Green Horned Unicorn

Published! Somerset Memories Fall 2011

Back in May I was contacted by Somerset Memories to advise me my Cali mini-album had been accepted for publication. Needless to say, I was thrilled! I had submitted my album in response to a Tweet I came across, which was in search of submission for "green-friendly" scrapbooking projects. Upon seeing the Tweet, I immediately knew my Cali album would be a perfect fit. It is comprised entirely of recycled, repurposed and scrap items I collected and/or pulled from my stash. Happily for me the editors at Somerset Memories felt it was the perfect fit too!

As I read the acceptance email, I was even more thrilled when I was asked to write an 800-word article to accompany the album! A project AND an article published? Yes, please!

Although a large part of my day job involves writing, I was very intimated with the idea of penning 800 words that would be printed in a publication for all the world to see. Fortunately, the words flowed quickly and I was up to my total word count in no time.

I received my issue in the mail on Friday and was overjoyed to see how cute it looked in print! Somerset's graphic designers to a great job with the layout in their publications.

I was originally advised my project and article would be 4-pages in length. Imagine my surprise and excitement, when I found out I actually got 6-pages! :)

I feel very honored to be included in Somerset Memories. The publication takes a different approach to memory keeping than most scrapbooking publications. Their perspective is more artistic and stretches the idea of what a stereotypical scrapbooking project might be. They do a wonderful job of curating their publications and find many beautiful and intriguing projects you might not see elsewhere.

Aside from just seeing my project and article (isn't that enough in it's own?!), the magazine is packed full of projects from some amazing ladies - including Dina Wakely and Ali Edwards. You should definitely pick up a copy for yourself. If you're not able to find a copy locally, you can order a copy of the magazine here. 

Small Steps

Hi there. Sorry I've been away for so long! I took an unplanned break from all things creative for a few days, including blogging. Sometimes a girl just needs a mental health day (or two) everyone once in a while :)

I did manage to dive into a few art journaling pages for TYS last night and this morning. The first page I'll share is called Small Steps:

This page lists a few things I'd like to do to step up my healthy lifestyle. The page just will not photograph well, but I promise the greens and the blue flower match much better together in real life!

Next up is Dream House:

This page is pretty basic. I liked my background and didn't want to cover it up. Nate gave me the idea to add a chimney and the idea for journaling came from there!

This page is titled Thoughts on Starting an Indie Business:
 
For this prompt we were supposed to keep it simple and journal on a page from a magazine. I found this in my beloved Ready Made. I actually had a really hard time convincing myself to tear it out! I recorded my thoughts on starting up my Etsy shop.

Lastly, we have So Happy Together:

I threw this page together for fun. Before finding the page in the Ready Made magazine for the previous journal page, I had found a page with Together on it. I liked it, and although I didn't end up using it for a class prompt, I tossed together this page instead. It was a quickie, but I like the bright colors :)

All of these pages were relatively fast and simple. I'm really loving how I can whip these out so much faster than a scrapbook layout!! 

I hope everyone is having a great week. I won't be back to blogging until next Monday (continuing my break a bit longer), but I plan on a full week of posts! :) 

More Art Journaling from Tell Your Story

I can't even begin to describe how much FUN I'm having in the Tell Your Story art journaling class. It has been inspiring, enlightening, messy, painty, fabricy, freeing and much, much more. Let me just say, this class is exactly what I expected it to be and then some! Thank you Elsie and Rachel :) 

Here are some of the pages I've been creating (keep in mind that each page has a promt and a technique challenge to go with it which is why you see such a variety of different pages).

This one is called Three Wishes and highlights three things that I wish for the future. With this page, I was trying to keep it simple and the supplies to a minimum. I was shooting for just two - the Sharpie and letter stickers. However, after I finished drawing the tree, the branch looked so sad. I couldn't resist adding the cute little owl patch to liven it up :)

This next page is called More Than Anything. I actually messed up the original background when I added my journaling and the blue paint served as my saving grace. Funny thing is, I actually like the page so much more now with the paint layered over the misting. Who knew?!

The last page for today is called Today Felt. Again I had ton of fun layering products. I started with eggplant mist, stamped over that, then layered circles made from tissue paper over that. Next, I pulled out my trusty old foam stamps (remember those?!...ha) and stamped the title, added the photo and some tape and trim. I really liked Modge Podging the tissue paper to the page. I'm going to have to try that technique out again soon! The photo was taken on a flight last year and converted to a Polaroid using the Poloroid 9.6 software.

That's it for today!! I'm getting ready to jet off to Vegas to meet my sis for the weekend!! Look out Sin City, here we come :)

Tell Your Story

Lately, I've been in a slight creative slump of sorts. While I've been able to create, often times, it feels forced and mundane. Even when I manage to do something creative, I don't feel there is a lot of originality in what I do. All of this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it's part of the evolving process in developing personal style. In order to push myself outside of the box and try new things, I decided to sign up for this:

 
I have been fortunate enought to participate in two local art journaling classes with the fabulous Dina Wakely, where I learned many woderful techniques and how to stretch the limits of products like paints and inks. The problem is, once the classes were over, I never touched my journals again. Why? I don't know. I think I was somewhat intimidated and also wasn't quite sure what to journal about. 

When I saw Tell Your Story, I knew it was exactly what I needed to kick-start my creativity and get back into art journaling. The class provides prompts and/or techniques each day which makes it fun and challenging. Here is my first page:

I had so much FUN making this page. I used to always use paints on my pages and somehow have gotten away from it. It was fun to grunge up the background with paints and spray inks. I found it very rewarding to simplify the products and just go with it. You'll be seeing more pages over the course of the next month or so.

I'll be back tomorrow with photos and highlights from my vacation :) Happy Monday!