Author : halleday

1729 posts

T Tuesday: thankful edition

Welcome to T stands for Tuesday where we share a little about whatever the heck we want along with our beverage of choice. Pretty easy rules, right?!? Here’s my adherence to the rules…

Since I am finishing up my extended break from work….6 days off… Woohoo!…. I thought I’d share a few highlights.

Wednesday evening, Mini-me and I went to MOA (Mall of America) not to shop but to pick up J.  So cool that he can take the bus right from campus to home…or relatively close.

Thursday, we enjoyed a lovely meal at my in-laws. I brought the stuffing aka: dressing as it is unstuffed. I wrapped the dutch oven in newspaper and towels just like my parents taught me when I was a kid.Later my BIL followed us home to extend our visit a bit. We hadn’t seen any family in a couple months which is sad when we are only about 20 minutes drive from one another.

Friday, we decorated for Christmas….it’s our tradition to decorate the day after Thanksgiving. No Black Friday shopping for us. Only twice in my life have I braved that chaos. No thank you!

Saturday was so quiet I can’t even remember what we did…or didn’t do.

Sunday Mini me and I made the first batch of lefse of the season. So yummy.  Of course, later In the day Mr. G and I had to deliver J back to MOA to catch the bus back to college.  Just a few short weeks and we’ll be driving up north to get him for winter break.

Monday I spent going through some totes in the storage room. I was able to reorganize and purge enough stuff that I have one completely empty tote. Mini-me and I brought a pile of stuff to Goodwill to donate. They always give a 25% off coupon when you donate…so of course we went in to see what they had. Mini-me found some yarn…she’s requesting another cowl.

I did manage to work on some creative pursuits as well during this long break.  You can check out the previous two posts for my vintage linen remake and art journal page. I also continued work on my personal journal and completed my December Daily journal. It’s all ready to go! I’m thinking I’ll do a video with a flip through perhaps. It has WAY too many pages for photos. WAY more than I need but hey…I’m still learning with this process.

The current experiment is rose gold tint for Mini-me

She’s been trying little bits of it all through the break but tonight decided to go all in. I helped her spray it in damp hair…now she’s waiting to rinse.

I think it will be fun regardless. Besides…it’s temporary. When I go, I go all in with the pink hair…permanent style.

Tuesday is back to reality for everyone.  All good things come to an end. I do really like my job, so its not all bad. I just miss my free time. My mini-me time. Gosh, it’s going to be really hard when she goes off to college. *sniff*

 

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today?

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We flew

Lately most of my time has been spent creating journals, writing in them or thinking about them…but not art journals.

I tend to do this…I get completely obsessed with one thing and virtually abandon the rest for a time. Art journals and mixed media always find there way back to me. They are my true calling.

Today though I knew I wanted to art journal. I started out with some dress pattern paper and gelatos for that lovely aged yellow color. I added bits of torn fabric and papers in opposite corners of my spread. I then added some red and gold with a variety of sprays and golden paints.

After that I wasn’t really sure other than I thought I needed another color…something contrasting. I came across a tattered book mark in my stash. The colors of the flowers matched perfectly and the blue gave that contrasting color I was looking for.

After I decided on the wooden bird for the opposite page I dug out my sealing wax just for fun. I haven’t use it in ages. My cousin and I got little sets back in the early 1980’s when we were girls and wrote letters to each other. I still have my set and a few more seals that I’ve picked up over the years just because they are pretty and kind of a unique thing to come across at a rummage sale.

I happened to find a journal tag that was the right color blue to act as a perch for my bird. The words we flew jumped out at me from my box of found text. I thought a bit of loopy thread gave some nice texture and was a bit reminiscent of a nest.

The tag looked a little boring so I used a bit of distress ink on a script stamp for a little more vintage feel. I didn’t have a brad the right color so I dipped a white one in paint then sprinkled with baking soda. once it dried It had a nice muted appearance in just the right color.

I’m super happy that I gave in to my impulse and got creative today.

Linking up with Art Journal Journey for Vintage or Modern

Art Journal Journey

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Vintage linen remake

I have so many vintage linens squirreled away in boxes. It’s really a shame. Lately I’ve been thinking about purging some things especially things that no longer bring me joy. My trouble is that I have a hard time parting with some of these vintage pieces. I’m beginning my journey of letting go by cutting up the stained and tattered ones first because in reality…who’s going to want them other than me for sentimental value.

These pieces were just waiting for an opportunity to come together.

I’ve added the completed piece to enhance my laundry room decor.

I think perhaps this is a good first step in letting go by being able to hold onto a little piece…if that even makes sense.

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T Tuesday: tea and coffee edition

Hello and welcome to another edition of T Stands for Tuesday.

Over the past week or so I’ve been pulling together papers from my stash to begin the process of creating my December Daily journal.

I also dug out a set of book covers I’d been saving for just the right project. I wish that I hadn’t discarded the spine…although it may have been in bad shape. Oh well…I’ll find a way to make it work for me.

Originally I was thinking that I’d use crisp bright colors for my journal, however I discovered that the vast majority of my papers were one sided prints. This is fine in some ways but left A LOT of blank white pages. Yes, I know…journal…but I like having color and pattern to break things up a bit. Besides…plain white pages are intimidating.

I decided while cleaning the coffee pot (because I can’t seem to do just one thing at a time lately) that it would be a good time to do a bit of tea dyeing of some paper. I really wanted to tone down that white and give a more cohesive look to the journal.

After soaking the papers in the tea solution I baked them in the oven. Yep…Mr. G came in from the garage…asked me what I was doing. “I’m baking paper.” He shook his head and told me that he was going to pretend he didn’t hear me. I chuckled to myself thinking about the fact that I’d be ironing them too.

I wasn’t happy with the level of aging from just the tea staining. I added some instant coffee to the mix which definitely did the trick. My papers where a lovely shade of brown…perfectly aged.

Would you like to know the most important thing I learned through this process? Caffeine absorbs through the skin. I spent about an hour with my hands in and out of the tea/coffee water. I didn’t think a thing about it until I realized about 100 pages into the book I was reading in bed that I wasn’t a bit tired.

Not….one….tiny….bit.

Typically I can get through about 10 pages before my eyes start to slam shut and I read the same paragraph over and over. Nope not Saturday night. I read the entire book. Seriously…the whole dang book. Finally I got up and took some Benadryl to make me sleepy…even though I knew I’d have the dreaded brain fog the next morning.

So let this be a public service announcement to all of you…wear water proof gloves of some sort!!

Sticking with my caffeine induced post…Mr. G bought me some coffee beer. 

It was pretty good. Just one though. Definitely not one I could drink more than one in an evening…or even in a week. That 4 pack will last a while.

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today??

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A secret society

I got my vintage vibe back today. I really felt like art journalling. Getting paint covered fingers and messy grungy pages was all I could think about.

I didn’t really give a whole lot of for thought other than wanting to use some really watered down sprays so show off the texture I was going to create.texture on art journal page

In the end I used gelatos and water color crayons as well to add the depth of color I sought.

I layered strips of yellow and blue scraps on both sides of the spread before adding the first layers of color sprays. Layer upon layer until I got the look I desired.  After I found this woman on a pattern envelope I knew she needed something sort of snarky to say. She just had that look about her.Then this image from one of the Reader Digest books I tore apart magically appeared. Well not magic but darn close…it was basically the first image I saw in the stack. 

 From where I’m sitting it looks to me like a secret society

Yep…in those days the ‘good old boys club’ pretty much was a secret society to women.

 

Art Journal Journey
Linking up to with Art Journal Journey for this months theme for Vintage or Modern.

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T Tuesday: full ♡ edition

This past weekend was one that filled my heart. J came home on Wednesday night for the first time in 2.5 months. It was really great to have him at home again. He left again Sunday afternoon but Thanksgiving really isn’t that far away. 

Then Mini-me and I shared a little treat together before heading off to the mall. We were both in search of shoes. While we were there I asked her if she wanted to go to Barnes & Noble to see if her magazine was on the shelf.

It sure was! Her look of glee was priceless! She had already gotten her complementary copy but seeing it on the shelf makes it even more real. Here she is taking a photo to send to her friends. It’s so funny that the girl pictured along with Mini-me’s words happens to look A LOT like her from behind. Crazy coincidence since the publishers didn’t know what she looked like. 

The magazine was featured as one of the Trending magazines on the newsstand. How cool is that!?! I’m so proud of her.

I’m still plugging away at my new journal. I decided to gut the rest of these books since they really aren’t good for anything but fodder for other projects. 

After removing the text block I go through and remove any images for future use. It seems the older the copy, the more images I like. 

This book was just too pretty for me to gut yet. The cover makes me think of mid-century bark cloth. So pretty.

I’m thinking about putting together a December Daily journal. Over the last few years I’ve noticed some posts and social media chatter about them but figured it wasn’t my thing. Now I’m thinking about giving it a whirl. Now that I’ve figured out the multi-picture prints on one print..(I’ll have to do a tutorial)…I think that I might be able to keep up with both words and photos throughout the season.

Have you ever played along with December Daily?

T stands for Tuesday

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T Tuesday: Twin Ports edition

Last week was a 3 day workweek for me. Schools in MN have a long MEA (Minnesota Education Assocation) weekend off of school. Most families use this 4 day weekend to get away from it all before winter hits in full force. We used part of our weekend to visit J at college for parent weekend.

Even though we’ve been to the Twin Ports area loads of times, this time I decided to play tourist a little more since we were exploring more than just Canal Park In Duluth, MN.

I loved the old signs on this building in Superior, WI.

Some of you know this but others don’t….I HATE BRIDGES. No seriously…its a problem. Near phobia status. And there are two big ones that we use to cross back and forth from MN to WI. 

I honestly kept myself busy snapping photos with my photo so I wouldn’t have to think too hard about the fact that we were on a super long bridge high above the water or land depending on what part of the bridges. ICK!!!! Gives me goose bumps.

After we had crossed the dreaded bridge for the third time we stopped and had a drink and appetizers at a local bar. I had a darn good Bloody Mary with beer chaser. The chaser is called a snit around here.

It was a nice weekend although it was cold and windy. But not as windy as it had been about 10 days before that. A crazy storm whipped up and there were gale force winds hitting the harbor.

This is an old photo for reference of the flooded walkway.

Check out this video…

Isn’t that crazy!! It’s weather like that that the Edmund Fitzgerald (made famous by Gordon Lightfoot in his song Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) went down in.  Speaking of crazy…J and his buddies decided it would be really fun to go down to Canal Park since they heard it was flooding. The wind and waves weren’t quite as bad but the canal was still flooded at the time. The invincible 18 yr olds went and stood in the knee deep flooded canal walkway while the snow came down sideways. Thankfully all was fine and I didn’t see any of these crazy videos until morning.  Grey hairs people….grey.

I did a bunch of journal writing about this event. I saw the most amazing photo on FB of a wave crashing against the North Pier lighthouse by Charles Howard Smith.

I’ve created a few more pages that are more personal. In addition I got my title page done.

I’ll add then end date when I feel I’m done. I’ve started adding smaller photos to my journal for visuals as well. I’ve started resizing several images to fit on a standard photo print. It’s cheaper to print and better quality than printer ink on paper in my opinion.

See how I’m able to get many small images on a 4×6 print. This way I can add a little image without taking up an entire page in the journal.

I’ll be doing more of these type for sure. I’m loving how this is evolving for me.

T stands for Tuesday
Work and raking on are the agenda for me…
What are you doing today?

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