Around Here Lately

Lately I have been doing art journaling on a small scale - 3 x 5 to be exact. I started working on smaller art when I started my Rolodex art journal (see the start here). Lately small has been quick and easy. I stumbled on the Index Card a Day (ICAD) art challenge and 30 Days of Bible Lettering. These two challenges have been running at the same time and I am "loosely" following them when I need a creative spark.

Working on this scale has resulted in my looking at things differently when I am shopping vintage, mainly office items. In preparation for the upcoming vintage market we are participating in I have been altering various office items to use as art journaling display.

I have hit the jackpot in my thrill of the vintage hunt shopping with lots of file boxes and a lot of clipboards in various sizes.

So, we are finally approaching our first vintage market which will take place this Saturday.

I moved my dining room table into the living room and "staged" (can you tell I have been watching too much HGTV and DIY network lately?) my booth in the dining room so I can be prepared. Staging helps insure that I have enough tables and other ways to display my items. It will obviously look somewhat different on grass and under a canopy tent!

We found a few new shows on HGTV and DIY that have been inspiring our vintage business. Masters of Flip, Nashville Flipped and Vintage Flip - all three shows specialize in buying vintage homes, restoring them and then selling them. We've been flipping channels between them and Cleveland Indians baseball!

A few more Bible Lettering pages done in my altered book journal instead of the small scale:

I'm off to a personal retreat for a few days to do some stuff for ministry and then we have the vintage market! Here's to hoping you all have a great week!

Season of Introspection

The Get Messy art journal community is in the midst of the Season of Introspection for June and July. Each week we receive art and journaling prompts to help us engage with the theme. My personality leans toward introspection - at times it is probably closer to over-introspection! For me, the purpose of introspection is to examine self in order to draw closer to God and to become more Christlike. In fact, one of my favorite quotes goes along these lines:

“There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.” John Calvin

We were challenged to alter a book for this season. Not much of a challenge for me since this is my normal practice! I already had a book I had altered but have not done much work in.

My first two pages for the Season of Introspection:

And a few pages I did recently in the beginning of this journal:

I add a few more altered book art journals to my shop every few weeks. Check them out here!

Thanks for stopping by!

Art Journaling Lists

I am a list maker. I make daily to-do lists. I make lists of things I'd like to do. I make lists of observations I see when studying the Bible or reading a book. And from time-to-time I will participate in making art journal lists. In April and May the "Get Messy" art journaling community is doing a season of list making. I'm not doing all of the lists, but am selecting one or two each week. I'm making my art journal lists on large shipping tags and inserting them in my DLP journal. Here are a few of my lists from the "Get Messy" art journal prompts.

In April I changed the format for my weekly Documented Life Project (DLP) pages as I wanted wider spaces to write in. I'm working on getting caught up with April and May.

Pop over to my Etsy shop and check out the new altered book art journals I listed this week.

I'm off to make a few more lists! How about you?

Meandering 5.10.2016

"Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous. A blog post about a variety of things; a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

April was a busy month and May is looking to be even more so. I'm aware of this coming into these months each year and I try to manage events and energy well, but each year turns out the same. Busy! So I just go with the flow and fit in what I can. 

I am running a bit behind with The Documented Life Project (DLP) and have just finished photographing my March pages.

Last month I added Found on Brighton Vintage to my Etsy shop and my sister has joined me in this new venture. We're recording our adventures of the thrill of the vintage hunt in an FB group. Recent additions to the vintage section of the shop have been:

Swedish Enamelware Bowls

Vintage Metal Rolodex

Metal Florist Frog

1950's Metal Picnic Basket

Vintage Printer's Tray

1950"s World Atlas from Replogle Globe Co.

Last month my friend Bernice from the UK was in the states and spent a long weekend with me. We stayed in a cottage along Lake Erie and did some local exploring. We wandered through parks and along the beach and visited local landmarks like the Marblehead lighthouse and the historic neighborhood surrounding Thomas Edison's birthplace in Milan.

I did sunrise walks both mornings we were there. The first morning everything was calm and the lake was like a mirror. On day 2 the wind had picked up and totally changed the look of the lake. What a difference a day makes!

During some art time Bernice taught me a technique using patterned napkins by tearing off the backing paper and using a liquid adhesive to glue the tissue portion to the background. I used the technique on this page in my DLP journal.

We saw quite a few birds during our adventure but I'll save those for the next post.  We are just weeks away from the end of the school year and I am ready for the slower pace of summer. Last week I helped the 4th and 8th grade classes put a community garden at the school as part of the health initiative committee I've sat on this year. The kids decorated the boards for the raised beds and started all the plants as seeds in the classroom, 

That's it for today. Have a great week!