Sunday Golf & Pretty Papers

How does the week fly by so quickly? One second you are listening to the alarm clock ring Monday morning and the next you are preparing for bed on Sunday to start the week again. That is why I treasure the weekend time I am able to spend with Mr. C. traveling, loving and experiencing life.

Mr. C. after he hit his target, the cart collecting the golf balls lol.

This weekend we were able to go to the Sommerfest in downtown Stuttgart, catch hangover 2 at the theater play on the driving range and still have time to play with paper!

Batter up! (hey I didn’t say I had skills…)

Sommerfest downtown was so much fun! We met up with folks from work and danced the night away. Well…friends talked and I snuck away to dance in the Latin tent with strangers in Jamaican style beanies and mad dance skills. I love that Germany has so many free festivals and fun times.

A blurry pic inside one of the drink tents at Sommerfest

I also took the time to photograph my recent layouts from the Studio Calico, “Mind the Gap” and “Petrol” kits as promised earlier this week. I hope you enjoy looking!

Love of Northern Ireland

The photos in this layout are from our visit to Northern Ireland last year. The Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-rede Bridge are amazing! I used the exclusive Studio Calico patterned paper and used Mr. Huey’s to highlight the title. Ink was used for doodling, outlining the various green scraps and letters and detailing my favorite memory triggers from the Northern Ireland trip.

The Tower

This is my favorite tower in the Tower of London, which actually consists of numerous towers. When I visited back in 2006 my sister captured a photo of me in this same tower which became one of my mother’s favorites. So when I visited the Tower again in 2010 I had my friend Nikki try to re-capture the moment. I felt pretty silly asking but am so happy I did because this photo turned out so gorgeous with the lighting from the window!

For the layout I painted the background paper with gesso, metallic water colors and Studio Calico Mr. Huey’s. For the banner I used the Maya Road chipboard pennants which also came in the Studio Calico, “Petrol” kit and painted them with metallic watercolors. After stamping the Studio Calico images I adhered the photo with machine stitching and stitched the line to hang the Maya Road pennants from.

I finished the layout by attaching the pennants along the stitched line and punch details from My Minds Eye and silver accents from 7Gypsies. I love this layout, it is so soft and pretty!

More layouts, travel stories and life memories to share next week after my week begins with you guessed it, the alarm clock and kisses good morning from Mr. C.!

Fore!

Art Journal Remix

So you saw my first stab at the out of the journal challenge in my last post. I have been staring at it thinking it does not really scream me, my style or the message I wanted to convey. Sometimes when we create that is fine because we are re-defining our style or trying out new techniques but this time? I think I was just tired and wanting to make sure that I made “something” for the out of the journal challenge.

The out of the journal canvas I completed earlier this week.

This afternoon I grabbed a German magazine I have been saving from back when Mr. C. and I were living in the hotel and started flipping through it for ideas. I knew that I wanted to keep the same canvas and elements and capture the craziness of the day. Success!

Same canvas from earlier this week; no elements were taken away from the original canvas however gesso, magazine clippings and faber-castell pens were added.

I am so much happier with the way this canvas turned out. I captured my style and the message I wanted to convey. That sometimes life is crazy circus, people try to take you down but you can rise above, reflect inward and find your own inner peace. I love this canvas, especially how the magazine font on the elephant talks about one day in Germany. While I love the results the constant critic in me think’s I may need to add some cute little felt headbands, a girl has to have accessories right?

On a side note, did you see I misspelled circus? Or perhaps I should say I was distracted in dream world and accidently wrote an o instead of a u since I cannot figure out how a person can misspell circus! I started to fix it and Mr. C. asked me why? Isn’t that why we create art? So we can look at the past little mistakes and laugh about what happened to cause it? I started thinking about what he said and it’s true…that is why I like having art on my wall because it’s one of a kind, riddled with mistakes and possibilities and vision just like life. I have such a clever husband!

Out of the Art Journal on a Bad Day!

I love the creative process because it get’s me thinking, remembering, analyzing and feeling my daily adventures. Today’s daily adventure consisted of nasty comments at work, a few tears husband hugs and a trip to my favorite place to eat for lunch (Mr. C. thought I needed some spoiling). Lunch was followed by more work, thankfully no more tears and the execution of a creative dare Mr. C. issued to make me feel better. The creative dare can be found in the picture below, yes that is highlighter make-up as in paper highlighter make-up…on my face.

What possessed me to turn my face into a highlighter canvas? My crying jag which seemed to last longer because I was upset I was crying which made me cry harder (why do we do these things?) made my make-up almost non-existence. After talking to Mr. C. about how to fix the things at work that caused the tears of frustration in the first place I began to whine (yes readers it was whining) about my make-up disappearing. Silly Mr. C. rather than commiserate thought I should simply use what was available and handed me an ink pen in place of lipstick which really made me laugh. So before I left work tonight I gave myself the sharpie make-over you see above Mr. C. laughed so hard at the surprise!

While Sharpie make-up is a great cure for what ails you I still felt hurt and frustrated by the days events and thought I would start my first canvas for the Dina Stamps and Journal Girl challenge, “Out of the Journal.” The goal of this month long creative process is two create two art journal layouts a week on canvas for the wall rather than art bound in your journal.

Here is the process I used to create my first art journal on canvas creation.

Misted canvas with Studio Calico Mr. Huey in lemonade, blue-grass and barnwood.

Quickly did a rough sketch of a heart with charcoal on bristol board.

Painted heart and wings with gesso, acrylic and these fabulous water-based glimmer paints. I bought them at a convention several years ago and love them but sadly cannot remember the brand name! One of the best $5.00 I have spent.

Added charcoal accents to wings and heart and cut out roughing the edges. I wanted it to look like the heart was shining outwards and used the water- based glimmer paints to begin painting rays coming out of the heart.

I decided that I wanted to journal how when the actions of other are interpreted as mean-spirited or things hurt us our first reaction is to want to close our hearts. I changed my mind on the position of the wings to demonstrate this instinctive reaction.

I added the remaining rays of color, charcoal accents and journaling. The journal message states, “Don’t allow the actions of others teach you to hide your heart.” The imagery is meant to show that even if you feel like closing yourself off from the world your heart still desires to give, to love and to experience. These three things are too important to allow others to control them based on fear.

If you are looking for a fun project this month I really encourage you to take the, “Out of the Journal” challenge. The canvas I made today was quick, fun and a great was to express myself.

Thought I would end today with one more look at the sharpie-makeover and the hope that if your adventure today was as raw and intense as mine it gives you a laugh as well!

Monday Inspiration: Studio Calico

I have been looking at monthly scrapbooking kit’s for a few years but never actually ‘signed up’ to participate with a kit club as a member. It seemed expensive, and too large of a commitment when I could simply run to the craft or scrapbooking store to grab the same supplies. The whole adage of, “you never know what you have until you don’t have it” has definitely rung true for me since moving overseas. Now that I can no longer run to my local scrapbooking store, opening up the mail for a big box of SURPRISE! is definitely helping to keep me motivated.

Have to drink the Pimms when in London baby!

As always Mr. C. helped me to finally make the decision to join the club. Last month’s theme was, “Mind the Gap” which made me think automatically of London.

The best crepe place in London (South Kensington)

I. Love. London.

Mr. C. first noticed me as a girl (ok a girl he was interested in lol) in London, I took my first overseas trip to London, saw my first castle in London, visited the home of my favorite author (Jane Austen) in London and had a wonderful time with one of my closest friends (twice!) and baby sister.

Since the Studio Calico kit brought London to mind I decided to only scrap photos from my various trips to the U.K. can we say challenging? Only using kit supplies and limiting my photo options? It sounded hard when I first talked myself into it (the inside voices were really chattering last weekend) but once I started creating I found that it really focused my efforts and I completed over six layouts in a matter of hours!

I love the layouts I created. Northern Ireland, Tower of London, Stonehenge,, Dublin, Bath, Buckingham Palace, pubs, tours, the White Cliffs of Dover, Hampton Court, Covent Gardens and the list goes on. Stay tuned over this next week to see the full layouts with tutorials!

Will I really post the layouts and tutorials later this week, ask yourself am I holding up this castle? If you believe it can happen! *grin*.

30 Days of August

As promised here is my first August blog post! I bet you are all thinking…

what?!

It’s true, after the long July Summer blog drought I am back with fresh creative ideas, travel tips and tricks and the daily activities of living, documenting and creating my life adventures!

What’s new for August?

- Travel Top Ten: My top ten favorite things to do in each city I visit.

- Move to Typepad: The Mrs. C. adventures will be traveling to a new location on cyberspace this month!

- Pretty Little Studio Design Inspiration coming weekly!

I hope you are ready for this!

To all my Monday Inspiration readers, no worries the Monday Inspiration will be up tomorrow. Stay tuned!