INSPIRED ARTIST: Day 1

For the LOVE OF ART!

It's INSPIRED time with Donna Downey. LOVE HER!

And who wouldn't with such goodies waiting for us upon arrival..and great participants ready to dig in.

After a ANOTHER delicious meal from Grandma Cookie, we went through all kinds of mediums, materials, and plethora of information by the lady in pearls, Donna.  Such a wealth of information and one of the 5% who knows how to mix paints. :)  I felt so overwhelmed with all the information and materials in front of us, so I told myself....JUST DO WHATEVER...GO WITH THE FLOW AND LET GO!

And I DID!!!

The first step was to apply gesso to all sides.  And once again, a genius idea from Donna to use a mini paint-roller to apply.  So much faster, easier, and hardly any drying time. YAY/

And then it was just time to

PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!

I can't believe how much we all did in the time we had.

And this was just the first layer to the pages...Wait to you see what they turn into.

CRAZY!!

It was lots of stencils, tar gel, pumice medium, matte medium, heavy gesso, black lava, neons, Golden Fluids, glass gel, fiber paste, gold mica, and on and on.  Donna carries so many goodies in her shop

And then it was time to go home and decompress while planning on what to do tomorrow, what to try out....hence I was up until 4 a.m. with my mind going. So I went ahead and used the Molotow white marker to doodle on the Moleskine from class.  Love it.

And I snuck in my 2014 One Little Word...HELLO

PROJECT LIFE: February 2014

And February 2014 is in the (Project Life) books.

Starting with the cover page, I used some embroidery, bows, rub-ons, overlays, and wooden embellishments.

My goal each month was to take a picture of me and CJ for the cover page, but the beginning of February didn't happen.  So I settled for a female & male figurine cut-out (one of my last purchases before Archiver's closed....still a little upset about that..can ya tell)

More overlays this weekend which was full of work and the SuperBowl.  Special elements included: a vintage letter 'A' from Donna Downey Studios and sequins sewn into a pocket.

Hello LIFE's little goodness...baby cousins, wooden spools, One Little Word décor, no cavities, Olympics start, shopping, babysitting, and my new fast food love Popeye's.

My dentist is retiring which totally sucks, but he was nice enough to refer his patients to a neighboring dentist in the office across the hall.  Hope she is as great as he was.

Gotta love silly faces & Chuck E. Cheese on the weekend.

(doodling during a work meeting to stay awake...SHHHH ..don't tell anyone)

However, it is proven doodling keeps your mind active and more attentive.  And YES, I heard every word in the meeting :)

And then it rained, and snowed, and rained and snowed, and snowed, and snowed.

Thanks Storm PAX.

Unfortunately, this was also a week to say farewell to a great artist MaryAnn.  I had the pleasure of being her Happy Mail partner in 2013.  She was loved by many, but damn cancer took her life.

Also had fun seeing pictures of my nephews first birthday party

 and enjoying a day of love (=heart sequins)

Plus dined at my favorite sushi place Cow Fish Sushi.

YUM YUM YUM

I found some cute pull tab embellishments from the dollar store.

Ironically, I found places to use all of them this month.

Enjoyed some yummy dessert at Cow Fish as well.  Plus displayed some Valentine's items including a text from CJ since we weren't together for the day.  Also, the gifts I made which were LOVED by the recipients. 

Lots of randomness this week.  I did cut off the bottom cards as I want to keep those personal to me, but lots of mail received.

The month's ThrowBackThursdays were all past birthdays of mine involving cake :)

Signed up for Danielle Donaldson's workshop.....and I can't wait for it to start.  Come on April 15th!!

And finally HELLO 37...it's Birthday Week.

After a rough Monday...the rest of the week was so fun and celebratory.

nails, cupcakes, food, ice cream, gifts, art, oldie but goodie treasures 

For right now, cards are in a plain page protector with a sheer sticker on top.  I plan to do something more but haven't decided.  Honestly, the one product I was going to use from Project Life was the large envelopes.  However, they were constantly getting stuck on the binder clasps and pulling out pages....so this was my Plan B.

On my birthday, I played with my Instamax Camera...Love It. 

I included wrapping paper for this week as well.

And here is another pull tab card. So cute...

My friend Melissa took me out for my birthday and celebrated in the fun...then I came home to a box of lots of artsy goodness from Teresa including this brush scripted drawing card and "Cherish" card below. (I opened my family's gifts at 12AM of my birthday...and they all were thoughtful and wonderful items) I truly feel so much love on my birthday and moreso as the years go by.

The last page was various happenings but lots of filler cards.

Lots of extra pages this month, but it was my birthday month & it snowed.  What can I say!

 

The last insert of the month was from tournaments the basketball teams won from my Rec Center.

 

Now to get started on March.  I realized I work about a month behind which is fine by me.  I need to lessen the embellishments for March and April as my 1st album is quite packed as it is.