Transformation

The theme for this month's Journal Junkies meeting, the first for this new year 2014, was transformation.  As a starting point, I felt compelled to "transform" these two pages I had made using a gelli plate and a Dina Wakley stencil several months ago into a completed journal page.

I cut out the figure on the right hand side and was going to attach it beside the white silhouette but I didn't like the way the white figure looked, so I added some purple colour to it using an Inktense pencil and a rubber stamp with purple ink first.  I also added some stamped images over top of the white blobs on the left half of the page, as they seemed to stand out too much.  I used a matching teal coloured ink which working perfectly (as suggested by my friend Dianne, who very kindly lent me her Adirondack Ink in that shade and another Dina stamp to use - many thanks, Dianne!).

Once the 2nd figure was added it was still a bit too monochromatic, even with the purple shadow image, so I cut a dress shape out of another gelli page and added that on top.  Then it felt like she was complete.

I finished the page with a title along the top and right hand side, and added a handwritten quote on the left, which reads:  "To change who you are, change who you think you are."  (Jonathan Lockwood Huie)

As it says on my journal page, "transformation" is also my word for 2014.  Stephanie Lee wrote an excellent post describing the recent trend among artists to choose a word for the year, you can read it here.  In this case, the word chose me, even before I focused on starting this journal page.  I'm not entirely sure what I might be transforming this year: my body, my finances, my decor, my artistic style, my lovelife (or lack thereof!), my activity level.  Anything is possible!

I'll share my fellow Junkies' pages in tomorrow's post. Stay tuned.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

My sister and I were planning to go home to help my mother celebrate her birthday today but unfortunately, heavy fog, reports of icy road conditions and freezing rain in the forecast conspired against us and our plans have now been postponed until a later date.

My sister Janine, my mother Margot and I,
Boxing Day 2013

In the meantime, happy birthday, Mom!  xox

Haiku My Heart: Whiskers

How many whiskers
on my beloved's furry face?
Twenty-four, I'm told.


Haiku My Heart is hosted by recuerda_mi_corazon.  Click on the link to read more of today's contributions.

Help Around The House?

I recently came home to find this on the kitchen floor:

I like to think the cats were trying to help out around the house by doing the dishes for me.

But I'm pretty sure they're smarter than that.

More Decorated Doors

Here are the other decorated doors from the contest we had at my workplace just before Christmas.

There was Rudolph

and a Winter Wonderland.

This pretty door featured messages about things for which the creators were grateful.

Our drinking, crack-smoking mayor featured prominently on this door, "the Christmas cracker".

Santa riding on a motorcycle (posted on the door of one of our senior executives who just happens to have a motorbike, using his face!)

This one was a little harder to photograph.  They "set a table" on the door.

This one with Santa in the chimney featured our company president's face as Santa.

I thought this one with the deer tangled in the Xmas lights was quite amusing!

And the winning entry?  This one, with Santa getting stuck going back up the chimney.

Sure, it's cute but is it better than my team's "We 3 Kings" entry?!  Maybe, maybe not.  I'm guessing the photographs of several of the company's senior executives on the mantel probably swayed the vote in their favour.  Just saying! ;)

The Christmas Door Decorating Contest 2013

Things were so busy in the last half of December, I didn't have a chance to post about the door decorating contest we had where I work.

We were randomly divided into teams.  In the spirit of "bah, humbug!", some teams chose not to participate at all but most did.

My 5 co-workers and I decorated three doors, side by side.  Can you guess our theme?

Nat King Cole door

Elvis Presley door

Michael Jackson door

Scroll down for the answer.






I'll give you a hint - it wasn't "music".




Keep scrolling.





Do you need another hint?





Okay, here it is:  it's the name of a Christmas carol.




Did you guess right?

Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of the other doors from the contest, as created by my talented co-workers, including the one that won first prize.  (Can you believe we didn't win?! I still think we should have, but then again, I am not an impartial judge!)

The Documented Life Project

I was catching up on my blog reading on the afternoon of New Year's Eve and came across an entry on Lindsay Ostrom's blog telling about The Documented Life Project that she had read about on Roben Marie Smith's blog.  Robin and four other artists, Sandi Keene, Lorraine Bell, Rae Missigman and Barbara Moore, who call themselves Art to the Fifth, are each using a Moleskin weekly planner to document their life in 2014 and they have invited people to join them in doing the same.

You can read more about the project here. It's free to take part and/or to join the Facebook group, which I would highly recommend, even if you don't intend to create a planner, just to see all the amazingly creative art people are making in response to the weekly challenges (and it's only January 5th!).  If you are so inclined, there is also a $12 mini online course available which provides suggestions for how to decorate the cover of your Moleskin and how to add monthly tabs and extra pages.

Instead of a Moleskin, I am using the day planner I described here on my blog in yesterday's post, which is a day planner from 1947.  I'm excited about the idea of decorating my planner and incorporating the weekly challenges suggested by the DLP group.  Today I added the monthly tabs to my book and I'm quite excited with how it turned out.

I cut the tabs out of scrapbook paper by hand, having first made myself a template.  As you can see, I have several types of stamps that have the months of the year on them:

but in the end, I decided to use a set I bought from Traci Bunkers, as I really like the funky font.  The papers I used have a vintage look and many have green tones, which compliments the green used on the book pages.

I then pasted the left over bits of paper onto today's page, just for fun.