Category : Creativity

622 posts

T Tuesday: Christmas is coming edition

The countdown is on. Christmas will be here before we know it! AHHH! Who had all their shopping done? Nope, not me. And we have a couple birthdays on either side of Christmas too. WHEW…the pressure.

In reality, I’m not super stressed at all. It all seems to work itself out. I do enjoy gift giving…just more the spontaneous gift giving than the obligatory. Such as I got a sweet gift from a coworker completely unexpectedly. I had complemented her a  her bag and she told me she’d picked it up in the dollar spot at Target( not affiliation). A couple days later she brought me my very own matching bag!

I like to try to make some gifts…or make gifts for others to give. I was working on a new item I saw a while ago and have wanted to give a whirl. I got all my pieces cut and ready then ….

this happened.

Totally not getting anything done. That’s ok because I was still recovering from the weirdest illness I’ve had in recent years. Sore throat, stuff nose, icky tummy and wicked dizziness…like hardly able to walk dizzy. Mini-me got it first then me then Mr. G. Thankfully it only lasted a day.

Back to the craftiness…

I made microwave bowl cozies. No more burned fingers. They are microwavable, reversible, washable and downright handy.

Our school is having another craft sale week long this year.  Its really fun to see what co-workers like to create in their leisure time.I brought some of my old etsy and craft sale stock as well as the new product that I’m trying out. Frankly I don’t care if the bowl cozies sell because I can give them as gifts.

On other news…my December Daily is ready to go. I will share it in another post. I’m really excited about this project. I keep tucking bits of this and that away each day to slip into my journal. It will be super fun to look back on in the coming years. I still pull out the book I made from my calendar project of 2014.

The cold weather has me sipping on tea everyday…both to keep the chill off and to sooth my sore throat.

T stands for Tuesday
What are you doing today?

| |

, , ,

11 Comments

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?

| | | |

, , , , , ,

13 Comments

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

| |

, , , , ,

4 Comments

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.

| | |

, , ,

4 Comments

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??

|

, , , , ,

14 Comments

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.

| |

, , , , , ,

5 Comments

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

|

,

17 Comments

PAGE TOP

© 2007-2024 Halle's Hobbies All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright