Sunday weather

The weather today has not allowed for me to take any decent pictures of my recent artwork so you get this. The sky can be amazingly beautiful here but the storms can come up suddenly and strike with almost no warning.

I will try to make a midweek post but if that does not happen there will be one more Sunday post for this year. After that I will be concentrating on family things until mid January. I will be thinking fondly of my Loyal 3 and wishing nothing but the best for all of them during this the coldest and darkest part of the year.
Peace, Love and Joy to you all.
<3 Stormy

Sunday in the afternoon...

Not a great deal going on around the home-front unless you consider shuffling all the furniture multiple times exciting. I had some unexpected time off so we arranged the living-room in a new and different way, did the same to the master bedroom and my storage shed and are aiming to do the office and the Monkeys bedroom soon as well.
You may be wondering, or not, what happens when I get to a point of near 2/3 of a journal complete? The answer would be that of course I must get started making or procuring the next one to start in. This would be why I have a stack of journals all in various stages of completion... I will be making it a goal to finish one before I start the next one again this New Years and it did work, for a while...
On to the picture portion of the post.

The stack is actually missing a couple that were made for specific projects but since I have put those projects on hold I didn't consider them "current.

The next book to bind already has signatures and the cover paper selected. I need to get the cover boards measured and cut, paper them and stab little holes in everything to get it ready for binding. I have decided that the journals I make for myself either have to be a Coptic variant or composition style binding. I just don't work so well if I can't open it up to lay flat. Loving the old maps to make the covers with, this one will be a map of Africa dated 1965.

Just working through the wait

Sometimes it is all you can do.

In progress

In progress with color

Here's to another week of joy and art.
Peace, Love and warm socks to you, my Loyal Three.
Stormy

Sunday for Moving All the Things

This has been a long weekend. Starting with the ritual sacrifice of a 22lb turkey followed by pie and ending with loads and loads of laundry in preparation for the week starting at 5am tomorrow morning. In the middle of all this we rearranged the living room and the bedroom. Love to move things around to see if a different set up will work better.
Had to make a foray into the city on the Evil Day of Shopping but managed to avoid all corporate centers of greed. Accidentally managed to hit a serious sale at a craft store and got the punch I had been looking for as well as a couple of new Sakura Micron pens for less than half what I had been willing to spend.

2 1/4 inch square punch. Yay!

Some from last holiday season and
some from this one

While waiting for the bird to cook and other periods of quiet I added a couple of my Manila tags to my pocket art journal and they worked wonderfully.

 

While digging through storage a bit I ran across a full package of rectangular coasters like you would find in a bar. I grabbed a few and my recently acquired bottle of gesso and went to town. I believe these will become some lovely book covers that may end up as holiday gifts. I may end up making quite a few if they turn out as well as I hope.

Not going to advertise beer, not even fairly good beer.

                                                                          

Post Gesso, Pre-Artifying.

There were adventures had, Art was made, bargains found and Family Time (TM) was had. I enjoyed the Bird Day meal with family and then I enjoyed the meal the day after with one of my favorite treats, Dolmas. I will leave you with a few more doodles and my wishes for you all. Peace, Joy and love in all your lives.

Stormy

 

Sunday that was.

This past week I drove to the "city" twice on two of my "days off". Once for my brother and once for my Mom, both of these trips were necessary though a little tiring. The first trip ended up being expanded into a grocery/stock up trip and I ended up getting to hit Staples. I bought myself a box of Manila tags to play with (yay!), though not the 3"x5" these should be bunches of fun. I also grabbed a set of the sharpie paint markers and am loving them all over many, many surfaces.

Sharpie paint markers and manilla tags to play with

Playing with the markers

The second trip ended up turning into a thrift shopping adventure. I scored a few pairs of pants and shirts in both short and long sleeved for work and I must say, my pants ($40 nomex fire resistant cargo pants that FIT for $5!) are AWESOME! Several pair of heavy, soft cotton cargo pants in excellent condition (in my odd shaped size) for $5 a pop and a few great looking t-shirts (the amazing brushed cotton that is still wonderfully insulating) for around $3 per. Thrift town and goodwill are definitely two of my favorite places. This also means that since I brought clothes into the house, I will have a couple of bags of gently loved clothes to donate locally to the shop that benefits the senior center and the one that helps the mental health clinic. I so love a win/win shopping experience.

As for art, I am being tempted by the idea of a tattoo gun. There is a young man at my new job that has offered to loan me his if I buy ink and needles so I can try before I buy. I have a canvas to test on and the art to try all ready to go, I just have to decide if I want to be serious about this or if it is a passing fancy. I love my ink and I love (most) ink on others but is it really the direction for me. Opinions are welcome as to whether this is something my Loyal 3 think would be fun to watch me try.
Now for some pretty pictures...

Wishing you all Peace, Joy and love.
Stormy

Wednesday fill in for Sunday slack

Since I had a few minutes free this evening I figured I would share a snapshot of my world with my loyal 3. In the morning I get to work and see this... (often at 18 to 22 degrees of frozen nose)

When I leave work in the evening I get to see this...(Quickly cooling down towards that same frozen nose)

Between those times I am working in a large building with a bunch of people that I barely know making things that I don't truly understand and trying to not damage myself or the equipment. When I have the time on breaks or after I have eaten as much of my lunch as I can, I get to draw.

Working on my braids

Flower or Starfish?

So there you have it, my last week or so in pretty (if I do say so) pictures. There has not been much else major going on but if something does come up I will be sure to announce it here. Till then it is work, sleep, eat and repeat.

Wishing you all Peace, Love and Joy.

Stormy

Sunday delay

Tonight's post was brought to you by the letter Yummy. I had dinner with my brother for his birthday so the real post will be made as soon as I have more than 5 minutes of free time in front of my computer. For now have a picture of his present.

Sunday without a sundae

This past week has been a little rough.
I was working for 6 of the past 7 days at around 10 hours a day and it looks like that will be the pattern for a while, possibly till Christmas. The paycheck will hopefully be worth the time as it could be up to 20 hours a week at time and a half. All of this on top of trying to hold on to my delivery position has left me very little time to have a life of any kind. With what life and energy I have left at the end of the week I need to take care of my home, family and sanity (that last one being a little more difficult in recent times) as best I can.
Just today I have managed to get 4 loads of laundry done, got caught up on a weeks worth of missed email and Facebook (no way could I ever hope to catch up on the Pintrest), finished 2 line art pieces (just for you, my loyal 3), made some progress on the round thing made of yarn, spent (wonderful, wonderful) time giggling with my favourite monkey and consumed at least 2 pots of coffee in order to do all this. Now I will eat dinner (yummy leftover ham prepared by my Hunny) and try to get sleepy before 10pm so I can be up at 5am (the crack of dawn has yet to sound) to start the circle of the week again.
Wish me luck, energy and fast caffeine absorption as I am...
Wishing you all peace, love and joy

Braids and shades

Multiple design elements trying to co-exist happily

Sunday for a Wednesday

A note on my personality. I have a minor obsession with the Mini-Cooper. I will, given the opportunity, take pictures (careful to omit any identifying details like license plates or sticker families) of the ones here in town. 

So far I have counted 9 that are in semi-permanent residence.

The other day I got caught taking a picture by the owner of an adorable  candy apple red station wagon version. I apologized and he was kind enough to laugh it off. Hopefully if I get caught by other owners they will be as kind.

Recently I was honored by a re-pin on Pintrest to a fairly large line-arts and "Zentangle" board. That pin sparked a large swell of visitors to my site here.
In response I have decided to try to share at least one new piece of my line-art per week.
This week I have a bumper crop to share as I was stuck in a conference room for three days, leaving much line time between discussion topics.
As you could probably tell if you have been following me for any length of time, I have started a new job. I will be working a 40+ hour week and trying like heck to hold on to my delivery job as well. It may not seem like much to the "average" person out there but the job of Pizza delivery person is something that I do well and take pride in. It can be terrifying to let something like that go for an unknown situation. I am doing my best to deal with the stresses of this situation and sharing my art with you, My Loyal 3, has been an important part of that. I thank you and wish you all...
Peace, Love and Joy
Stormy

Trying to keep things simple yet complete

A pattern I am trying to develop

The cover of my hand-bound graph-paper pocket journal

Getting around to using some of my backgrounds

Edge patterns on regular lined paper.
(pocket sized 5-star composition style notebook)

Wednesday has been moved

Due to chaos consuming my life the Wednesday post will now be occurring on Sunday. I may still call them Wednesday posts just to be confusing. Thanks to my loyal 3 for sticking with me for so long. Peace, joy and love to you all.

Wednesday with Glue and Hooky Bits

This past week has been interesting. I have yet to hear about the job that has had me on pins and needles stress wise, I have had a crochet bug and have been finding all sort of reasons to put off doing more journaling. After my last post I had an attack of "glue all the things" and managed to work through a few pages but since then I have been mostly (crochet) hooking the time away.

I finished the scarf and it came out nicely if not exactly the way I had hoped. Loving the color scheme and once it gets washed and stretched a bit it will be a great winter blues buster.

I started a round thing that may end up being a "yard warming" present to the young person moving onto our property if it ever gets finished. I generally don't work in pastel colors but I had a "reach in and grab something" moment. Not hating it and the stitches are coming together fairly well.

A pin on Pintrest ( I am an addict) caught my eye and I had to interpret the mask while paying no attention to the instructions. It is a work in progress as well. The edge is going to be a lace stitch inspired by yet another pin, this one a very easy to follow video of a Spanish speaking lady teaching a variation on the granny square.

I have high hopes for more journal work this coming week as I have recently come across some very interesting things to glue to the pages. Some vintage sheet music, Old receipt books, bar coasters and some damaged books to name a few.
I am thinking about doing a drawing for a manila envelope filled with scrappy ephemera, one of the 8 x 12 ones. That may be coming soon to a Wednesday near you. If you, my loyal 3, think this would be a good idea please leave me a note.

Wishing you all a relaxing and low stress rest of the week. Peace, Joy and Love to you all.

Wednesday is for...

Had to drive to the "City" today. I had to fill out paperwork to say I can legally be employed and I had to take a drug test. These things had to be done in a place an hour and a half away from where I will likely be working. I got to drive through rush hour traffic on the way there and was lucky enough to escape the same on the way home by ducking into a "Hobby Lobby". (there was another scrap-booking store that I tried first but the person in charge did NOT want my business.)


I managed to spend all of this months crafting allowance in one go on a small bottle of gesso (which I have been dying to try out) and a punch. A 1 and 3/4 inch circle punch to be precise.

This lovely toy will be put to good use making holiday ornaments this year as well as several things that will be going on in my journals. (There will be some progress pictures related to journaling in the next Wednesday installment.)

The stress levels around here have not lessened much but I have been putting the brain haze to some use. This is the kind of mind-frame that I find conducive to Scarf Crochet. A wander through the stitch compendiums at my disposal and a fairly random choice of a simple v-shell combined with some "close the eyes and grab" from the yarn drawer gets me this.
Thinking this will work to combat the winter grey for a while. The yarns are a sage colored home-spun that I got at a yard sale about 4 years ago and a skein of Bernat single ply in Calypso that had been hiding for almost 2 years. The things you can come up with when you try your darnedest to just use what you have.

I should have confirmation on the possible new job withing the week. Hopefully the stress will let go to a degree when I get that answer. One way or another, an answer is better than not knowing. (my opinion at least)

Wishing you all Peace, Love and Joy.