a box of Borax in my basement.

The other day I finally got around to trying it out. You'll need a jar, pipe cleaner, string and craft stick or a I used a swizzle stick, and boiling water. If you follow the link above it will give complete directions for doing this. The pictures aren't very good but you can see there are crystals formed on my heart. When I dumped the water out I left the jar sit on the counter and I even got a layer of crystals on the bottom of the jar. At first I didn't think it was going to come out but I did manage to  clean the jar out

Have a heart

Valentines Day is over but hearts are good any time of year. Last week I had made some cupcakes at work for Valentines Day and took a picture of them before I put them out for sale

For these you cut the top of the cupcake off at the edge of the paper liner then frost the bottom part. With the top you cut out a heart shape and then place it back on the cupcake. After I put it back on some of the hearts didn't look too much like hearts so I filled it in with icing and then it looked good.

I was putting some Valentines picks in them and took a picture of a couple of them laying on my stainless steel table.

Then of course you know how I love to play with pictures so I did a quick edit job in my phone. The scratches in the table made for an awesome looking texure on this picture.

Project 365 week 6

2/8  A cherry pie to satisfy my sweet tooth when I went on break.

2/9 A day spent playing in my computer/craft room. I sort of lost the top of my desk with all the mess

2/10 The end of a work day it's always nice to come home, grab a cup of coffee and settle in for some blog reading.

2/11 I finished up my art journal page and I was quite pleased with how it came out.

2/12 On a roll first thing in the morning. This is the roll dough before it was put in the proof box. What's a proof box? It's a box that all the dough goes into and a combination of heat and humidity helps to make it rise.

2/13 Friday the 13th was a busy day getting sweets ready for Valentines Day.

2/14 Snow, wind and VERY cold temperatures made for a hibernating Valentines Day.

The Gibbs Report

Good morning all my blogging friends. It is VERY cold here this weekend. Our high temperature for today is only supposed to be 1 degree. That means when I have business to attend to outside I do it very quickly and then go back in the house. It's funny watching mom and dad put all those clothes on just for a quick, less than a minute, trip out to the back yard.

So what did the big furry hat say to the warm woolen scarf?

You hang around while I go on ahead

In Alaska, what do chef's call "Baked Alaska"?

Baked Here

Please don't make those funny groaning noises about my jokes. It hurts my feelings. See that's my sad "would you please play with me so I feel better " look. Besides it was my moms idea to tell those jokes so it's not my fault.

The Documented Life Project.

I know today is Valentines Day and my post should be full of hearts and stuff but it's not a big deal around here so I'm sticking with my regular schedule. I will mention thought that if my dad were still alive he would have been 92 today.

February Theme
Layers You Will Love!
February 7
Art Challenge:  When Not To Stop
Journal Prompt:  "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough!" (Ooh)

For some reason I didn't get started as quickly on this weeks page as I have with the others.  Once I did though I had a lot of fun with it and I dare to say I think this is my best page yet.

For some reason a house stuck in my mind and I knew that I wanted my page to show a house somewhere. Before I even worked on the background I made a house out of a cereal box that I would glue on to the page later. After the house was finished the rest just fell in to place.

When I started working on the background I painted the bottom of the page green and the top blue. At first I wasn't happy with the shade of blue that I used but I thought if I added some yellow in there it might still work.  Then I went and searched for a couple of quotes and wrote them out on paper and cut them up to glue on to the page.  I thought I was done but then had the idea to grab some markers and paint pens and add a little bit more. That's when the black border went on and the orange dots and white swirls. It was at this point that I looked at the page and thought, Ooh, "Don't stop till you get enough, I think I'm there.

Oh and by the way, Gibbs did help me with this one. Take a look at the door on the house. Do you see something that looks like chew marks? While I was working on something else I must have knocked the door on the floor and Gibbs was right there to snag it up. I looked down and saw him with a piece of paper in his mouth. When I took it away from him I realized it was my door. I was going to just make a new one but he worked so hard on destressing that for me that I didn't have the heart to tell him I couldn't use it.

It's Smile day

It's Friday, I've scheduled my first vacation day of the year for Sunday so I've got a three day weekend. What's not to smile about. I don't even care that it's supposed to VERY cold all weekend.

Remember this post when I  doodled a smiling girl and then colored it in photoshop? Well turns out I wasn't quite finished with it. I ended up going back and playing around with it some more and now I like it even better.

Go ahead and share a smile with someone today

Special delivery

I put something in the mail the other day for a blogging friend who's going through a difficult time in her life right now. I know that some painted and glued cardboard can't take away her pain but I wanted her to know that she is being thought of.

The base of this is a cereal box cut down to 5 x 7. I coated it with a layer of modeling paste then dry brushed it with an off white paint. The green vine was drawn on with marker then I went over it with a glitter paint. The flowers and leaves were cut from book pages and colored with markers then brushed with mod podge to make them a bit more durable. For the words I cute strips of cereal box. I first painted them then when they were dry I inked the edges with a brown ink pad. I wrote the words on with a marker then outlined them with an ultra fine tip marker. Once they were done I hot glued them to the base. The back was covered with a piece of scrapbook paper to finish it off.

Pup Art

I'm not the only one around here interested in art. Gibbs has been doing a little art of his own. He had the whole back yard for his canvas

And here is the artist hard at work. You'll notice that he moves very quickly when he's creating these masterpieces.

Booked

Lately all of my creative efforts have been going in a more artsy direction. I've done a lot with the art journal and learning new things that I've tried on other projects.

One of the things I did was make a little book. When I say little I do mean little. It measures 3 3/4 x 2 3/4 and is made from one piece of paper. You can find a tutorial for the basic book on Splitcoast Stampers

After making the book I started decorating the pages. For this one I used mostly markers.

The front cover

And the inside pages
I used the saying that Connie used on the tag attached to my giveaway prize.

I had the help of printables and rubber stamps for this one.

And this one is my favorite. I love the bright sunny colors. The Think Happy Be Happy is a stamp and the words on the opposite page I wrote on a piece of paper, cut them out and glued them on the page. The yellow and orange was done with marker and the off white color is paint that I dabbed on with my finger. The dark red circles on the left hand page was a straw that I dipped into paint. Lastly I used a pencil to add some shadow around the words.

Project 365 week 5

Woo Hoo! Week 5 already. Only 47 more weeks to go.

2/1 A very snow filled driveway. One of many snow pictures that I've accumulated.

2/2 Another crafting day off.

2/3 This guy will follow me anywhere.

2/4 Icicles hanging off the front of the house. Ours are little compared to some I've seen

2/5 Another cereal box project.

2/6 reflection in the kitchen window. Standing around waiting for the car to warm up before I head off to work.

2/7 starting my day off very slow.

The Gibbs report

Hello my blogging friends. I've heard a lot of talk about a guy named Duke who lived here before me. While mom's at work I checked her computer and think I found a picture of him.

I heard he was pretty popular around here so I thought you would enjoy seeing this picture.

I don't know all the tricks that Duke used to know but I've already learned that when you come back inside if you run right to the kitchen cupboard where the treats are your chances of getting one are really really good.

Can you believe that sometimes mom calls me Duke? I think maybe she's a bit coo coo bird because we don't look anything alike. I'll forgive her though because she is kind of on the old side.

The Documented Life Project

January Theme
The Blank Page and How to Face It!
January 31
Art Challenge:  Under Paper (paper on your work table that gets all inky while you work)
Journal Prompt:  What Lies Beneath?

Under paper? Really? Before I got started I checked out some of the featured artists to see how they did this. I considered starting from scratch and creating an "under paper". Then I found a magazine page that I had used to paint something on so I just used that. It's not pretty but what the heck.

I started by scribbling around the edge of the page with a brush marker and then a different shade marker and a gel pen. I stamped the swirls all over the page, glued down a scrap of lace, then glued down my "under paper". I used a little bit of washi tape on the corners of the paper too. I glued down some buttons and the bit at the top with the journal prompt written on it. Then with a pencil I added a thought at the top and bottom in sloppy hand writing. 

How do you judge a day?

I drive through several small towns almost every day. One of those towns has 3 churches on the main road and they all have signs out front that they put various messages on. I always like checking them to see what they say. One morning when I was running kind of early I stopped and grabbed a picture.

What seeds have you planted today?

Patience is a virtue

I was not blessed with much patience. Therefore it pretty much sucks being stuck behind a bus that stops at every stinkin' driveway.

At least I found a way to entertain myself while I was waiting .

When pen and paper meet digital

I've been doing a lot of doodling lately. I sit in front of the tv at night and usually have paper and pen or markers near by. I often pick them up and mindlessly doodle away.

Recently I drew this face. Nothing special but I thought it was kind of cute and I took a picture of it.

Then on a cold Monday morning while I was avoiding the housework I thought I would see what I could do with it in photoshop elements.

I added a colorful gradient layer, erased parts of it from the face and the words. I think I may have added a filter or two as well but I can't be sure. Any way I rather liked it.

We got snow, snow and more snow

Sunday morning it started snowing and it didn't stop until some time Sunday night. I have no idea what the total accumulation was other than A LOT.

This was while I was standing in the back yard waiting on Gibbs to do his business

and one I did a little cell phone edit on. This was looking down from an upstairs window

But howling winter fled afar,

To hills that prop the polar star

line taken from the poem Ode to Winter

by Thomas Campbell

Project 365 1/25 - 1/31

I can't believe I've actually made it a whole month with my project 365. Only 11 more months to go.

1/25 A giveaway package arrived on Saturday but I didn't find it in the mailbox until Sunday.

1/26 worked on my art journal and finished another page

1/27 it was such a long day at work and I was drained when I got home. Went to bed at 7:26

1/28 on the way to work in the morning it was a very cold -2 degrees

1/29 A very happy puppy who wants to play when I get home from work

1/30 Snow plows are hard at work

1/31 a snow covered car needs to be cleaned off before we can go do the grocery shopping

The Gibbs report

So today is something dad calls Super Bowl Sunday. I'm not real sure what it's all about but I think it has something to do with food. Mom and dad went out yesterday and got a whole bunch of groceries and dad said today we were going to do some cooking while mom's at work. They bought me a special box of milk bones for snacking so I'm really happy about that. My snack cupboard was getting a bit low.
I'm keeping this short but sweet today, I hope you have a Super kind of day in or out of a bowl