A BAD Case of Journal Envy......

OK I admit after visiting my friends at our Magical Journal Journey blog party, I started suffering from a BAD case of video envy....you see, the majority of them created wonderful videos for our friends to see their creations.  And it got bad enough, that I spent the weekend creating a vid of my own.  And what an adventure THAT was!!!  I finally uploaded it to my Picasa and linked the below photo....sorry for having to go "low tech"  I obviously need video making lessons!

https://picasaweb.google.com/114218337612144279548/JournalVideo#5968353852487353074
Keep in mind, that it's the first one I've ever created so watch without too much criticism please.  But please do enjoy!
And be sure to visit my friends to see their journals as well!
Gemma
Maggie
Lisa (the Priti one)
Lisa (the Wright one)
Kat
Angie
Tammy
Kim
Can't wait to get started on our new year of traveling art!!
oxox
Steph

Our Journals have completed their grand journey- time for the Big Reveal!!

So my journal (which you may remember traveled about dressed grandly in all shades of purple flanked with metallics and pops of turquoise ;)) started with a sign in page for each lady to check in...

And then off it went on it's travels; first to visit Gemma of Gemma's House
Here are her beautiful pages; I love all the gorgeous textures and detail and how did you know that Calla Lilies are one of my favorite flowers? Thank you for the Dragonfly- so special!!

Next, my art book wended it's way to Maggie who put a lovely oriental twist in her pages for me- LOVE the elephant and the flower and the butterfly and the beautiful lady plus all the quotes...I love it all!

Then my book traveled on to  Lisa  (the priti one) who created a gloriously queenly Mary with lots of texture and yummy purple and gold plus a Mehndi  hand for me (I think it's so funny, because I created a Mehndi hand for HER;)) and then a paint chip collage with assorted Mary's peeking through the windows....gorgeous-ness!

The next stop for my book was a bit further away, crossing the sea to the UK to stay with Lisa (the Wright one ;)) who started my pages with a scrumptious peacock feather glued onto a gorgeous wash of all my colors combined and moved on to a wonderful page filled with assorted textures and and collage elements mixed with words and so many wonderful elements i love love love.  She ended her work with one of her famous ladies who advises me to dream big- beautiful!

Onward my book made it's way to Cornwall where  Kat of the Wright Story, who not only created some gorgeous (dragonfly filled!) art for me, but also wrote a short story just for me- so special!!!  I will treasure my Dragonfly Bay (the painted one AND the written words) forever!

For my book's last stop in the UK, it traveled to Manchester to visit with Angie of Art Angel for a bit. And she filled her paged with very Artangel-esque textures and patterning- absolutely beautiful!  And of course, she knows how fond I am of butterflies, and birds and quotes and ladies- very wonderful pages!

Then my book made it's way back to the states and to Tammy's studio where she combined a painting of a lady with a dragonfly (!) tattoo, wonderful words and a tree of friendship- such a fabulous addition to my my book!

And last but never least, my art journal traveled to Kim Collister where she created an incredible series of collages rich with birds, flowers, women and of course dragonflies- such a beautiful end to my little book's travels!

I love that you can see all the pages and bits of wonderful-ness peeking out of my book- what a treasure! 
What an amazing year of art it has been, AND best of all; we're gearing up to start again in amonth or so!  I can't WAIT!
xxoo
Stephanie

And Gemma's book completes my journal journey!

This is the second time my little group of friends has embarked on a creative journey of traveling art journals.  And it was just as magical as before!  It's been a little challenging at times for me to juggle everything on my plate AND create for this project, but that makes me even more grateful to be a part of it!  I'm not sure I would have managed to paint anything in the last six months if I didn't have these monthly deadlines!
That said, on to Gemma's art journal....  Her colors of choice were purples with splashes of  magenta, orange and lime.  And I will apologize in advance for the color quality of my pictures- my deep blue-violets show as blues here...and my yellow orange that shades to red orange with a smidge of salmon- just looks yellow.  For the lime, I created a mist (invisible here ;)) in the distance and also used it for lettering.....ah well, I was in a hurry to get it in the post and didn't check my pictures until after it had been sent on it's way.  At least you can get an idea of what it looks like!

 

I wanted to create a magical, almost mysterious quality, so of course; I had to have misty, moonlit woods.   And when there's a chance of falling stars, you MUST carry an umbrella- right?  I also played with her skirt to give a suggestion of tree branches, not for any real reason other than it felt like the right thing to do.....it really doesn't show here, but the "with a chance of stars" is outlined with orange 

and yellow oranges, giving a doubled up effect.

A closeup view of the fold over page- again, the color is slightly off here.....I fell in LOVE with this quote; and will definitely be using it again!  On a funny side note, I always double check to make sure I correctly credit authors with their quotes- this is sometimes attributed to Gallileo....but after checking, and re-checking, I found that it belongs to Sarah Williams.

So there you have it, my spread for Gemma's beautiful book- I hope she likes it!

 Love and hugs,
Stephanie

Silent Sunday`- Sounds from Rodin's Garden

Statue Dancing

My Mom

 I know this is supposed to be silent, but I had to add this- throughout the garden we kept hearing weird sounds, crickets, chanting, even the sounds of women moaning.....and we were like, "What the HECK?"  after seeing the musuem, I googled it and found that we'd stumbled upon a temporary accompanying exhibit by Erik Samakh- to recapture our experience, listen to this link, it's amazing!

Happy Sunday!

Story of a Sunroom

One reason I've been so absent in Bloglandia the last few months is because Bill and I have been catching up on a lot of ongoing projects. To backtrack a bit, last Spring, we had a HUGE Hemlock tree in our front yard taken down.  It broke my heart to see it go- it had been the original owners Christmas tree in 1960something, and it felt wrong to remove it.  BUT it also felt wrong to let it hit our house and it had been leaning more and more towards us with each passing season.  So we took it down.  Have you ever noticed that the solution to one problem, occasionally creates another?

See how the hemlock screens the middle of the house?

  Once we took the tree down, the sun porch was visible from the street, REALLY visible with all the crap that my family (and myself) had gotten into the habit of dumping there- everyone's coats, scarves, mittens and umbrellas plus assorted shoes and lots, LOTS more!  HOW embarrasing!  This led to series of projects, starting with landscaping the front of the porch to mask the (really ugly) vinyl siding (the porch is the only part of the house that's not clapboard siding)  I planted some George Tabor azaleas and hydrangeas to build out the space....of course, we now get too much sun for hydrangeas there, but I've been babying them all season and I think they'll be OK.  I do LOVE me some hydrangeas! 

So here is the front "after" shot.  I also planted climbing roses on either side of the sun porch to train up and across the top of the windows to soften them a bit- I want a mini pergola across top for Christmas ;) they're really not bad windows, just not my favorite style......Our eventual plan is to have NO grass in the front, just perennials, paths and sitting areas....more on that later :)
Of course all of this led to us (well me) deciding to make it into a real sun porch with ferns and pretty wicker and a ceiling fan......and a sky blue ceiling.  I have such a wonderful family who loves me enough to donate pretty things to my causes, so really our only expense was paint and the time to get it all done!  My Dad donated the ceiling fan and his girlfriend Kathy gave me the vintage wicker furniture for my birthday.  My Mom gave me some pretty tables and shelves and from there, it all came together.....it's now one on my favorite rooms in my house!

So, there's one project from this Summer shared.....we also gutted and redid the main bathroom and a bunch of small garden projects.  I'll share that later.
Have a wonderful weekend!
xx
Stephanie

Finished with Maggie's pages!

After posting yesterday, I added the sunburst of orange and yellow- I'll admit to cheating just a bit with a smidge of magenta.  I couldn't help it, it was screaming to be included!  So here you go, Maggie's pages of grey, orange and yellow (plus magenta ;-))

 I thought about adding more words to the sunburst, but it's always those decisions that cause my pieces to be overkill- I decided to leave it the way it is, and (hopefully) let it "shine" as it!

I'm in the process of putting together some posts covering the rest of my Paris trip, my garden and all the (many) home projects we've been doing the last few months.....patience!  I AM slowly coming back, I promise!
xx
Stephanie

WIP on the traveling journals

It's nearing the end of the month and that means time to get my current pages wrapped up for the traveling journal project.  This month, I have Maggie's beauty celebrating grays, yellows and oranges.  So, I decided to revisit an old friend of mine; the pencil.....that led to drawing a lady, backed by a flower. 

I always forget how much I LOVE drawing until I pick up my pencils- I have been having SO much fun with this!  To add in the orange part of my task, I'll be doing a cut out to give her a warm background and add a splash of color to her cheek.  And then, this little lady will be on her way for Gemma to add the final pages.  That's right, one month left and all the journals begin their homeward journey.  Can't wait!

That's all for now,
xx
Stephanie