I use to be an Art Chick

12" x 12" Scrapbook Page

I've thought about doing a page about being an art student for a while. This summer my son, Ian, took a couple of art classes at Tyler School of Art. That's where my husband and I met (and fell in love). Being back on campus brought back a flood of memories. How wonderful it would have been to have had a digital camera back then. Even though my husband, John, graduated with a photography degree, we don't have many photos of our time at school. Film was expensive.

This page took a few days to work out the layout and figure out how to add all the details I wanted. It fell into place when I decided to make a mini paper portfolio to hold photos of the paintings I had in my BFA show and I made a mini sketch book (I even stitched the pages together) to hold pictures of the campus. We took the campus photos on my son's last day at his classes. Link to the Pencilfish blog to see Ian's summer art work.

I feel older (like exactly twice as old) and a bit sad that Tyler will be moving to it's new location in the Spring. We overheard the instructors say the new building is gorgeous. We hope to go to an open house to see it this fall.

Going for the Gold

This is a Bulletin Board I did for Summer School (I added Copper Beech CARES so it could be used when school resumed this fall). Students that were chosen for exemplifying that week's character trait (responsibility, attitude, etc.) had their photo added to board. Since this is the year for the Summer Olympics we based the Summer incentive program on that.

Groovy Uncle Brian, Thanks for the cool shirts!

12" x 12" scrapbook pages. My brother-n-law, Brian, gave the boys their groovy tie-dyed shirts. The buddha card was a birthday card I received from his wife, my sister-n-law, Kristin. I wanted to add beads to the layout and found in my craft supplies one of the necklaces the boys are wearing in the photos. My friend, Lisa, had given me the beads years ago.

Carolyn Sketch

My friend, Carolyn, invited me over to sketch her. I did this a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed catching up with her (she had just been to Paris) and was pleased to have this drawing at the end of the evening. I had a lot of fun.

super cute wonderful

12" x 12" scrapbook page. This is one of my favorite photos from when my sons were little. "Super ____ Wonderful" has been a phrase stuck in my head since looking at cute craft sites or books from Japan. I did a wall design for the library based on it too:

remember this

12" X 12 " scrapbook page. I find the memories I have that aren't just from photos are the times I actually stopped myself long enough to tell myself to remember that particular moment. I wish I could remember more than I do but it all went by in a blur.

Profile Sketches of Sons

One night last month I sketched my son, Zach, while we watched TV. The next night I sketched my other son, Ian.

Rings

I bought an Opti-Art ring kit by Creativity Kits. Here are some of the rings I made a few weeks ago.

Eeek!

12" x 12" scrapbook page. We had a mouse named Teensie a while back. One day I decided to take pictures of the boys with him. Not sure why they posed with the mouse on their heads but I'm glad they did. This layout comes closest to what I want my pages to feel like.

Our {2} Sons

12" x 12" scrapbook page. Our sons were born 7 weeks early. I don't have the typical mom with her just born baby photos. The boys were rushed away to the neo-natal unit. The nurses were kind enough to take some polaroids of their first day. That is one of the nurses holding them. I did a two page layout using polaroids of them in their incubators but the photos are a bit disturbing so I'd rather not post them for all to see. We all made it through OK.

Wildwood 2003

12" x 12" scrapbook pages. We took an impromptu trip the beach overnight and had a great time.

Snowmen

12" x 12" scrapbook page. This was my first attempt at scrapbooking. My sons enjoying the snow when they were younger.

So Fabulous

12" x 12" scrapbook page. My nieces won their hats at the annual town festival. Yes, I have twin boys and my sister had twin girls. I did this page recently but the picture is from a few years back. I wish I'd written the info on back of the photo because I might have mixed up the names (forgive me girls).

Has anyone seen the cat?

8 1/2" x 8 1/2" scrapbook page. Our cat, Zero, has occasionally gotten sandwiched between the front door and screen door and on this day got himself stuck between the bathroom window screen and shutters.

Daily Journal 2007 & Weekly Journal 2008 examples

Here's an example page from the daily journal I kept last year (1/20/07-1/19/08 to be exact):



For my weekly journal I created a page to keep notes on each day so when I have time to create the layout I'll remember what happened all week.



The above pages were done digitally.

Welcome to my blog.

I want to make stuff. Lots of stuff. I hope this blog will be an incentive to be more productive. As I post what I make, I will be sharing some of my life but I am a private person and want the focus of this blog to be about my creative journey.

For years I've been collecting scrapbooking supplies. I've done some pages but I am really inspired by all the distressed and grungy papers and gorgeous embellishments available now. How can one resist? As my children get older I am feeling compelled to preserve my memories of them. I have a lot of catching up to do. I would also like to do a scrapbook of my husband and I before we had kids (which seems like someone else's life).

I regret that we didn't have a digital camera when my children were little. I have very few photos of my life in college or even of my childhood.

Last year I bought Scrapbook factory deluxe 3.0 and challenged myself to create a journal page a day for a year. I did it! It recorded the mundane events of my day. This year I plan to keep a weekly digital journal. I felt it was a good creative exercise for me. However, it was time consuming and I missed making "real" things. This year I want to make actual scrapbook pages (perhaps some digital embellishment might occur). I want to sew toys and home decorations. I want to do some crocheting. I want to make jewelry. I want to make handmade books. I want to make garden decorations. Most important I want to make stuff for me. I can get bogged down with a lot of self imposed "must make this for someone else" stuff. Sometimes I feel selfish if I'm just making something for myself.

I hope as this blog grows I'll have a collection of work I'm proud of.