June in Review

Summer is here and the busyness of the school year winds down for just a bit. It amazes me when I think about the fact that my daughter graduated from high school 18 years ago! The first year after she graduated it felt strange not to have the school year dictating our schedules and our calendar. We got past that - along with numerous other empty nest transitions! But then our church began a ministry to the elementary school nearby, and I soon became the leader of that ministry, and over the past 11 years I find that the school year once again has the greatest impact on my schedule and calendar! So, while I am not a teacher or a school employee, I find I release a huge sigh in June when the calendar and the schedule slows down for a while.

As a result of the ministry we have in to the school and the neighborhood I have gained a bunch of God-grandchildren over the years. We have had many kids come to church without their parents and they became "our kids". Then a few of the moms started coming and soon became like daughters to me and over time "Grandma Mary" started. This month the first of those God-grandkids graduated from high school. It was made even more exciting as his mom told me he is the first high school graduate! I'm so proud of Shanon! He is an awesome young man and is an incredible role model for his younger siblings and the kids in our church community. 

"The thrill of the vintage hunt" has continued for my sister and I in June. We attended a great vintage market in Grand Rapids at Everlasting Blooms Greenhouse and Gift Shop.

It was a great show. We fell in love with one of the vendors, Urban Rewind, and visited her booth twice. Her booth is on the right in the picture below - the one that is packed full of people! We hope to run into her again. And we will definitely attend Everlasting Bloom's markets again in the future!

My weekend getaway to my sister's included a full day of thrift shopping in Grand Rapids. We are having a blast hunting down great vintage finds! We have done this all our life but now that we decided to be more intentional about it and add vintage goods to Found on Brighton we find we have a new level of excitement and energy as we travel and "thrift"! It also gives us an opportunity to spend more time together, and that's never a problem for us sister BFF's! 

My hubby is involved in this new adventure as well. We headed to Cleveland a few weeks ago to our nephew's graduation party and stopped at a flea market and some stores along the way. We made some great finds!

One thing I have found a good deal of recently is vintage office papers - ledger and graph and lined - so I have been able to add a new line of altered book journals to my shop. Using dictionary, encyclopedia, and ledger book covers these journals contain the same watercolor and patterned types of paper as my standard journals, but they also contain a variety of the office papers, more ephemera papers and an extra large shipping tag. 50 pages total!

There hasn't been a lot of art time this month as I've spent my creative time in other ways. We have some exciting news to share, but I'll save that for another post in a few days! Stop back soon!

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!

Sister's Road Trip ~ The Journal

The past week has been a miserable one around here. I was down for six days with the flu. I really hated losing a week of my life. The only things I felt up to, besides sleep, for most of that time was reading. Sunday my fever finally broke and with it there was finally a decrease in the body aches. So, I took advantage of that little bit of energy and finished up my travel journal from my recent vacation.

I really enjoy doing travel journals for my trips. While on the trip, thinking about how you want to capture memories helps you slow down and be more present to what you are experiencing. After the trip, it's like experiencing it all over again as you go through pictures and create your pages. Enjoy!

Sister's Road Trip Part 2

Charleston was perfect the week we were there...sunny and in the mid-60's - low 70's all week with only one day of rain. Perfect for two Midwest ladies in the middle of winter! Our official tour guide, a.k.a my daughter, offered us everything from historic walking tours to antique shopping to beach walking to auto tours of the islands. Plus great food in spectacular restaurants. We ate every kind of food on our wishlists! So, a few of our highlights:

The best way to see Charleston is by foot and we covered a lot of ground!

I broke a record on the step counter on my phone that day. 17,336 steps, which equal 8.5 miles. 

And the start of my travel journal:

Thanks for stopping by! :)