This Is What I Do: Create

No, it wasn't. It called for coral, mint green and kraft brown. It also wanted us to draw a face or part of a face. It didn't specify that it had to be a human face, however. I considered a lion or a tiger, but settled for a human face. The prompt also had 5 words to choose from. I chose "root(s)."  I scraped the coral paint on the paper with a scraper. My mint green didn't turn out very well, but, hey, who really cares? It's the creativity that counts, right? I made several attempts with the face, finally coming up with one that I sorta cheated on and traced on with graphite paper!  I stamped on the tree in black and added kraft leaves. IN the grand scheme of life, do any of us today really know where our roots come from? As a man of faith, I know mine came from the house of David, but that's really stretching it a long way. So, I used the tree to represent roots, and family. All in all, it was not my best work, but as it turned out, I like it better e...

My good friend, Curley has a birthday today. I won't tell you how she is, but she repeating 39 again! Of course, I had to make her a card and since she already has opened it earlier when we went out for lunch (Mexican food, yay!) and then went to our knit and crochet group at the local senior center, I can reveal it now. I used two sets of Thinlet dies from Tim Holtz for the background and butterflies. The background and the orange on the butterflies is from some "watercolor" cardstock from Walmart. The black on the butterflies is a metallic bronze heavy cardstock. I mounted it on a black cardstock then attached the whole thing to a white card base. Happy Birthday, Curley. I hope your day was wonderful. Blessed to call you my friend!!  Happy 39...again!  (( Hugs)) Until next time, Go! Create Something! JF

This morning the phone rang and I almost let it go to voice mail. I was "making art."  I answered it not remembering whose number it was that didn't show up in my contact list. A lady from church. She had just gotten back from a winter in Florida and wanted to convey her sympathy about the loss of my brother. And she wanted to sign me up for an obligation at church. The first question she asked me was what I was doing. I told her I was "making art." I don't think she got it!!  15 minutes later, a cuppa later, I was off the phone and back to my work table. I hadn't art journaled for a while, so I finished up this journal page,which I made into a greeting card. Then I worked on this card front for a good friend's birthday. I stamped the music on the card base with water resistant ink and a 6"x6" music stamp from Gina K designs. The birds were all from a set of stamps from a foreign company that I cannot remember. I stamped them on hand...

Yes, I have been busy creating. And reading, and doing all the other stuff it takes to run a household alone. As usual, I am behind on laundry(my least favorite household chore.) But to heck with that stuff if the creative juices are flowing. I made my two granddaughters, ages 10 and 2 these hats for Easter. Yes, I crocheted them, and made all the flowers, too. I hope they like them. Those of you who read my blog know that I watch and admire artist Mike Deakin of Mike Deakin Art. I get a lot of ideas and inspiration from him. I even sometimes ( probably more than I realize) try to incorporate his ideas into my own art work. I watched him create ATCs the other day and tried his idea using the supplies I had. I made the following ATCs and a card. I didn't have a honeycomb stencil, but I had a die from a Tim Holtz collection, so I made my own stencil using my Big Kick die cut machine and a piece of acetate. It worked! Here's what I came up with. I needed another birth...

Big discussion thread on my favorite Youtube channel today was about selling or giving our art work. The thread got started by the leader of the channel who does a home-based business. She is a wonderful artist and crafter and does at least 3 videos a week, has her own "preferred products" line on Amazon, and has almost a half million subscribers to her Youtube channel. Yet, she admits that she doesn't always like the pressure of "having" to be creative all the time. She talked about when she had a studio in her town and had small children and the pressures. She also talked about going to craft shows where she taught. The pressure of planning lessons, making sure she had the supplies, etc. She said that sometimes she just wants to sit in her living room, have a cuppa and draw, paint, knit , etc without pressure to video it, or "put it out there." She advised her followers that it's okay to just create for ourselves, not to feel pressure to sell wha...