On the table…

Bad, bad Pumpkin Kitty !!

“What ?” =^^=

Artist at work table.

Completed two page art journal spread.

“What will your verse be?”

(Rest in Peace, Robin Williams. Rest.)

Sweet spots…

On this day, sing your song, make your mess, revel in the beauty, use your voice,

seize this day.

Big Love, Beautiful Ones.

 

Hosted by Susannah Conway.

Haiku My Heart–This One Sweet Day

 

Take this one sweet day

See, taste, smell, hear, feel, love it.

Your one precious life.

 

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Happy Friday, Beautiful Ones!

And a wonderful Mother’s Days weekend to all the awesome Moms out there.

Big Love !

 

For more Haiku My Heart, visit the beautiful rebecca at recuerda mi corazon.

GPP Street Team Crusade # 61–Restraining Order

Well, I had to join in !

I did so under the wire, but just in time.

The awesome and incredibly talented Michelle Ward is hosting the last of her fine Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusades and I had to take part.

In the past, I used to do these great prompts every month.

They inspired my journal pages and also connected me to a great community of artists all over the globe. Michelle would link us all on the GPP Street Team blog, and we could visit one another, see how each artist had interpreted the great prompts and get feedback on our own entries from the other Crusaders.

I don’t have any excuses as to why I stopped doing the Crusades. Life just changed things…

But when I read that Michelle was ending the project after 61 months worth of projects, I wanted to join in one last time and pay a little homage to something that brought me many treasures over the years.

Crusade # 61 is entitled “Restraining Order” and our prompt was to create a journal page while focusing on avoiding clutter or overfilling the page and paying attention to composition a little more. Trying to leave some space, some open air for the eye to rest a little.

I knew I wanted to do a bit of a self-portrait piece for my art journal.

This week, the question of what “success” is came up several times in conversation and in thought.

I realized that to some people on the outside, I may not seem conventionally “successful”.

Upon some pondering though, I actually concluded that to my own sense of what is success is measured by, I am a very successful person.

I believe success should be measured by how close you are to achieving the goals of your Heart & Soul, and not so much what society or your bank account may reflect.

My Heart and Soul goals are to love strongly and fiercely and to make a difference in the world in my own little way.

I do this.

Most days, I do this very, very well !

When I go to bed at night and I can say, “Today, I loved. Today, I was loved back. Today, I saw beauty. Today, I created a bit of beauty of my own.” When I can say those things, that has been a good day !

A successful day.

A successful life lived.

For my minimal journal page, I created a colorful background with spray inks, Golden fluid acrylics and Twinkle H2O watercolors.

Then I took a copy of a photo of myself and trimmed it with some decorative deckle edged scissors.

I added a piece of torn piece of ledger paper to the center of the page, tapped down with some polka dot Smashbook paper tape.

I stamped my phrase out with rubber alphabet stamps on some white tape.

It reads : “I live a simple little life.”

I think the simple composition works well with the message of this page.

It was a challenge for me to keep it this simple. I wanted to add more pen work, etc or maybe some scribble, maybe use some stencils to add more to the background, etc

but in the end, I love how it turned out.

I live a simple ordinary extraordinary little big successful sweet life.

And for that I am extremely grateful.

 

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As I contribute this post for the final GPP Street Team Crusades, I am also grateful for the wonderful treats that this project has brought me.

I made so many awesome artist blog friends through the Crusades.

I got to “know” Michelle and her fabulous heart, and contribute to some amazing projects offering special help to the community that she has lead.

I also learned the value of creating art work and sharing it with other artists, the best kind of audience and the best kind of support for the creative process.

So thank you, Michelle, for all the things you have contributed to the on-line art blog community ! You Rock, Lady !!!

And thank you to my fellow Crusaders who have shared their art and their hearts along the way ! Keep on rocking it, Crusaders !

Share the Joy Thursday : The Acme of Our Own Happiness

Some days, Joy feel so abundant and easy to focus on…

as abundant as the snowflakes that fall over night, covering the tree branches with a cozy, white shawl.

Other times, when we get heavy-hearted with the “why’s” of life,

or with sadness, fears of loss, regrets…

Joy is harder to find, and much harder to focus on.

And yet that is the time when JOY is the most important for us to find.

Focusing on the joy in life helps us find meaning in our “whys”.

It helps us feel comforted in our sadness.

It helps us bring lightness back into our heavy hearts.

It helps us return to the acme of our own happiness.

(my new favorite phrase)

And to remember that in spite of the sad, bad, ugly, seemingly hopeless, moments,

we have this one precious day to truly be here in love, in life, in joy.

And what a joy there is in that.

 

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One of my dear friends was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer yesterday.

There will be no chemo or radiation.

There will be a focus on quality of life.

Shouldn’t that be our focus every day ?

The  prescription she received as she left the doctor’s office :

“Go and live.”

I am going to follow those orders right along with her.

Be here today, Beautiful Ones, in love, in life, in joy !

 

For more joy sharing, visit the beautiful Meri at Meri’s Musings.

Determine Your Living…

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Khalil Gibran

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So I have finally finished my November entry for Nicola’s book in our Sistahhood of the Traveling Sketchbook project.

Life happened while we were all making plans. But now, we are all trying hard to get our swap back on track.

Thinking back to November from January was harder than it should have been,

but there was a lot of living in between, I think.

This piece does represent how I felt in November when the last of the brilliant Fall leaves were gone and the bare branches I would be looking at for the next 6 months were exposed.

The crow is bringing her the message that winter is on its way and the time for nesting is here.

It also shows how I am still feeling as we live in January; that desire to bundle up against the barren elements is still very present.

I imagine that under her cloak is all the color needed to fill her up and keep her well until Spring.

The second spread includes the photo that inspired the pages,

taken back in November, when the branches went bare…

I have to say I am a little sad that these pages are in Nicola’s book, and not in my own journal.

It will be hard to bundle them up and send them on their way.

***********

This week is going to be all about friends and being there for one another, in the good and the bad.

Tomorrow, I head up north again. One of my dear friend’s lost her Dad last week and I am heading up to be there at the visitation and the funeral, and to give her some extra big loving as she faces this sad, sad loss.

I called some other friends when I found out I would be making an unexpected trip to Montreal. Now, I will be sleeping in 4 different places between Tuesday and Saturday, and seeing quite a few of my favorite non-family peeps back home. Of course, I will squeeze in a big hugging session with my Mom, as well. Putting out love and getting some of that rich medicine back as well.

David will keep the home fires burning and the furry kids well while the Rogue-y and I head out on the highway.

Life is a bittersweet journey, isn’t it, Beautiful Ones ?

But I am grateful everyday to be traveling it…

Big Love !

Share the Joy Thursday–The Space Between

From this week’s Joy List :

1. Being there for a friend who really needs an ear and some extra love.

2. Pride in a hard-working husband who received some much deserved recognition.

3. Kitty Cats, kitty cats, everywhere ! Their purrs are music to my heart.

4. Sharing Rock My World rocks in new ways – this time through a high school guidance counselor who wants to share them with her kids.

5. A return to the Artist in me – I am in love with my journal !!!

So if you remember, the page in my beautiful Moleskine started like this…

And when last we saw it, it looked like this :

                            

The last stamp to use on the page was this Invoke Arts “Art Queen” stamp.

So, with some sweet tunes on Pandora, ink and a dip pen, Twinkling H2O’s, acrylic paints and some great play time

(you can tell it was great but the mess !),

this is where we ended up…

The fold of the page actually falls along the nose of the large face.

And the Art Queen stamp forms part of the “vision” in the eye.

I ended up cutting a window into the page.

I love how the purple “rock wall”

becomes a frame around the first two “ladies” when you turn the page.

I added some paint, stenciling and ink work onto the second page spread…

And now it is ready for more art journaling play !

The journal entry I wrote says it all for me right now.

I am choosing to LIVE in this space between, and be as present as I can be in this one precious life.

And soak up the joys of this place.

Happy Thursday, Beautiful Ones !

 

More joyous musing can be found here.

LIVE from the Queen of Arts Studio

I have chosen my Word of the Year for 2012.

The word is LIVE.

I love that it can be used both as LIVE, as in “I will LIVE for today”,

and

as LIVE, “LIVE from Manchester, It’s Kim, the Rock Fairy/Queen of Arts !”

I have to admit that choosing a word was not a sweet, meditative contemplation thing for me this year.

In fact, it was kind of more in response to how intimidated I was feeling by all the incredibly deep thought and soul searching some of my friends in Blogland were doing to begin their 2012 off right and to choose their important Word of the Year.

I think I am in a place where I want to spend a lot less time thinking and planning how I am going to Live this one precious life, and instead get on with the actually Living I want to do.

So the word LIVE feels like a really good fit.

While my  word was percolating, I also thought about how I would want to have my word on a Rock My World rock with “Live” on it for me, and how I have painted rocks for friends in the past with their own Word of the Year on them as a keepsake gift.

And then, I came up with this sweet little box idea :

This small white ceramic box comes from a local craft store.

I added the painted paper flower and the 2012 under a coat of Glossy Accents to create a cute dimensional decoration on the lid

and here we have a lovely place to keep your 2012 Word of the Year Rock !

I also made a second design with a sun.

I have made these sweet things available in the Etsy shop and I would love to send you

your very own customized

2012 Word of the Year Rock Rock in a Box keepsake.

For the month of January, I will be including some extra Rock My World rocks in every package I send out, so you will have your own Word rock in its pretty box and also a few other rock love messages to share.

Also, if the box isn’t your thing, but you would like to have a Rock My World Rock with your Word of the Year on it, the bag of 13 rocks are also available in the shop and I will customize them as you want me to.

Along with enjoying the rocks, you can be glad to know that part of the profits I make from selling the Rock My World Rocks always goes to being able to donate, ship and offer the rocks for free to charitable causes to use for their fund raising efforts.

Here’s hoping that 2012 is full of lots of juicy LIVING for all of us !

Big Love, Beautiful Ones !