{points of two week #26: fabric!}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

This week’s topic was delayed because of me setting up email on my new computer and not realizing the outgoing server was having issues. Woe! So my message, intended to go out on Tuesday, didn’t reach Roben-Marie until Wednesday. And I was pretty hyper when I wrote the email, and the reply. In fact, I’m pretty damn hyper right now. Must be all the new creative mojo running through my veins!

What was the topic? Oh, I forgot to say? FABRIC!

Fabric’s great to use in a journal. It adds texture and you can usually find pretty awesome patterns that you won’t find in a scrapbooking aisle. And if you’re afraid it won’t attach to the page well, don’t fear: you can glue it, use double-sided tape, or even sew it on! As I was working on this while watching The Artistic Biker’s webcast last night, I couldn’t pull out the sewing machine. So mine is glued on.

The background for this was done with watercolors over collaged paper, and then I put down the fabric as I would any patterned paper. But I love how the edges are rough, and there are strings coming off the sides — I let the glue hold them down wherever they want, but there are still a few stragglers here and there. When I brush my hand over the page, I can feel the difference between the paper and the fabric.

The cool ledger tape is also fabric (which you can purchase through Stampington here), so score on two fronts!

I’m also playing with fonts, I guess, if you could say that when referring to handwritten things, but I’m sure you get my drfit. And you may notice one of the cute clouds from last week’s page on there — I have last week’s page hanging above my desk and the cloud fell off. I put it back. It fell off again. So there it goes, and since it’s in a book, now, I don’t expect any more backtalk from it.

I journaled about a few things because my mind’s all over the place. And I did this when I woke up. Grabbed a glass of iced tea, my two dogs, and some pens, and sat outside in the early morning summer sun to journal my heart out. Doodled. Wrote. I feel this is the rawest time to work, because your brain is awake but your internal censor isn’t...you can just write and write and it’s so peaceful…

(ps, under the flap, it says, "I keep sleeping in so late!" in big blue cursive. i love the idea of secrets in the journal you can only see if you're holding it in your hands...)

And here's Roben-Marie's page. Isn't it awesome!? I just love it! Check out her blog for her story!

{points of two week #25: change}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

I'm going to give you this week's theme in Roben-Marie's own words:

This might be too deep, but I was thinking this weekend about how much I have changed over the last few years.  I find that I have much more patience and find I am much more giving of my time and talents.  I am calmer and react so differently to situations when things are out of my control.  I believe that people can change and I wonder if there may be a way to reflect on our growth over the last few years or less.  How can we meld that into a journal entry?

I do agree with her. There are so many things in me that have changed over the past few years: different reactions, more silver-lining, less depression, more confidence. I tried to meditate on these things while I worked on my page, even trying to work through the different stages in my art as I created. Experimentation. Mess. Thought. Collage. I even used watercolors, which was my very first medium.

People do change. I've seen it with my own eyes, how, if you put your mind to it, if you truly want to change for the better, you can. And if you want to become something more, a bigger, better YOU, that can happen, too.

I took some shots while I worked outside yesterday. Today, I'm grabbing the umbrella and setting up shop. I can't think of a better way to spend a nice, long holiday weekend.

Here's my completed page:

Materials: gesso, pan watercolors, collage bits, liquid acrylics, white pen, pencil, pen, hand-carved stamp

And Roben-Marie's page. Check out her blog for her story!

{points of two week #24: trim!}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

TRIM! I love trim. I really, really do. It's so much fun and comes in all sorts of colors and styles. Just wandering down those aisles of trim in Jo-Ann's or Hobby Lobby causes my muse to start jumping for joy and spurting out all sorts of ideas. Sewing it, stitching it, gluing it -- you can't escape the fun and joy of adding trim to your page.

True, true, in a journal, it may be a bit harder, and defiantly makes it thicker, but sometimes, we've just got to do what we love.

These days, scrapbooking shops carry all sorts of trims made especially for paper work, some of them miniaturized to fit better on the page. They come in more colors, with coordinating patterns, almost cookie-cut for a themed piece. Personally, I love the vintage-looking trims, those crocheted pieces of ivory lace, the sewn pieces full of frills and eyelets. You can find great trims at thrift stores, that is, if you're willing to cut up old tablecloths or sheets.

This page was actually created on the back of one of those postal service flat-rate envelopes. I just finished my current journal and haven't bound together my current one (it's all cut down, along with one I'm making for Norm!), so I grabbed what was closest and just started working. Gesso and paint reacted differently on this cardboard surface, even after a few layers, and I'm tempted to cut up a few more of these envelopes to bind into my new journal. I love working on new materials, and really love how things turned out on this one.

I attached the trims with double-sided tape. I find that works the best when working with ribbon and trim -- just lay down a path with the tape and press the trim/ribbon down along it. I've tried glue and gel medium before, and just wasn't satisfied with the results.

Be sure to check out Roben-Marie's blog for the story behind her page!

(click & go to flickr)

& Roben-Marie's page!

{points of two week #22: nostalgia}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

Today is hot, for the first time in a week, and I'm still getting ready to walk to the store for a nice ice-cold diet coke.

This week's theme was nostalgia. It came about when I told Roben-Marie I was already working on two pages in my journal, two Very Important Pages, and wondered if we could use one as a theme?

You see, I was driving home last weekend, and decided to stop at one of my favorite places for lunch in the Old Neighborhood -- that moniker given to the place where you grew up. So as I was passing though, I thought, "Why don't I stop at my elementary school?"

Now, I left there over 15 years ago, but the moment that scent of wood-chips and summer heat washed over me, all these memories came back. I couldn't believe the place smelled the same as it did when I was little. And while equipment's been moved, added, and removed, there's still the swings (now off to the left) I used to love playing on and the mass of connected jungle-jim in blue and orange where I broke my nose in 5th grade. Cracked, rusting, and soft at the edges from over a decade of children running all over, it still stands as I remembered. The bar where people would flip over and through their arms (which still makes me go ick!). The weird monkey bars. The slide. Did you know there are bars at the top of slides? This is a detail I conveniently forgot when chasing the leader in Capture the Leader up the slide -- I ran into it full-force, broke my nose, and slid down the corkscrew into all the other kids behind me.

My nose hurts, sometimes, as a reminder. It's one of those crystal clear memories I'll have for the rest of my life.

Sitting down to journal after a week + of not was hard. I had to keep walking away. I feel out of practice. I'll have to fix this ASAP!

Enjoy your weekend!

And Roben-Marie's page for this week. I wonder where she got that font? ;)

{points of two week #21: sketches!}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

Sipping tea on a nice summer Friday. This week, I suggested adding a sketch to our pages, as I've been in a sketching mood. Roben-Marie was a bit hesitant, which is understandable - many people don't think they can sketch, and so, don't even try. But practice makes perfect, lovelies; five or six years ago, I couldn't draw a thing. And think I still can't. But I love the freedom and discovery and thrill of taking out a pencil and just playing.

And this page doesn't have much on it - not a lot of writing or doodles. But there's a story written there in the swoops of the pencil, swirls of a brush loaded with ink. It starts with me finally getting out of the house, drinking that iced chai I love, and putting on my big pink headphones. Grabbing a pencil and playing around. Shaping the eyes. Going back, in my mind, to shapes I've loved before, those I've hated, and how I wanted to reconcile them into something good.

Working with a blender that wasn't cleaned off shot down the coloring idea. I spread over white paint and spied an old painting from the corner of my eye, how I love the shape of the girl's head, and so I try again, over the paint, with ink. The eyes are big. The hair's odd. And while she isn't the best, she represents me getting back to the journal, having fun, not stressing about classes or blogging or painting on large canvases. Just getting in there, doing my thing. I started as a drawer; my first journal is full of the world around me interpreted through the tip of a pen, and I want to get back to that, somehow.

This was the first page created from my toolbox and suitcase, on the floor in what was a studio and is now half-packed away. Could this still work without it all? Yes. Yes it can. So here she is, a picture with so much written, the letters have blended to paint and shape.

And here's Roben-Marie's. See? She did lovely sketches! I never said they had to be of people!

I'm off to grab some tech gear and clean out my inbox. :D

{points of two week #17: cheesecloth!!}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

Here's a second material-prompted journal page. Roben-Marie and I were chatting on the phone and she mentioned working with cheesecloth. It was something I'd seen and heard about, but never worked with. So why not make that our theme for the week? I was actually in Wal-Mart when this came up, so I was able to grab a package for $4.50.

And will now have enough to last me several years. ;)

I've been having fun working on loose pages; they allow for greater versitility and more 3-D embellisment. Don't get me wrong, I love working IN a journal, but sometimes, you've gotta just let go and pull out that sewing machine.

(Which I've wanted to do for weeks and just now pulled out and put on my packaging desk.)

So -- there was a lot of experimentation going on with this one. I glued dow the cheesecloth. Then sprayed with the Tulip Fashion Grafitti sprayer filled with liquid acrylics (thanks, Chrysti!). Which actually took hours to dry since there's that word cloth in cheesecloth and I had to water down the paint for it to work...

But I LOVE the effect and now am not limited by the colors made by spray-paint companies. ALSO, with a coupon from Michael's, it was only $4. Much cheaper. May get several to have many colors ready.

Then, I took the bits left over from the signatures in my other journal, pulled out the sewing machine, and went to work. The cheesecloth's kinda hard to work over; paint doesn't spread very well. So I decided to just sew on some papers, do a bit of doodling, and BAM, page done!

And I really, really like it.

While I may not use the cheesecloth for journal pages, I am interested in putting it OVER a painting or something to see how it looks.

(click! i get bigger!)

And Roben-Marie's page:

Check out her blog for the story behind her page!

{Points of Two Week #7: What makes you a good friend?}

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

This week, we focused inward, exploring what qualities make us good friends to others.

I surprised myself with this one. I first took to a notebook and began writing about what I thought made me a good friend. There were specific events and generalizations, and some was even petty (as in, I did this for you, and you did this to me?!). I wrote two pages before I got to the main point: that if I'm your friend, I will be honest, supportive, and there for you.

This topic's been on my mind lately because of a very particular thing my friend Jun does (she's the blond in the photo in my blog's header). She has many little bits about her that I love, but she feels she needs to apologize for them all the time. I keep telling her it's okay, that I've accepted her as she is, all the bits included, and that she never has to apologize for anything. Anyway, that came out in the end of my two written pages, and I think it's helped me to understand not only my friendship with Jun, but with my other friends. The power of journaling, right?

I used my fluid acrylics, paper bits, and glue. Pretty basic, right? Most of the papers are either found or from this line of scrapbooking papers I've fallen in love with...what is the name!? Got it! Nook & Pantry by Basic Grey. Great, beautiful papers!

When finishing my page, I ran out of room! So I stapled in the rest for a nice folding paper. I love adding bits like that, and really should do it more often!

And here's Roben-Marie's page for this week!

I got a question via my Formspring.me page asking if they could use our Points of Two as journal prompts. YES YES! That is half the reason we share our prompt along with our pages. To show you how two people may start with the same idea, but create vastly different pages. Please feel free! The archives list all the prompts we've done thus far.

{points of two week #4: kindness mission}

 

Points of Two is an experiment in journaling with myself and Roben Marie! Check out our archives to see the previous weeks' pages.

This week was based on the following quote:

"I learned long ago that those who are the happiest are those who do the most for others."

Booker T Washington

And what's funny is we both brought someone cookies!

This week, I've been focused on setting the groundwork for a more consistent blog, starting stock for etsy, working on custom projects, doing samples for classes -- anything BUT journaling. So when the opportunity arose to make this page, I just sat down to play...and how nice it was!

I often go between randomly-spread paint and using a brush; for this page, I wanted chunks of color that I then wrote on or layered with papers. And I found my labler!

Part of getting ready for classes is using photos, which means I've been taking many, many more. I took this shot of my friend J (also seen up there in the banner!) while she was concentrating on beading her necklace; I loved how into it she was and her hair was really cute, so I snapped a pic. I then went on to take tons of super macro shots of beads because they looked pretty. What can I say? I do what's fun.

Blues and golds and stripes! All things I did to relax into my art. And stamping, because they were there. Nothing too deep; I kinda just went with what I liked and somehow pulled it all together.

Roben-Marie's Page:

Next week: Around the House. Take a pic of something in the house that's meaningful and journal about it. Won't you join us?