Happy Monday!

Yay! A whole new week and I am excited!  Did some more playing in my art journal today-played with an acrylic ink eyedropper and just drew a random image of a wolf. Lots of random thoughts going on today-just enjoyed the process :)

Free To Be Me

So my daughter is back in school...........and I am in the process of doing my art again. The past couple of days have been amazing, and I am so thrilled to have my much needed "ME" time. I have so much time on my hands now I don't know what to do! But I do know one thing-I need time to nurture myself right now.  I am thrilled to again be my own person-and my daughter can be hers. There is so much I want to do that I don't even know where to begin! Here is my art journal page today, and the pic of myself was printed on inkjet transfer paper and ironed onto muslin. I finished the edges with a zigzag stitch and also stitched some straight stitches on the fabric as well.

art journal page out of frustration

Its been a really hard week. This homeschooling has finally got to me.............I just don't think I can do it anymore.  We have an Autism class here locally so I am going to seriously look into it.  In all this, I am losing myself. I just don't get the opportunity to do all I want anymore.  Things that help define me as a person, not just as a mother of a special needs child. I find myself thinking of how happy I used to be-I used to spend hours doing art when she was at school (before they started calling me for EVERY LITTLE THING). At the end of the day, I felt fulfilled, being I had done something I loved every day.  I LONG for that.  Now my day consists of caring for her every day, all day.  Everytime I sit and try to do something, she needs something , and takes me out of my zone.  I know that first and foremost, I am her mom.  I am well aware of that. But aside from that , with homeschooling I am losing myself. 

This page was created today out of that frustration.  I am going through so many emotions right now. I want her to be successful in her life. She is very high functioning thank goodness, and I count my lucky stars for that.  But is it selfish of me to want to take care of myself?  That is how I feel :(  Its really tough, and making this decision (because I feel guilty) is soooooooooooo much harder than it was when I decided to homeschool. sigh.

We Did It! Wednesday

I have been working on this skirt for about a week now, off and on.   I had not put a zipper in something for yearsssssssssssssss so it felt like the first time, but it went pretty well :)  This skirt is made of linen. Not a super complicated skirt to make but hey-I did it and it fits :) This was finished off with serged edges and a catch stitch (even though the pattern itself said to do the hem another way).

 I like it............now to find (or make) a shirt to wear with it :)

T-shirt Bag

I don't know why but all of a sudden I am obsessed with making bags.  I just checked out the book "The Feisty Stitcher" by Susan Wasinger at the library. I got thumbing through it and went straight to the thrift store and got a couple of old shirts to make this bag.  It only took 1-2 hours. What fun!  My husband said it looks "beachy" and I guess he is right :) I added an up-close photo of the stitched circles cut out to reveal the layer underneath-pretty cool :)

First sewing project (in like 10 years)

Just a simple shoulder bag :)

Unwind

Thats what I have been doing today........Unwinding. Thats the only thing that came to my mind this afternoon when I started to do my art journaling.   I pictured a tightly wound spring. So thats what my focus was today :)  Ahhhhh, feeling much better after my art time today!

Had more fun with the Gelliart plate today!  I did some yesterday too but didn't post.  I tried some Freezer paper with it and love that :)  I am including my favorite print from today's batch.  I tried some Cedar Canyon rubbing plates for the patterns.......ohhhhh! My new favorite thing to use with the GelliArt plate.  I tell ya, this GelliArt thing is genius!  Loving it!

Fabric Paper

Had some fun today making Fabric Paper.....as mentioned in Beryl Taylor's book Mixed Media Explorations. This was fun, and soooo different than  I have done before.  Gonna make this one into a book cover :)


This is embedded with patterned papers, vintage text and stamped images

Revisiting a former Love...............

Years ago I was quite the seamstress-I sewed and sewed like crazy.  For my High School graduation I got a really nice Sewing machine from my folks.  That machine was well loved and used.  After I discovered stamping, my sewing became less and less frequent. Along came kids-and forget it. Especially after Gillian  came along.  Anyway-after years of being in storage, I got my beloved Singer out.  Gillian  and I made a drawstring bag to go along with a History lesson on Early People.  My poor machine just was not sewing as well as it used to.  I called to enquire about it being serviced.  It would cost more to have it serviced than I could pick up a new one for (an inexpensive machine of course). So my husband told me to go ahead and get another.  We were at the Sewing Center locally here yesterday and I was asking her about servicing my Singer and she said that Singer is just not the same company anymore and that many of the parts are not even available anymore because they destroyed old molds.  My machine could be among those. So sad!  After some of the things she told me a sense of panic overcame me.  My overlock machine has also been in storage for a loooooooooong time-even longer than my Singer.  So this morning I went and got it out and I am in the process of cleaning it and oiling it, praying that it functions well.  I am optimistic! This machine costed ALOT. Gasp.  I hope to soon have it up and running again . My daughter is extremely excited about learning to sew. That makes me more inclined to get this stuff up and running.  I see some fun handbags, and mini art quilts in our future :)

The picture here is of my wonderful Elnita Lock machine, that I purchased many years ago at a very young age :) We are excited to have her out of hiding :)

Monoprints with Gelliart plate

I have been dying to use this Gelliarts Gel Printing Plate I purchased a couple weeks ago. I have always wanted to do Gelatin prints-but I never seem to have room in my refrigerator to put a whole baking sheet in and besides, I have to wait for the plate to be ready! ugh!  When I saw this thing I knew I had to have it-its always ready to go and takes up very little space and is always ready to go!  So today , Gillian and I had fun making some monoprints and here are some of our results!  Watch out for more! We have plans to use this for fabric too and whatever else we can get our hands on!