September Creativity Project Day 1

 

Day 1 is journaling - half is a catch up of the last couple of days spent at the wedding and the other half is the "rules" of the creativity project (a copy of yesterday's blog post).  I will try to take before pictures (hopefully better ones!):

September Creativity Project

Well it looks like I will be working in a Smash Journal during September!! I'm super excited to start working in one of these - I've been wanting one since they came out and they have been hard to find - sold out almost everywhere! I finally got my hands on one a couple weeks ago.  So here is how my creativity project is going to work:

• I will complete a page in my Smash Journal every day starting today September 6 and ending October 6 (I'm starting a little late because of the wedding I was at this weekend). 
• Pages can be anything I want - and isn't that what Smash is about? Smashing random bits of your life into the journal - things you like, things about you, things that inspire you.  So it will be a combo about me, month in the life, art journal.  
• I will do a blog post at least 5 days a week (Mon - Fri).  Posting photos of the page from the previous day.  (tomorrow you will see today's page) - hopefully this will take care of the problem I had last year when I frequently waited until 10pm to make something and then still had to post it that night! 

At the end of the month I will have a completed journal!  Looking forward to this - will show you my first page tomorrow!

September Creativity Project

If you have checked out my blog thoroughly or if you have been a long time follower then you know last year at this time I was also in a creative rut so I challenged myself to 30 days of creating - every day in September I did something creative. (click here to see last year's project)  I did a little bit of everything but mostly ended up working on an art journal.  I want to do something similar this year but I'm thinking instead of just saying I can make anything I want to focus on one type of project.  So I need your help deciding:  should I do 30 days of tags, art journaling, or 30 days working in my new Smash journal (sort of 30 days about me/month in my life journal).  Let me know what you think by taking my poll here:

I am going to be out of town for the rest of the week celebrating my brother-in-law's wedding - so you probably won't see anything from me until next week.  I will be starting my 30 days of creativity project on September 5th (and go through Oct 5th)  and posting at least 5 days a week in September - looking forward to getting back to creating and blogging!

Creativity Project Recap

My 30 days of doing something creative have come and gone. This is what the cover of my art journal looks like. Simple but I like it and I like that it is a finished book of this adventure. If you are interested in seeing the complete project click here to see the 30 days of posts.

What did I learn?

1. There IS time. I didn't think I would have the time do do something every day between teaching, working and coming up with classes. Day 1 I spent at least 3 hours and once I realized there was no way that was going to work I was able to carve out about 30 minutes to an hour every day to make something. This is totally doable and something I hope I will be able to carry on at least a couple times a week.

2. I might have the will power to create something every day and stick with something but I will ALWAYS be a procrastinator! Seriously... you have no idea how many times it was like 9pm and I was like "Crap! I haven't made anything today!" I never cheated though! I truly made something every day and posted about it on that day - I didn't make anything ahead of time and hold the posts.

3. I missed 2 days - so sue me - I needed a break - everyone needs a break every once in a while

4. I enjoy blogging. I want to make more time to keep up the blog. The down side with blogging? The obsessive checking to see how many people have read my blog that day.

5. I really like this art journaling thing - before this project I hadn't tried it. I actually thought I would be making more layouts during the month. Turns out I didn't make any layouts and I did journal pages 21 of the 30 days.

So what's next?

1. Dustin and I have a trip to the mountains planned this month for our anniversary so I will be making another travel journal.
2. I want to make more layouts. I think I will plan on making at least one a week - maybe do a "Layout Tuesday" post or something - still thinking about that one
3. I really want to do a Week in the Life - every day for a week take pictures and do a page (probably in a mini book) Click here to see the Ali Edward's Week in the Life project
4. Ultimately I want to do a December Daily album. I have been trying to do this for the last 2 years and have never made it past the second day. Click here to see Ali Edward's December Daily project.
5. I have talking about an etsy shop for the past 2 years so someday I want to make that happen
6. Keep up the art journaling and keep posting blogs about it - maybe with tutorials!
7. Grow my blog - keep posting and keep getting followers.

Any ideas for what you would like to see?

Creativity Project Day 30

Well here it is - Day 30! I did another art journal page today. I used yellow paint for the background. Then I used white paint and a stamp that looks like bubble wrap ( i didn't have any actual bubble wrap). I glimmer misted the bingo card and used the stamp again. The tag was glimmer misted with a couple of colors and I added some mesh and flower that I was messing around and made a couple months ago and meant to throw away but I liked it so I added it to the page.
I really really love the saying on this stamp and I use it all the time. I hope you have enjoyed my 30 days of creativity project. Look for a post tomorrow with a recap and a photo of the front of the book as well as what I plan on doing next!

Creativity Project Day 29

I LOVE fall and I love October. So many great things to look forward to - Our Anniversary, changing leaves, our trip to the mountains, Halloween and hopefully getting to see my super cute nephew in his halloween costume. So in looking forward to October I decided to let that be my inspiration for another art journal page. I bought a few new colors of glimmer glaze today so I put them to good use: again watered down the glaze and painted the background then used it straight out of the bottle to drip. I used the glaze and glimmer mist to do the tags. On the bottom I wrote "looking forward to October"

Creativity Project Day 28

Another art journal page - glimmer mist, glimmer glaze, paint, and unity stamps.

Creativity Project Day 27

Today I just did a quick tag with some glimmer mists and glimmer glaze:The 30 days of creating something is almost done and I think the next two days will probably be art journal pages as well especially since I am really liking how the journal is looking as a whole:

Creativity Project Day 26

I love going to thrift stores and buying things I can use in craft/art/scrapbook projects later on. My new obsession is dictionaries. I used sheets from a dictionary i found in today's art journal page.
I had these black and white postcards from a pack I bought when I went to Biltmore last year. I used some of them in a travel journal and the rest I have had just lying around. I wanted to age it with distress ink, the wouldn't take to the postcard so I had to sand it down a bit first.
I used glimmer mist to change the color of some white lace I had and I used foil tape (bought from home depot in the duct work section), cut a heart and alcohol inked it.

Creativity Project Day 25

So yesterday I didn't technically make anything... I worked on my display for class kickoff so I'm going to count that as doing something creative.

Today I did another art journal page:I used book text as my background, a piece of the new steampunk debutante from Graphic 45, magic mesh and the tim holtz book plates. I used the glimmer glaze (now in stores at Memories Galore)I started with my book text as my base for the page. I took the blue glimmer glaze and shook it (you can shake it glimmer glaze since the air bubbles don't affect usage - glimmer mist you gently swirl) I dumped a little bit on my nonstick craft mat and watered it down. I used a flat wash brush (not the brush in the bottle) to do a wash background. It gave a nice light blue glimmer background. I then took the gold color and using the brush it came with (and not watering it down - because it is pretty watery) I brushed it on the top of the page and let it drip down the page. The glaze is a little weird because it has almost a nail polish finish to it. I watered down the gold color a bit and used it to paint the steampunk image. I actually like the effect of watering it down better than using it straight out of the bottle.

Did you know you can paint the Tim Holtz metal plates? If you don't like the look of the metal (and there is always that weird gold one I don't know what to do with) you can sand it down a bit and paint it with white acrylic paint. I usually let it dry and sand a little of it off to give it a shabby chic look. In this case i painted it with white and then painted over that with the gold glimmer glaze.

Hope you enjoy today's post. And if you are visiting the blog for the first time (Hi everyone I met at kickoff!) feel free to "like" my facebook fanpage (see the link on the right)

Creativity Project Day 23

Today's art journal page is pushing my "no mistakes" rule. I kept adding and adding things trying to fix what I did and I never quite made it out looking any better:
Think it looks like I didn't do that much to it? First I cut up a bunch of images from the Steampunk Debutante line from Graphic 45 and glued them onto the page. Then i decided to white wash it with watered down gesso. Then I didn't like that so I glimmer misted it. Then I tried stamping a butterfly on the background... but only half the image stamped so I tried to cut a piece of fabric to cover it but that didn't work out. Then I decided to paint over the whole thing with gel medium (also because I hadn't completely glued all the edges down). Then I inked over it with distress ink. Then I stamped butterfly images on book text, glimmer misted them then glued them down (to cover up the butterfly stamped image that didn't come out). And this is what I ended up with.... I'm not sure what I learned...except for a lot of "what not to do"... which I guess is good....

Creativity Project Day 22

In preparation for Saturday's class kickoff I've been making business cards - simple stamped images on kraft cardstock:

Creativity Project Day 21

Two posts in a day? I'm shocked aren't you? Honestly I was thinking that since the last post took me almost 2 hours to come up with that it should totally count as doing something creative. But I've been really good about making stuff so far so I didn't want to mess that up. So here is another page for my art journal:
I used the new Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante line which I LOVE (LOVE LOVE ...LOVE LOVE LOVE).

Creativity Project Day 20

I made another art journal page today. And of course more glimmer mist and paint:

Creativity Project Day 19

Another art journal page - I played around with those watercolor paints again. I bought a bunch of buttons at an antique store this weekend so I used those to make a heart then I glimmer misted the whole thing... I'm loving the glimmer mist lately

Creativity Project Days 17 & 18

I didn't have time to blog yesterday, however I did manage to make something: I'm working on a travel journal so here is a peek at it: And today I did an art journal page with some water colors I bought today. I haven't used the watercolors in the tube before so I basically was just playing around with those. This week is going to be crazy with Class Kickoff at Memories Galore on Saturday! Hope to see you there!

Creativity Project Day 16

I spent all day working on something but it's nowhere near done. Here is part of it:

Creativity Project Day 15

YAY! I made it to the halfway point at my month of creativity. It is has been HARD! I have found myself at 10:00pm far too often thinking "Crap! I haven't made anything yet!!" But here is my post for the day:

I used a vintage bingo card (I found a vintage bingo game at an antique store a couple months ago for cheap! I was SUPER excited!). I glimmer misted it with a couple colors and added some stamps and stickers. Simple but I like it.

Creativity Project Day 14

Today I worked on finishing my classes for kickoff. More ATCs:

Creativity Project Day 13

I was so loving those ATCs (artist trading cards) I made yesterday that I decided to make a larger version for my art journal today. So here you have it: