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