Soooo.....

Here I am again! It's been a wild ride, believe you me. I don't even know where to begin, so I'll probably start in the middle. I traveled a lot in my job through March - came back from a trip and was let go for whatever reason. It was weird. The week before, not only was my work "perfect" but one of the attorneys was taking me to lunch he was so happy with my performance but I had a client meeting coming up that day and had to decline. Not sure what happened after that, but color me jobless! It's a drag, there's so many people competing. But I trust that God has the perfect plan for my life, you know?



Obviously I never finished the Soul Journal - I might get back to that soon. You know, you'd think I'd be creating like mad with all this free time, right? Au contraire! First of all, I was going to have a roommate, so with the help of many, my art studio got packed up, orgainzed and started to move to the garage. Then potential roomie moved all her stuff in, went to visit her mother and I haven't seen her since. We've texted a few times and she got salty with me when I suggested she get her stuff outta the house - including the two lizards. I worry about those dumb reptiles every day, her boyfriend occasionally comes and gives them water and crickets, but I am too scared of them to give them anything and I'm terrified I'm gonna look in there one day and have dead lizards in there. Ugggh. so all my art supplies are spread all throughout the living room and I realized halfway through that the garage is too hot for most of my supplies except maybe colored pencils and beads. Everything else will mold in this humidity! Onto plan B - I'll tell ya about that tomorrow.



What else? Hmmm. Had a boyfriend, let him move in. Dumb mistake. Suffice it to say that said boyfriend ate like a sumo wrestler and did play a lot of playstation, but mostly annoyed me. Isn't that awful? When he finally left, I felt nothing but relief. No crying, no nothing...just peace!


Okay - art - have I done ANY? Well yeah! Lots! Right now I'm hosting a swap on AFA called Six Word Memoirs - it's a chunky swap and the point is to tell part of your life story in six words. So here's a few I've done - one completed, one completed except for the chunky goodness and one started...enjoy!




Good Sex Is Worth The Drama



Scary Childhood, Nervous Adulthood, Finally Free




My Mind Is Full Of Art


Of course, the 12-year-old boy in me sees it now as My Mind is Full o Fart - and now you will too! Har.


Okay I will stop for now. Blogger is getting ready for a scheduled outage and I have so much art
to share, it's amazing. But don't want to like overwhelm everyone and all - grin.


Hugs and kisses to everyone! Life really is divine...

Where Have All The Cheekas Gone?

Okay, when I started this blog I swore I would never mention why I missed posting for awhile - because that is so lame! However, I will admit I've been stymied by the paper doll part of the Soul Journal project. It didn't occur to me till the other day that I could just SKIP IT! So that's what I'm gonna do till I get inspired to make paper dolls. Expect to see a big fat update in that arena soon!

So I've been creating like crazy - mostly ATCs, with a skinny book and a chunky book thrown in for fun.

First up - a coupla swaps! Here's the cards I made for the Sock Monkey swap - where you ask? AFA (atcsforall.com) of course! No hostess card but I did send a gift - drawing is hard!

Then some digital cards with transparancies - wow I love those! Of course, these also were for a swap on AFA.

I really enjoyed these! Transparencies RULE.

Enough for now - hugs all around! And if you get a chance, check out my girl katilady's blog - it kicks ass! As does she. I now own 4 atcs of hers - I am a lucky duck. She's very deep (unlike me) but still a lot of fun - like she's not a dorky loser or anything. And sexy, too! So enjoy!

Aww Hell

Okay, so like, I'm really, really behind on the Soul Journal now! I got so exited about that, I neglected my swaps! I think I broke some kinda rule or something! Rest assured I am caught up and ready to rumble! Thanks for all your nice comments the last two weeks!

I only have a coupla things to post art-wise, but believe me after this weekend I'll have lots!

Here's a skinny page I did for a swap on the art techniques group on yahoo; the theme is summer. One of those commitments I made back in June I think. I made 25 of them - ack! It was good practice, however, because I joined a techniques fat book swap and need to do 120 pages for that one! Sheesh! What was I thinking?

The poem on there is one my gramma (waving! hey gramma!) sang to me when I was a kid - hell, when I was an adult, too. My gramma was always singing some silly song. Too bad she's not here to sing them to me anymore - I'm glad I listened although some of them were horribly racist and I can't sing them these days. Even in the privacy of my own home, that stuff embarrasses me now - amazing that we didn't think a thing of it back in the day! When I think nothing's changed really, I can remember stuff like that and say, well it has changed a bit. But as usual, I digress...

Then I made this lil ATC for another swap on atcsforall.com. For some reason my friends are calling me pickle (or dickle when I'm being feisty). So to honor my new nick, here's a card.

It was suggested to me that she looks preggers, and perhaps if she wasn't such a boozy slut, she'd know who the father pickle was - I'm not sure how this all came through in an ATC! All I have to say is - "don't hate, man!." Pickles need love too and maybe she's just ummm chubby. I know in my case an unfortunate clothing choice can make people ask "when's your baby due?" although as I get older that happens less and less! Good thing, too, that sure embarrasses a person - not me, because hey I know I'm a chubette. It's all good.

Thanks to all my fellow Soul Journalers for leaving nice comments - I read all of them even though I was busy at work and all and no time to respond. I treasure every comment I receive! So here I go, back to the art grind, if you can call it that!

Wow - Christian the Lion!

Okay - uggh. I HATE crying. This was so worth it. Nuff said. Stupid YouTube won't let me autopost to my blog so I'm just linking. I promise you'll like this.

Christian the Lion

Just watch it, okay? And bring Kleenex!

Soul Journal - Days 8-9

Whew! I am so far behind! Not my fault this time, though. BossMan sent me to Nebraska for a few days - I did have fun although it was a completely different world. And wow - FARM WIVES! They are the BOMB. These people eat the biggest lunch I've ever seen - and mashed potatoes and bread at every meal! Talk about heaven on earth. I am in love. But as usual, I digress...

Day 8 we had to paint our taped pages - I don't like mine AT ALL. I saw some other soul journal sisters' pages and I am horribly jealous. But I'm just going to go with the flow and hope we cover up this mess quickly because this ugliness is ruining the whole thing! Grumble.

Now on our magazine pages, again, painting on top and rubbing off and I like the way this one turned out. I used a baby blue which worked out well to soften the purple. Then I took my trusty Sharpie and drew dotted lines, broken lines, messy boxes and words on the pictures. I like the way it turned out! So that makes up for my ugly tape page.

Well kids, that's all for now - I need to prep some pages and get a whole mess of photo profile cards ready to send tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Till next time, Cheeka.

Soul Journal - Day 7

Wow - I'm like 3 days behind - but not for long! I think I can catch up by tomorrow! But life catches up with me and dang I need to get my photo profiles cards OUT and I have a few swaps to catch up so I can breathe and the rest are due in October. Skinny book pages due in 10 days and I HAVEN'T STARTED YET. I need to quit making plans on the weekends! Grrr. I'm making candles with my friend Misti on Saturday and then I'm going to make her some risotto because I am practicing to get on Hell's Kitchen. And if I've learned nothing from the previous seasons, I've learned that Gordon really likes risotto. It's like cinnamon toast to him. To me, I don't understand why they sell cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on toast - can't everyone make that? I mean, c'mon - if you can't make cinnamon toast you might as well just get the eff outta the kitchen cuz you don't know jack and you never will. It's hopeless, give up now before you poison someone or worse. Okay, where was I going with this???

Oh yeah! Soul Journal, day 7. Honestly, I have been dragging my feet because this involves journaling (I don't know why I'm surprised, isn't this just getting gluey fingers and paint in my hair - I thought that's what this was all about!). Anyway, the journal prompt is "I forgot to tell you..." and I'm all like, I don't forget to tell nobody nothin - seriously, people are always saying "okay, tell me how you really feel." I just don't believe in hiding stuff - and hey, if you stick an ugly baby picture in my face, I will tell you that baby is ugly. Like my friend showed me a picture of her granddaughter and I said "dang, where'd she get that nose? It's taking up the whole picture! I sure hope she is really smart, because she sure is - oh crap, sorry." But really, that schnoz was humungus! Seriously! And she tried to tell me it was the camera angle - please.

Anyway, after thinking on it a bit, i did think of someone I don't remember to talk to enough - God. So hence more foot dragging, because I really suck in this area. I'm quick to shout "Oh Lord, help me, please" but do I remember to say thank you? Or, I'm sorry I missed our prayer time, I know you were waiting? Nope, I figure, well God knows everything, so what's the point. He knows all the hairs on my head, and how many there are without counting and all. So I had to do it. Here's a few excerpts of my journaling before I cover it all up with tape! I'm only putting the first line of each paragraph because well, this is private stuff, y'all. Quit being so dang nosy!

Lord:

I forgot to tell you I love you.
I forgot to tell you I'm sorry.
I forgot to tell you I'm grateful.
I forgot to tell you a lot of times I'm scared.
I forgot to tell you that I'll try to be better.
I forgot to tell you I'll listen more.

But there's a whole bunch more but you'll just have to guess cuz I'm going to blur it all out in the photo! Hey and the cool thing is, we were sposed to journal with a ball point pen - like who has those anymore? I left mine in the drawer with my QUILL, okay? But somehow I found a purple ball point pen! That made me VERY HAPPY. Check it out!




So anyway, then we had to find all the tape in the house that was not transparent. As I mentioned in a previous post. I have a lot of adhesives. Lots of tapes, too. Most of which are transparent! But I did have some black duck tape (yes, hussies, that's how it's spelled on the package, duck) and some metal repair tape which ROCKS. Check out my book now - betcha can't read a thing!

Yeah, me neither. Then we had to sand it. Okay, I am such a girl! All I have for sanding are manicure blocks. Whatever works, right?

So the journaling part made me cry a little, which makes me mad because I do not cry. I'm tough! And mean! And scary! Well I was scary when I had my mean glasses but I had to get new ones and evidently they don't have mean ones in bifocals. Sigh. So I had to go back to looking friendly. Anyway! I got that done and I'll tell you a bit about day 8 now - I had to put gesso on it then wipe it off. It's drying right now!

Till next time - Cheeka!

ps - any weird layout choices are Blogger's, not mine! Just so you know!

Soul Journal - Day 6

Okay so like I'm a day behind now - it's all good! I am enjoying the journey and that's the best part, right? Screw the destination! I'll get there at some point. Anyway! Day 6 was to gesso over page 4 if we hadn't already (nope, hadn't done that) and then put the wash of a dark color on. I chose purple - of course! No blah old brown for me! I did buy some walnut ink at Urban today so I'm all set for when ever I need some. One thing I loathe (obviously - you've seen my studio and it's only gotten worse since last time I shared) is not having something when I need it. I mean, the adhesives alone take up a whole drawer. I have plain glue sticks, embellishment glue sticks, repositionable glue sticks (they effin rock, too) and super tacky glue and YES paste (which is awesome, especially for gluebooks and bigger collages) and spray adhesive and ummm fabric adhesive and liquid nails and well the reason that drawer is so full is I put all the other boring stuff in there too, like extra foam brushes (sorry Mother Earth, I won't buy anymore of those evil things - I WILL wash my brushes) and toothpicks and spackle and caulk - hey those are legitimate art supplies! and oh tapes - magnet tape and scotch tape and metal repair tape (rocks - makes me SING to think about it!) and real duck tape and well that's all I can remember right now. But you get the picture. Okay, I'm straying from the topic at hand - back to the art journal.

Then we were to cut the 24 pictures out that I discussed last post, and cut the image into an inch square. I was going to steal a tip from ruby claire at ruby.clair.x and outline my pix with a black sharpie, but I forgot! I heart sharpies! This picture looks a little whack because the gel medium is still wet and is bouncing the flash.






So next is to journal on the next two pages without any gesso or nothin on them, with a ball point pen - I'd better do as Sarah sez and use a ball point - I'd hate for that to be important in the next step and I SCREWED UP. And small letters - I think she's onto me - grumble. Dang. So I'm off to hunt for a ball point pen so I can journal to the prompt: I forgot to tell you... Honestly I don't know what I'll come up with for that - it sounds hokey and dumb - ugggh. Kinda like sharing with a large group which I have to do a lot but don't like to do! Blah. I'll get through it and probably find out it's like mowing at church - something I dread but enjoy when I'm finally doing it.




Okay - till next time! Cheeka