My Goals For June

So. It's June now. That's insane! I can't believe that time has sped by so fast. It seems impossible that we're already halfway through the year. It's also hard to think that in exactly one month, we're going to be moving from the place that I've been living all fourteen years of my life. And we're going pretty much across the country. What?? How did this happen? I don't know for sure. It's crazy the way time flies. But since it's here, I might as well make the most of it. Anyways, getting back to the original purpose for this post. I figured that since today is June 1st, I realized this would be the perfect day to post a list of my goals for the next 30 days. I have a lot of things that I'd like to have completed, and I think that if I put it on here I'd feel held responsible.

Something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is inspiration. Inspiration is something that is very important to us artists, since without ideas we can't do much in the way of art. Dede, who is a good friend of mine, often does live streams in the mornings. Recently she has been doing a color inspiration journal, and I started one a bit similar to hers. I love the way she set it up, and it feels like my style as well. She's been using the colors and stuff to make other projects using that inspiration. It's cool.

Anyways, here's a list of stuff that I'd like to do this month... bear with me as I type it all out. :)

• Finish editing my book and then send it in for a free copy (I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo)
• Work a little bit on my art journal every day.
• Complete 3-5 art journal pages for submissions.
• Make some youtube videos
• Blog every day about my art and life

I would also like to continue work on the several projects I have going on here: Linky Monday, Collage Unleashed Project, Project Runway project, and the Creative Experiments Projects. I actually started work on my Project Runway project the other day, and made some gorgeous fabric out of trash bags. I know it sounds really strange, and maybe even a bit weird, but I promise it actually worked. I ironed a trash bag together, ending up with about a yard of 18" wide fabric. That was from one trash bag. I'll probably zigzag a bunch together. I've also been working on a newspaper dress.

NOTE:: The art journal page above is part of another post as well. Be looking forward to the PROGESS of that page sometime soon.

I'd like to make progress on all of these projects this month. Sound good? I hope so. You'll be reading about it all month. :)

Projects Update

Yeah. That post every day thing. Not happening. I lost my camera. The picture above was taken a while ago, since my phone was also dead and not wanting to charge. I don't know what it is about all of my electronics going down all at once. I do know that the warrantee for my phone is up, thus no posts for the last couple of days. It's okay though, since I'm popping up here again to talk to you guys. I really wish I could talk about the progress on my Collage Unleashed project, since I actually have some good progress on it. I've made two color scraped pieces; I like the second one I did better than the first one; the first just didn't seem like it was my style.

I also did some scraped and dyed fabric ideas that I experimented with. The next thing I'm going to be messing around with is crayon art. I wish I had a personal iron that I could use to play around with... I'm going to be looking for one at Goodwill and E-bay and stuff; a good price and I might have to snatch it up. If I just use Mom's iron, it'll ruin it, and I'd rather not do that. I still need that to make some garbage bag fabric for my project runway project. I've also started something that I'd like to share here on my blog once I can get pictures and stuff. You see, something that I've been messing around with the idea for lately is getting the most out of my supplies. Though I buy my supplies cheaply enough, I still like to stretch them out as far as I can.

I'm going to be having frequent posts on here showing you guys ways that I use my different supplies. Since there are so many different ways to use just one product, that means, I won't ever run short of things to write about like I have in the past. I was just experimenting earlier today with a way to use white acrylic paint. I know that is one of the very basic supplies that I use in my art journaling. I like experimenting a lot, and I love to find new and improved ways to use my supplies. What do you think of that?

An Update

Hey people. I'm back from a couple of days break. Sorry about that, but it couldn't be helped. I had a bunch of stuff going on, and I was just really busy. So yeah. I've got a bunch more pictures for you guys too. So I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time the other day and had a ton of fun. I just about fainted when I walked in the door because of the size, but it was all good in the end. What ended up happening was that I got some pom poms for a vest I want to make, some embroidery floss for my next cross stitch project, and some aida cloth to go with it. I also got a few mixed media/scrapbooking supplies. So anyways.

Here are some yarns that I've been working with lately, and they are all for a challenge that I've been working on. It's for crocheted jewelry on Craftster. The moment I saw the challenge, I knew what I was going to make, and pretty much got started with it right away. The winner of the challenge gets their pattern and pictures featured in a magazine (I can't remember exactly which one right now). Mine is pretty much done so far, but I'm just posting pictures of the yarn currently. I used all shades of blue along with accents of white and green.




Here's a full photograph of the cross stitch that I've been working on. It's not quite completed yet, but I'm still working on it, though not as much as I was before, since I ended up starting the new cross stitch pattern (I just couldn't help myself!!). What I like about this is all of the shading and the variegating that works through it. This was my first bigger piece.


Here are some pictures of the embroidery floss that I bought for my new project in rainbow order. It's pretty cool looking. I tend to do that when I make stuff, just because I get to fondle the materials a little and mess around with them.


Here's another.

And, on a finishing note, I want to update with a bit of progress on my second project made using the supplies above. This is going to be a toy train. I've got quite a bit more done on it since this was taken, but I'll post that another time. Tomorrow I'll try to get on again. And I'm hoping to have an ATC tutorial for you all.

I know that I've talked a lot about my ATCs in the past, but still haven't posted any pics yet. I think that a nice tutorial might be a good way to showcase that. Of course an ATC can be done in many different ways, but I thought you guys may like to see my progress. We'll see if I can get pictures. I might go work on that now. Thanks for the inspiration!

Pictures!!

Hey all. It's me again. And guess what? I brought pictures!! Yep. You got it. I actually found my OLD camera and took some photos. Sorry about the crappy quality of this first cross stitch photo, but still, after a few years, it's hard for me to take good close up photos without a flash. Once I find the cord for my new camera, the pics will be better, I promise. It's a lot more user friendly than my other one. So anyways, back to this picture. I told you yesterday that I was working on the outline of a cross stitch project. That would be the brown. I'll get back to you with the number of the floss I'm using. This project is probably my second or third piece, with a level of expertise being 3 out of 5 stars. So probably an intermediate piece.

Personally, for only being my second or third cross stitch, I think it's pretty good. Of course, I'm biased, but whatever. I liked the pattern instantly when I saw it in a thrifted pattern magazine, and just had to make it. The problem still remains however. I'm going to go crazy looking for the two previous issues of this magazine (I might post a pic of it tomorrow), because this is the third and last of a set of flower patterns. This is the lily pattern, and the two others are made in the same color scheme, but they're roses and tulips. I really want to make them too, but in the magazine I have now, there are only two tiny pictures, so it's not even like I could develop my own pattern from it. Like I could do that. But you better believe that if I had a good enough picture, I'd try. :)


Next up on the list we have the gloves I'm working on. The fingerless ones with the cable knit pattern. I know that I've spoken about these on numerous occasions, and really, really, REALLY wanted to post yesterday with an in progress picture, but, obviously, my camera cord was missing. So this is what you're getting. :) This morning I finished the first glove, and it turned out pretty good. Sorry I couldn't get a close up of it, but the ones I did take were crap and you couldn't even see the cable. This was the best one I've got. So the needle on the left is the next glove being cast on. You cast on 40 stitches. That was just a random piece of pointless information that I just felt like sharing. So yeah. Here's the link to the pattern: Pattern. so yeah. It's a pretty easy pattern in general, and this is my first time knitting anything other than squares and rectangles, and my first time also working with cables.

So far I really like it. It's just fun for me to see patterns developing in the fabric right before my very eyes. And it's cool to be able to say: "Hey, I made that you know. I know it's awesome. I'm just cool like that." :P. Sorry, I just had to say that. But anyways, check out the pattern if you feel like looking up a cool knitted pattern that works up pretty quickly, and works even for a beginner. (Just so you know, I have absolutely no rights to this pattern. I didn't design it. I just stumbled across it while browsing the web. Like I normally do.)


Just a last picture before we go today. I just liked the way it turned out. The dots in the background are seemingly perfect, and the way that the needles are perfectly place, and the yarn just seems to flow out of it... in reality this pic wasn't posed at all. :) I just plopped the needles down on the background (my bedsheets) and snapped the pic. And it came out perfect. I just thought it was cool. So anyways. Until we meet again... peace.