It’s a Funny Web Out There

Wandering around out there, which I hardly ever do (I need to get out more, both virtually and cyber-ly and In Real Life), I came upon this photo on Lisa Guerin’s site. I was looking at the photo and thinking, “Something looks familiar. Huh.” I do not know Lisa.
Then I went, “Oh.” Those are my jeans on the screen in the background, to the left of her hand.

Kind of weird when you find things like this, isn’t it? This is the second time I’ve come across a pair of my jeans somewhere out of the blue. It makes the world seem so very, very tiny.

January Journal

Kind of blurry and noisy--we're experimenting with this whole Over the Shoulder thing--but it's a peek at what one journal looks like.

Journal Spank: Make a Fabulous Paper Bag Journal

The Fabulous Judy Wise has posted photos of a cool new journal she’s been working in (in which, blah, blah, blah), made out of paper bags. All scrunchy and yummy and touchable. Scroll down to see the pages.
She posted instructions here.
Easy, cool, great way to recycle:  what’s not to love?

Go play! & Thanks, Judy!

I Love This Drawing So Much

Frank, who won one of the Hand*Book journals last month, sent me a card he made with one of his fabulous drawings.

It makes me so happy that I’m going to put it in a frame and hang it on the wall so I can see it all the time.

Thank you, sweetie!

Making Mini Me’s—A Journal Spank for Your Saturday

The little images of myself that I put on the journal pages—very, very easy to do.

I took a photo of myself late one night, just to check the lighting. It wasn’t a good photo.

I’m always trying to learn new stuff in Photoshop Elements, so I played around with it in that. Changed it to black and white, and then played with the filters.


You can try “stamp” or “poster edges” or “photocopy”—just play around until you get something you like.

Then paste one into a blank document and size it. Go to page set-up and minimize the margins and headers to give you the most blank white space. Set the columns to 4 (or however much room you have, depending on the size of your image). Copy and paste.



Well, it doesn’t show up in the columns here.  Huh. You get the idea, though.

Then print it. You can use plain paper, paper the color of your own personal skin, colored paper (I should use orange, huh?), patterned paper—lots of fun!
I used to cut the images out and glue them to the pages with glue stick. Now I run the paper through the Xyron and then cut them out—I cut stuff out in the afternoons when The EGE is telling me about his day subbing.

And there you go. If you do this, I’d LOVE to see what you come up with!

Cool Studio Pics

Jodi Creager (here’s one of my favorite pieces from their website)  finally (hooray!) posted on her blog and added some studio photos—so if you love seeing where artists create, jump on over and check them out. Of course, it looks WAY too clean and organized—but I’m thinking since their work is very small, maybe the messes stay very small, too?

Check out her new banner, too—I love those colors~~

Yay, Jodi!

FaveCrafts Blog Post

I was invited to be a guest blogger at favecrafts. I wrote to an audience who does a lot of scrapbooking, urging them to keep a journal. No ranting, though! No cussing!

Pages from My Journal

Here’re a couple of “spreads” that show how I use my journal. There’s the omnipresent To-Do list on the left, and then, on the right, some photos I cut out of a magazine. I’m weeding out—I’ve got WAY too many magazines. I have every copy of every one of the ones I write for (for which) for reference, so I have to have those. And the ones that are sort of parallel, by other companies. I keep those for reference. But the ones I’ve been keeping just for eye candy? Got to go. And so I tear out things I like and stick them in here.

Someone asked if I collect magazine photographs. No. I used to, long ago. For fabric stuff, I use our photographs that I alter. I don’t make Art in my journal. I think I told you that I’d ordered all the available back issues of Mental Floss, and I’ve been cutting out some of the photos in there that make me laugh, like that Tarzan one from yesterday. I run them through the Xyron and stick them in blank spaces. Other than those, I’m not much interested in magazine stuff.  Too slick, too commercial. And it takes up too much damn space. But I do have the stuff I’m tearing out as I go through this backlog:

  These are page tags—I’ve been playing around with making my own, as you saw last week. I’ll probably make some notes by the tags—what size to cut the ones I’m making. Mine are, in case you didn’t guess, not quite as frou-frou. Right.

I also cut out stuff by artists I know and like—you saw some of Danita’s stuff last week. She was one of the profile artists in Somerset Studio. I like what she does.

Then the pages where I’m making notes for a project. I like to stamp a title so it doesn’t seem so messy and so it’ll jump out at me as I’m flipping through looking for it, before I get around to putting in a page tab: but I don’t always get that done. (I keep a cheap alphabet and a pad right out on the table so it’s easy and I don’t have to dig it out. That should make me do it more often, don’t you think?) Knowing I was going to scan it and put it here spurred me to Just Do It. I don’t know if that will be a good thing or a bad thing. If I start thinking, “Oooh, I’m going to have to scan this and show it!” every time I pick up my journal, this experiment isn’t going to last very long.

But, for today, here it is.

“Two of the most important women’s-rights-related bill-signings in the past few years.”

From a post by Feministe
The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

And The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009

Doesn’t that first photo just make you gnash your teeth: Men in Suits all happy about a law that doesn’t affect their lives one bit?

OK, I swear:  this is the end of this. No more ANYTHING about Bush. Period. Ever. It makes my neck ache.

From now on, I’m going to be all like, “Bush? Who?”

Just as soon as they take the rest of those damn signs off the buildings downtown. . . .

Hey, PaintDiva!

You win the little Volante notebooks--Congratulations!

Please send me your snail mail address--

Drawing Rendered Warm & Fuzzy with No Teeth

I want to draw every day. I really do. It’s just so scary, you know? Yeah, I’m a wuss, I know.  I wish I had someone here who would go out with me regularly and draw—and they’d be so intent on drawing and be having so much fun at it that I couldn’t wait to join in. I mean, if you’re sitting with someone who’s drawing, ,what else are you gonna do?

Casey, over at Live Your Art, has been posting daily drawings. I love them, and here’s what’s really cool:  she limits herself to a small square in her notebook and a pen or pencil. She says she takes about 10 minutes for each one.

Small square area. No fancy tools. Ten minutes. Ever I can tackle that, I think. How about you? Go see.

“I’m Really Not a Plates Kind of Guy.” Thank You, Jesus.

I love this so much!  From today’s New York Times, courtesy of my friend Wendy:
If there is one thing Mr.. Obama has not gotten around to changing, it is the Oval Office décor.
When Mr... Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr.. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.
The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr.. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr.. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.
“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”

Preparing February’s Journal

You saw this one the other day when I was first gluing on the cover:
Then I went through and colored all the pages, using the ink pads and cheapo stencil brushes.
I used pink and orange—because 1) the cover paper has those colors and 2) they make me think of Valentine’s Day.

Then I put on the elastic loop for my pen.
 
Double a piece of elastic, use a heavy-duty stapler to attach it. Flatten the staples with a hammer. Use thick tacky glue so the elastic won’t unravel—and in case there are any sharp ends on the staples.

Now I’m putting in the Little Me’s that keep me company and comment on the day’s happenings.

I thought you might like to see the collection of journals ready to use.

There’s this year’s supply of Moleskine sketchbooks over on the left, but it ate that photo.

And if you’re going, “Oh, Moleskines are kind of expensive! I don’t know if I’d use one of those if I paid that much for it,” then think of it this way:  how much did you pay the last time you went out to dinner? A damn sight more than $16.95 (and I didn’t pay full price for any of these. Go here—whoa!  The price has dropped! ) And you’ll enjoy it a lot more than a steak, for sure.

Here are some not-so-great shots (remember, it’s almost impossible for my little camera to get good shots in that bright orange room) of my past journals.
 
I threw away the first 40 or so—too much whining about work and relatives and money and BORING stuff out the wazoo. I hardly ever looked at them, but when I did? I wanted to slap the me who wrote them. So I tossed them all the way up to the volume where I started using them to plan projects.

Notice the older ones are boring spiral notebooks.

Then for a while I bound my own.

 Then back to spirals—the ones I had made at Kinko’s, next to the ones I’m using now.
 
Who knows what I’ll do next?

Cute Cat Interlude

Lennie Lulu was in my chair and wasn’t happy to be forced out:  she’s cold. So she jumped up with her brother, Moe.
 
They hardly ever sleep together—one will jump up in the warm spot where the other is sleeping, and they’ll bathe each other’s ears,
 
and then someone—usually Lennie—will leap down with a huff. Moe plans this:  he makes himself really large and takes up the whole space. But they’ve been sound asleep together for almost an hour this time—some sort of Cat Napping Record for them.

Journal Page

I said I was going to show y’all these, so here you go. Remember:  these aren’t pages I prepared for showing; they’re just how I use my journal. Nothing fancy, nothing art journal-y. Just a journal I love that works for me.

So next time I’ll skip the disclaimer—you can tell this is kind of weird for me, showing this stuff that I would normally say, “Eh. No one wants to see this.” But I’m realizing people need to see EXACTLY this kind of stuff to get past the whole It’s Gotta Be Fabulous thing. Nah. It doesn’t have to be fabulous. It’s just got to work for you.

A Studio Work Table That Won’t Put You in Debt

If you’re like me—and here’s hoping, for your family’s sake, that you’re not too much like me—you’re drooling over the photos of artists’ studios in those new publications. Where Women Create is like Porn for Artists, isn’t it?

But if you’re like me, spending $50,000 to have someone come in and build your dream studio? Not happening this week.

I’m especially envious of the studios with those big, tall studio tables right in the middle, where you can stand up straight to work and walk all the way around the table. Too bad I don’t have the kind of space where a table like that would work.

But wait! If you get a table that’s not heavy wood and that doesn’t have to be left up in the middle of the room all the time, is there then a way to make this work? Turns out:  yes!

I have a bunch of folding tables—4’, 5’, 6’. I have three lined along the walls out here in the study. Two more hold sewing machines. And this big one is in the studio.

It’s light, and I can slide it around—out in the middle of the room, up against the wall (even though it doesn’t really fit, as it’s too long. But never mind that.)

The first time we went to The Mecca That is IKEA, we bought a set of those riser things. They were great, but I was still stooping over to work. This last time we went, I got two more sets.

I stacked them like this:

Now, it’s not as stable as just one set—they tend to tilt when I shove the table around. But they’re great otherwise:  I stand up straighter and can see things better. I just have to be more careful when I’m moving it.

If you don’t have these plastic things, you could use paint cans—I know someone who does that. Fill them with sand or cement. You could use blocks of wood, but you want to make sure you have some way of keeping the legs from slipping off—the paint can rim does the job if you’re using a paint can. If you’re using wood, you’re going to have to figure out something else.
Use your router to cut a hole for the legs, maybe.
Anyway—it’s a much-cheaper alternative to the big wooden work table of our dreams. Plus it’s easy to take down and slide out of the way (next to the refrigerator, of course) if you need to use the space for something else. Theoretically, I clean off the table and put it up every night.

Theoretically.

All About Color & Some Simple Things

I found a fab site that’s—whoa!--  all about color! It’s ColourLovers.com, and you can find it here.

And someone there posted a “side project” about simple things to do to make the world a better place. I’m a sucker for stuff like this, as you know. Go here to find some ideas you might not have thought of in a while.

Then go back to this page and play with color. Guaranteed to inspire—have fun!

If-I-Can-Do-It-You-Can-Do-It Journal Spank

Here you go:
 
See? Painless, guaranteed.

Note to the Journal Nazis: It’s Just a Journal! Get a Grip.

Someone posted a comment on my video about simple journal backgrounds, the one you saw a couple weeks ago, saying it was “basic and childish.” And then I read Kelly Kilmer’s post about someone who e-mailed her about her journal pages, making snarky little comments, and so I have to say this to all those people:
It’s just a fucking journal! It’s not brain surgery! It’s not rocket science! It’s A JOURNAL. And no matter how important yours is to you—and I hope it is important—it’s not A Big Deal.

Goodlordalmighty. I’m realizing that there are actual Journal Nazis out there, people who have somehow taken this whole Art Journal thing and just gone totally fucking nuts.

Does anyone else remember when all this started? Back when Teesha Moore first started The Studio Zine, back before anyone had heard the term “art journal”? Oh, sure, people were keeping sketchbooks—have been for centuries—and people were keeping journals and pasting stuff in and all that. Shit, I was pasting stuff in my notebook in 1973. But nobody was talking about it, and there wasn’t a term for it. And there weren’t workshops and classes and multi-day events where people did nothing but “work” on the pages in a book.

And now? Look at it now: there are those classes and workshops—thank you, jesus! they're fabulous!—and whole stores that sell supplies for scrapbookers and journal artists (right up there next to art supply stores and office supply stores). There are magazines and on-line groups and websites. And I love that. It makes me very, very happy.

But there’s more—there’s a dark underside. Oh, I don’t mean a Goth side, or a depressive side, or a secret mysterious side. No: I mean a dark side wherein there are people who have gotten so totally wrapped up in this whole Art Journal Thang that they have formed a sort of Cult of Art Journal Keeping. They worship at the altar of Suzi Blu and collect reproductions of Teesha’s journal pages. This, in itself, is not bad: Suzi does some way cool videos, and I love Teesha’s journal pages and have all four of her little booklets that collect them.

But these other people take this stuff really seriously. They get all snobby about people they call “beginners,” as if there’s a course of study and some fucking state licensing exam for Art Journalists. And here’s what pisses me off: when people take this seriously and join the cult and start comparing their stuff to someone else’s and then competing with everyone else, where they form little groups where they go and post snide comments about someone else. You know: “X is doing totally derivative pages and using that scrapbook paper from Last Year, and her Work looks just like Y’s. Did you notice?” And then they want to be published, which is OK; but it’s not like winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine, OK? It’s fine to want to show your stuff to other people and share ideas, but when you start to believe it makes you special and entitled to snob out other people's stuff? Uh, no. You need a new hobby.

And then there becomes a Right Way to Journal, where you’re supposed to follow certain steps (page preparation, background color, texture, image, text, highlighting, embellishment), and anyone who’s not doing that is Doing It Wrong.

Now, if it’s important to you to experiment with art techniques like adding texture, and if you want to Build Up a Page like that, great. Go for it. Do whatever you want. But Do NOT judge someone who doesn’t want to do that. Do NOT judge someone who maybe just wants to use a spiral notebook for making lists and pasting in things from magazines. Do NOT join the Journal Nazis and start posting snarky little comments on people’s blogs, thinking you’re doing them a favor by pointing out that their pages aren’t balanced, or that they’re using crappy pens, or that they really need to stretch themselves so they can Get Better.

“Get better” at WHAT? This isn’t about meeting some standard, about growing as a journal artist. You know why? Because a journal is a notebook. It’s something you carry around with you or leave at home on a desk. Whatever: it’s just something you do. It can take up 5 minutes a month, or it can take up hours a day. It doesn’t matter. Only one thing matters: does it work for you? Does it do what you need it to do—give you a place to keep track of dental appointment and tire rotations? Give you a place to experiment with color? Give you a place to take notes during meetings with clients? Give you a place to draw and keep track of your drawing progress?

Notice I didn’t say “keep track of your progress as an Art Journaler.” I don’t know that I believe in that. I think you can make progress in collage. Or in integrating words and text. You can definitely made progress at drawing. But I don’t want to believe that there are standards for Getting Better at Keeping a Journal. I just don’t.

And here’s why I’m ranting: I’m pissed at myself. I nearly fell into the trap. Because I think keeping a journal is fun and useful and important, and because I’ve been doing it forever and am now On A Mission (although not, as were The Blues Brothers, On a Mission from God, alas) to get other people to carry around a journal, too, I’ve been writing about it a lot. And I’ve been checking out blogs and websites. So when someone invited me to write a blog post for an online publication (I’ll let you know more when I find out), I wrote about journaling. And then she asked for photographs. And slap me if I didn’t think all day yesterday about how I needed to Make Some Pages that were good enough to take photos of, and then have The EGE take photos of those.

I did. I obsessed about it. Just a tiny, tiny little bit.

What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that people are now used to seeing Art Journal Pages and have expectations of what those look like, and I didn’t want to show my usual pages because, well, those would be pretty half-assed, and people would think I was too lazy to do any good ones to show, and--

And this morning I went, “Holy fucking shit”—because I tend to cuss even more than usual when I’m pissed at myself—“I’m not going there.”

I’ve been keeping a journal forever, and it works just fine for me. I put stuff in it or I don’t. I write in it, or I don’t. I do something in it almost every single day, even if it’s just a to-do list. “Just” I say. Let’s not even go there: having a notebook for your to-do lists is every bit as important as having one filled with collages that took you 8 hours to create. Don’t believe me? Think about this: your to-do lists are Your Life. You can go back and read over them and see what was going on in your life, what you were working on and what you were doing, what was stressing you out and what was fun. A collage may or may not have any meaning at all for you in 5 or ten years. Even next week. I have to admit here that I’m not a fan of collages. If it makes someone happy to do them, great! But as a viewer? Well, it’s sure not as satisfying as looking at someone’s drawings. Or doodles or whatever. And the few collages I’ve done in my own notebook in the past? Don’t mean a thing to me. The to-do lists, though? I adore those: they tell me what was going on on a particular day, things I may have forgotten (snort) all about.
But there I was, thinking I needed to MAKE SOME so I could get photos of them to illustrate this post about why people should keep journals.

Fuck me.

I’m sorry, but that just pisses the hell out of me. I’m 52 years old, and I should know better. Right? Shouldn’t I? I should be way, way beyond even harboring the idea that there’s a certain way to do things like this (as opposed to, oh, a certain way to Do Grammar, or count ceiling tiles, for instance). I would have said I was.

But apparently not.

So. What did I do? I sent her the few photos I have, the ones I posted on my blog recently. And you’re going, “Which photos?” because you don’t remember seeing any publication-worthy Art Journal photos on my blog.

Exactly. They were just photos of just pages. There wasn’t a gel pen or acrylic paint involved anywhere.

And here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to start taking photos or scans of pages in my journal and showing them here. Meaning, of course, that I’m going to have to edit/disguise/hide the rants. Not that there’re a lot—I don’t rant much in my journal, ‘cause I have y’all! And I’ve learned it’s ever-so-much more fun to share a rant than to write it out on paper. But sometimes I do rant about people who seem intent on pissing me off, not that there are many of those in the world. Still. But I’m going to show you pages. You’ll no doubt look at them and go, “Huh. This is what she does? That’s all there is to it?” And that’s the point, exactly.

I realize it’s my job—My Captial-J Job—to show this stuff, these pages that are just pages. Nothing fancy. Nothing that takes me all day long to do. Nothing that’s ever going to be in a magazine or up on someone’s wall. Just what I do for fun, to keep me organized, to keep myself company. Because I want to keep y’all safe from The Journal Nazis. When they come to your door and ask to see your journal, I want you to say:

--Hell no. Get off my porch. And take Bill O’Reilly with you.

--Sure! I’d love to show you my journal, but leave your boots outside, and take off that tacky hat.

--I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours. And share some of those pens you’ve got there in your journal bag.

In short, I want you to say whatever you want and never, ever, EVER feel like whatever you do in your journal is less than or not as important as or silly or whatever. Even if it’s just grocery lists. Think—really stop and think—how much you’d love to have a daily to-do list and some grocery lists written in a notebook by your great-great-great grandmother or grandfather. In their own handwriting! On paper that’s gone all yellow and crinkly! Wouldn’t that be so cool? And so much better than a bunch of collages they put together from old magazines: the lists would tell you about their lives; the collages wouldn’t tell you much.

Not knocking collages! Don’t bitch at me! If that’s what you enjoy, go for it. But if the whole Art Journal Collage thing just baffles you, and if that’s what’s been keeping you from jumping into the whole Journal Thang, then, please, please: get a notebook. Make a list. Make another one tomorrow.

Come back, and I’ll start showing you mine. You can show yours, if you like. Spanks all ‘round.

What I’ve Been Doing

OK, so I showed you the table I painted last week. Here’s the chest of drawers that I did the next day.
That would have been Back When it Was Warm (in the 70s). It was 13 degrees last night. So:  no painting going on here. I think I’m finished for a while, anyway.

So, since there’s now orange in our bedroom, I had to get rid of these:


And so I re-used the stuffing to make these yesterday:

I think I need a couple more. Got to brave the frigidity and go dig around in the Fucking Edifice to see what other oranges and pinks I’ve got. Which reminds me that I need to order dye. And buy some more muslin. . . .
You can re-use old polyfil if it’s not dirty or skanky:  pull it out and then abuse it by pulling it apart to fluff it back up. Be sure to wear a dust mask when you do this—preferably outside. I did it inside and had to vacuum, but it worked great.

And then some gratuitous photos of Moe, aka Fat Moe, hanging out in the Voodoo Lounge.

OK, Now, Listen, People! About the Numbering.

I’ve just got to tell you, in case you haven’t figured it out just yet, that this whole Numbering of the Spanks Thing is going to be a bumpy, bumpy ride. Numbering and me? Well. Huh. It’s just not going to be pretty.

Here’s why:  in case you’ve somehow missed it—been buried on Pluto or something—I have OCD. Oh, I’m fine, never to worry:  no need to send condolences or fear for your children’s lives or anything. No. I’m pretty much recovered. Yes! But:  the way that happens is that you learn what works and what doesn’t. And for me? What doesn’t? Counting! Numbers, goddammit! I Do Not Count. Because, if you’re, oh, say, ME? What would appear to be a simple 1-2-3 to anyone else is the first fucking step down a long, long slippery slope.

I knew a man once, a normal-enough-seeming man, in a position of some authority, who had no idea he had OCD. None. I knew immediately, as soon as he told me this:  whenever he was in a room with acoustical ceiling tiles, he had to count the tiles. All of them, every line, every row. And then? Like if he were waiting for someone, for a meeting or something and had Some Time on his hands? Then he was forced—FORCED, I tell you!—to count the holes in every tile. Yes. And then—because he was A Math Person—he was forced (!) to figure out the average number of holes per tile, the average number of holes per row, per line, per square foot—ad nauseum. God help him if the other party never showed: he’d be subdividing the area and figuring for pi.

Or something. Obviously I don’t know shit about math.

But you get the idea:  some people with OCD wash. Some count. Some clean. Some check.

Me? Checking was my first love. Ah, yes. We still meet, now and then. Counting I’ve pretty much gotten over. Old crush. First love. And seeing as how I totally suck at math, there’s not much fun if you never get beyond the basics of pure counting.

Oh, that’s such a lie.  That I suck at math. I may suck NOW, but at one time, I had a Very Promising Future in Math. Fancy classes and all that. But I think I realized even back then that Math and I were going to have one of those torrid relationships where you give up your soul for love, where you sell your family into Gitmo just to double-check your figures. I remember nights when I was 11, checking and double-checking those figures, getting those 100’s, sliding into The Math Nerd Class and just being on the brink of OCD Math Hell.

Holy crap. I escaped purely by chance (we moved to California, where they didn’t, apparently, Do Math (they were a year behind, and it didn’t seem worth the trouble to put me in private school, although it was Discussed = Reprieve!)).

ANYWAY. So. I don’t do math. I don’t count things. When a friend of The EGE taught me to crochet, I was all happy until he told me I had to count stitches, and I said, “Oh, no. I Do Not Count.” And he snorted and said, “For crochet, you do.”

He was so wrong. I crocheted a blanket thing and a couple of scarves and a big, heavy bed thing, and I never, ever counted one single stitch. Never. Just to prove I didn’t have to.

Also to keep myself from going totally fucking nuts and counting the fibers in each strand of yarn and the seconds required for each stitch and the number of breaths for a row, and . . . .you get the idea.

And then I quit.

And then, years later, I had to crochet something else, just to prove I could. Someone who Knew Me Well didn’t believe that I, Who Do Not Count, had ever learned to crochet.

Ha.

I hate the crochet. It sucks the big winkie.

So what I’m saying here is this:  if it’s important to you that the Journal Spanks be numbered in sequential order, that I not skip any and that I get them all right, then, um, you’re going to have to do it yourself. The numbering. Just put a bunch of numbers in a bowl and pull out whichever one seems right to you. Because I’m hanging on by my fingernails here:  we’re still in the single digits, so there’s still hope; and , in fact, I thought I was doing an excellent job until someone mentioned it. But once we move on past #10? Oh, honeys:  all bets are off. I’ll do my best, but the numbers? They are on their own. Feel free to supply numbers of your own choosing. Make some up! Invent a new system! I’ll be fine with it. Promise.

Technorati Tags: journal spank,counting,OCD

Big Fun for You: Another Journal Spank, If You Like. That Would Be, umm, #7. Or Something. . . .

Ohhh, Jodi Creager (take some time to check out their fabulous work!) just sent me this site that lets you take regular photos and, with just the click of a button, convert them into vintage-y (!) old black and white ones—ever so much better than the results I can get in Photoshop Elements. Check it out:

The original:


Altered:

Cool, huh?

Go here.
One thing Jodi says to do:  rather than clicking the SAVE button, right-click your photo and pick a place to save it. She says the SAVE button will hide it someplace where you have to hunt for it.

Other than that? No trouble, no glitches, just Big Fun. Go play!

And if you would, drop by here and thank Jodi for sharing. Sheesh—that woman needs to clone herself so she has time to post more often, don’t you think?

Journal Spank #7—Dress Up That Blank Cover

As y’all know, I’ve become obsessed with Moleskine sketchbooks. I love these, and I’m going through one a month—I love the neatness of having a book for every month. In my typical obsessive way, I’ve stockpiled enough for 2009. “Of course you have,” you’re muttering to yourself.

Be kind. I’ve had a shitty morning. Roland, my computer, decided not to recognize any of the removable storage device drives. “Who the fuck are they?” he snorted. This has happened once before, and it had an easy solution. Only: who in the hell can remember what it was? Oh, my. So I had to contact tech support, bitching and grumbling. And after waiting for—oh, shit: I’ve got to go eat breakfast; I’ll be back--

OK. Jesus. It’s almost noon, and I forgot, once again, to eat The Most Important Meal of the Day. Esp. for people like me: it’s full of fiber and some protein and whole grains and stuff, and with some grapes, it’s pretty much vital. And here in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been forgetting it. I’ve got some rearranging of priorities I need to do, obviously.

ANYWAY! So after waiting for eons to connect with the tech guy, I get one; and he comes on and asks a bunch of questions about the computer and shit and then tells me a connection on the motherboard has come loose and that I’ll have to re-seat it. And I tell him no, no, that’s not it. That this happened once before and was easily fixed BY ME, only I can’t remember what I did. He insists I go and read this document, and there, buried in the middle is this: turn off the computer. Unplug it. Press the on/off button for 5 seconds. Plug in. Turn back on.

And of course that was what I couldn’t remember. So then I went in and made a folder for my desktop. It’s labeled “Shit You Can’t Remember But Need to Know.” And I put that in there, plus a doc. about “Why You Can’t Walk on the Treadmill” (because I start back on the treadmill, and then my neck and hip go nuts on me; and I quit, and then six months later I think, “Now why was it that I quit? I know it was because something hurt, but what? And how badly, really?” And so I start again, and because I always have about a million things in my head, I don’t think about it—I just walk on the treadmill when I’m at the gym and then don’t connect that with the pain.

Sheesh.

Oh, wait. You came here for a Spank, didn’t you? Sorry.

So. Moleskine covers are not exactly the most lovely of things. Not if you like any color at all. Maybe your journal is ugly, too.

When I first started using these, I painted the covers: a coat of gesso, several coats of Lumiere, a couple of coats of matte gel medium.

Then, in December, I used some cool hand-marbled paper I’d had forever. I love this. It’s the one at the top:

This month I used another piece of art paper, a really cool heavy crinkled metallic gold, the one on the left at the bottom. But the matte medium took all the shine away. I smeared on some Pearl Ex powder to try to bling it up a little, with not much luck.


So, last week, when I painted those drawers? Some of them were lined with paper my mother had put in there when they were at her house, at least 20 years ago. Most of it was wrapping paper from birthday gifts she’d given me. I threw most of it away—it was pastels, muted colors. But then there was this fabulous metallic paper, in great colors. It was ancient and kind of frail, so I wadded it up and carefully smoothed it out, and this morning I glued it to next month’s sketchbook with Mod Podge.
It’s time for the next step, as soon as I post this. I bought some gloss gel medium, so this time the shine will remain.

Tip: the elastic strap on the back of the Moleskine? I cover it with masking tape, two pieces with the elastic sandwiched between them, when I’m gluing. It keeps the elastic from getting all stiff with glue and paint.

Another Journal Spank. (#6, Maybe?)

What kinds of things other than your paper journal could be A Journal? Y’all know I’ve done a lot of journal garments, which you can see here and here. But today Aimee, at Artsyville, posted fabulous photos of a journal t-shirt that I just love. Go take a look here. Man, she can DRAW and stuff!

A while back I saw a post on someone’s blog where they’d journaled on their actual sheets, on their actual bed. White sheets and a Sharpie. Wow—it was way cool.

Think tablecloth, napkins, aprons, t-shirts, tennis shoes, bags, sheets, socks. Wow.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Most peaceful and joyous blessings for a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!

Journal Spank #5—Exploring a Color

Geez, I hope it’s #5. I can see already that the whole Numbering Thang is going to be a pain in the butt.

Today I want you to explore a color. Pick a color, any color. As you go through the day (or several days—there aren’t any rules here), try these:

1) Find all the Mark-Making Tools in that color. Gather them up and make some marks with them. But wait! Not just pens and pencils, but other stuff, too. Let’s say you’re me (aieeeeee!), and you pick Orange. You’ll make marks on your pages with your orange pen and pencils and crayons, sure. But maybe someone in your house has an orange lipstick. What about orange Jell-O? Remember Candy Jernigan? Make smears of orange juice and cheetos and that fake cheese from your Big Mac. (You might want to cover your food smears with clear packing tape. Or maybe not. I, of course, would have to do that. Probably with several layers of tape. Maybe staples around the edges. . . .I might have to figure out a way to seal that page in a plastic bag or something.)

2) Tear out all the ads and fashion spreads and home dec layouts from magazines that feature Orange. Glue these torn pages onto the pages of your journal for a background.

3) If you’re out and about, stop by the home improvement store and pick up paint samples in your color. If it’s a color in which they make cabinets, pick up some of those little chips, too. It’s OK—if you love this color enough, you really might want to get cabinets and a couple gallons of paint in these shades for your next big Home Project.

4) Take photos of things in this color. If you’re one of those people who actually owns the Polaroid Pogo (and the rest of us hate you), shoot and print those sticky-backed little photos and pop them right on the page, right there. (The rest of us will take a bunch of photos and print when we get home, on our Dinosaur Printers.) Think photos of orange umbrellas, those burnt-orange cars and trucks, signs, the photo over the fruit section at the grocery store, shoes in the kids’ department. If I can rattle off that many things in orange, think how easy it will be if you choose, oh, red. Or yellow. Or blue. Whoa: buy more photo paper!

5) Then write about what associations this color has for you. I think of those gummy orange slices that stick in your teeth, and Tang, which my husband loves (mixed with tea). My hair and toenails and Former Vehicle (now his). Monks’ robes. The setting sun. And I think about what a happy color it is, never associated with scary stuff or danger. And I write about that—about a color that, at least for me, has only positive associations. And how you don’t see it nearly enough. Unless, of course, you’re in my house. In which case it’s fucking Everywhere.

6) Finish by finding one thing in that color that you love. An orange. A pair of shoes. A cool pen. A bottle of nail polish (Sally’s Beauty Supply). Set it where you can see it and admire how lovely it is.

(And notice how I didn’t tell you to draw anything. But you’re going to be inspired to do that anyway, right?)

Have Fun! Report back!

This Week's Give-Away: Moleskine Volant

Whether or not you have a journal that you carry with you everywhere (and the Correct Answer, boys and girls? "Yes, I do, of course!"), you sometimes need something smaller and more portable. Something you can slip into a pocket. I love these little notebooks by Moleskine: they're tiny, they're neat, and--best of all!--they're colorful. The package I'm offering this week is Green--light and slightly-not-so-light. Set of two, 2.5" x 4" (very portable!), ruled pages. Just generally groovy in every way.

Tell us what you'd do with such a tiny notebook and when you'd use it instead of your Real Notebook. Or whatever strikes your fancy.

As always, check back on Friday (but of course you'll be back before then--you wouldn't want to miss any spanks or anything)--

This Made My Whole Day: Fabulous No-Kill Cat Shelter

To find out more, go here. Man, if this doesn’t make you smile. . . .

Journal Spank: Something Really Easy to Draw, I Promise!

I’ve done most of the hard work for you, OK? I simplified this and cropped it and everything, so even if you’re whinging at me, “I can’t draw! Whiiiiiiine. . . .” you CAN do this.

(Click to embiggen.)

Grab your journal and your Mark Making Tool of Choice and have fun. Add color! Add texture! Add happy faces!

Tell us where we can see the results if you’re inclined to share. If not, that’s fine, too.

Journal Spank for Your Saturday: Page Tabs

Three of my favorite things in the world:  Art supplies. School supplies. Office supplies. So of course the whole Journal Thang is just a perfect excuse to have a bunch of all of those, right? Except, as I get older, I don’t really want to buy more stuff. I have enough Stuff to last me the rest of my life.

But. You know.

I like to have page tabs in my journal so I can find various lists—lists of projects, lists of ideas, lists of things I want to blog about (about which. . . dammit). I had these cool colorful tabs from years ago and thought it would be fun to stamp the titles on them with Ancient Page permanent ink. But it didn’t want to dry—even after I let it dry for a while and then blotted it, it smeared. And not only did it smear, but when the ink came off, the color came off, too:

This would be kind of cool, but you know that smear-y ink would drive me NUTS. I threw the whole mess in the recycling bin.

Then yesterday, when I was in the shower, I had A Brilliant Idea. Isn’t that where you get all your brilliant ideas, too? I realized I could make page tabs out of any kind of paper I wanted:  run it through the Xyron machine, cut out the tab, write or stamp on it, and voilà!

So let’s do it, shall we? First you’re going to make your pattern. I stuck the tab on some chipboard.

Cut it out.

Run your paper through your Xyron machine (you don’t have to have a Xyron machine; you can make tabs and then use a glue stick—no big deal. I’m not ho-in’ for Xyron here).

Trace around your pattern. I used a Sharpie and traced on the back side.

Cut them out.

Score them where you want to fold them in half—I have trouble folding tabs when they’re not scored. I used a metal straight-edge and a bone folder.

Peel off the backing, press in place, and voilà, again! Yours, of course, will not be crooked like mine.

 

OK. You do not, of course, have go make these tab shaped. You can make half circles, or rectangles, or any odd, random shape. You can print them on your computer before you cut them out—run the paper through your printer and then through your Xyron. The possibilities are endless, and you can make tabs for everything—sketches, to-do lists, daily tabs, monthly tabs.

Go. Have fun!