A sewing class ??

Yes, it's true I did sign up for a sewing
class even with my very limited sewing skills I was able to produce this.
I have been eyeing up this class since the beginning of December but was not sure whether or not I could do it as really my sewing skills are less than beginner level. I kept looking though at the class
description and saw some people who are teachers in the art world were taking this class just go on and on about how great it was. Finally I contacted the teacher of the class Mary Ann Moss and got some great encouragement. She sent me to someone else's blog who claimed to have the same kind of sewing skills as me and she did a great job making her journal. So I bit the bullet and signed up. As I do not sew I really did not have any fabric scraps so went out and got some fabrics I liked and started the project.

So this is the journal ready to be filled. I did have a few
little mistakes along the way but I am lucky that my
husband can sew better than me and came and helped
me and encouraged me to continue.

I have now got to make the inside pages for it and then
sew those in, it may take a while as I have to watch more
of the great video's that Mary put together for this class.
If you want more information on it go to Mary's blog and
look on the right side of the screen for "Remains of the
day" information.

If you have lots of scrap papers, fabrics, trims, ephemera
etc then this journal is for you. From what I have seen in
our Flickr group the rest of this project promises to be fun
as we get to use up all of those scraps to assemble the journal.

Just Playing...

I feel like I have been missing in action lately. I seem to
have discovered Youtube !

I have been watching a lot of art journaling videos and
other technique videos for types of art that I am
interested in. I stumbled across a lady who has lots of
art journaling videos and she is so relaxing to watch
that I have lost track of time.
Anyway if anyone is interested in art journaling her name
is Milliande, just go here and you will see the amount of
videos she has out there.

So today I decided to try some things out, this is unusual
for me as usually when I go to my corner of the bedroom
that is my scrap/stamp/art area I am going in to work on
something specific.
Last night I painted some circles on canvas and then
today after cutting them out did some stamping and
distressing on them. I am not sure if I am happy with
them or not but enjoyed trying something new.
I also tried using some book pages and spraying with
Glimmer mist to make some flowers. Now I do not use
a lot of flowers so really do not know why I made them
but I enjoyed the process and that is what counts, right ??

I am really interested in trying new forms of art and have
not really done much scrapbooking for quite a while now.
I still love all there is about scrapbooking but I think that
trying other things is what is calling to me right now.

Bind-it-all, love it or hate it ???

I would love to use my Bind-it-all more if I did not hate
it so much !

First of all if you want to make anything that involves
punching more than one lot of holes it takes a while
to plan it out. You have to make sure you are holding
it really well so that your holes do not start to get
closer to the edge on your second set of punches.
So I have figured all that out and can punch
reasonably well now :)

My problem is that I can never bind my books so that the
wire is a nice round circle, there is always a little pointy
bit somewhere.

I have tried binding fast, binding slow read the very basic
directions over and over, even watched video's on it but
for the life of me I cannot get nice smooth round wires.
So if there is anyone out there willing to share their
binding secrets I would love to know them.

By the way the book above I just did today. I have been
wanting to make a small book documenting my son's
journey from getting his learners permit to getting
his driver's license.

New year, new journeys...

Everyone is excited to welcome this year, 2010, the start
of a new decade. A chance to start anew and make some
goals. I don't usually do New Year's resolutions as it
seems a way to set yourself up for failure.
This year though I need to make some new goals

for myself. First of all I would like to get fitter and
healthier, this is a hard task for someone who
absolutely hates exercise :)

I really do need to improve my fitness so will be trying to
figure out how to achieve that in the next week.

I have joined the  Art Journal Caravan to explore more
ways of being creative other than scrapbooking.
I am very excited about having this to do all year as
well as a couple of art retreats that I am going to attend
this year.

Also I am going to have to prepare myself for the fact
that my oldest is going to be going to college in a year
and a half, aarghh ! I miss him already :(

I am going to be watching with interest Heidi Swapp's live
webcast tomorrow night as she is all about setting goals
for the year with a new class that will be online.
I am very excited for the coming year and hope that
I will have success in the areas I am looking to improve.

Happy New Year !

Wow ! what a way to start 2010 ! I just saw that I am a
winner on Tim Holtz's blog, yay!!

If you have seen my previous posts I followed along this
year on his 12 Tags of Christmas. The past 2 years I just
ooheed and aahhed over them as I had really none of
the supplies to do them.

Well by the time 2009's tags came along I had quite a few
supplies, not all of them though so had to find alternates
to make them but I had so much fun doing these that
it was so worth it.