Chasing Sunbeams

That's what I do.

I chase the sunbeams around my house.

And I've recently figured out why.

 

This life;

this long- sometimes drawn out life- that truly lasts only the blink of an eye.

It is full.

It is beautiful.

So achingly beautiful...

In its sorrow and its suffering.

In its joy and its love.

I chase the sunbeams, because I am light.

Because they are what I know.

Bright, warm, caressing.

I find so much happiness in simply standing in a sunbeam;

letting all my guards down

and letting the light penetrate my heart; my soul.

Filling my being with love.

Love that I want to share freely with anyone who is willing to accept it.

 

This is me standing in my light, heart bared to the world.

I am a sunbeam.

Sketch & Wash {art supplies}

The charcoal pencil.
It has been one of my go to supplies for a long time now.
I love the shadow effect I can get out of it to pop a subject up to the eye.
The depth it can create with its contrast.
The way it can finish a piece when used along the edges.

Recently I started playing with a water soluble graphite pencil.
{General's Sketch & Wash}
That charcoal pencil might want to be wary.
Lighter in value, but gives a nice smooth and delicate shadow.
It moves about the page easier.

Same, but different.
Both fun to use.
 

Project Life 2014 {the book}

I still haven't finish Project Life 2013,

but an unfinished project has never stopped me from moving on to the next one before,

so here I go.

 

I decided this year I would change things up a bit.

I'm still using my own handmade journal without the pockets/page protectors,

but this time instead of a PL core kit I will be receiving Studio Calico's monthly Project Life kit.

I'm interested to see if it makes a difference with time management.

 

 

As I said, I'm housing 2014 in a book I put together.

This is a yearbook I picked up, I think early last fall, at an antique mall.

{I've gone back to the yearbook plan after all.}

 

 

First I set about making the signatures and sewing them in.

That took some brain power.

The plan was to used the diamond x binding stitch Mary Ann taught in her Ticket to Venice class.

I quickly realized that it wasn't going to work, because I had five signatures and my spine just didn't have the width to handle that many holes in one line and create a good looking stitch.

So with some finagling, and a whole lot of juggling, I came up with this.

 

 

When I got to the cover I found myself flabbergasted.

It's orange.

Not a coral,

{oh, how I love the color coral}

but tomato orange.  Wait...  I picked that out??  I don't do orange.

What was I going to do with that??

Well once again my need to buy things solely because they are pretty and not because I have an actual need for them came in handy.

I cut the cover off a Rifle Paper Co. journal, glued it down and added some letter stickers to it.

Perfect.  And evidently I can do tomato orange.

 

 

Inside for the intro page I used a combination of Kaisercraft, Studio Calico and My Mind's Eye from my paper stash, a bit of washi tape and a photo of the #noblesthree.

 

 

Now to get myself on a printing schedule, because setting aside a chunk of time to print out photos is what slows me down the most.

 

Are you documenting 2014?

 



Believe {one little word}

Last year was

DO.

I did not do.

Big fail.

But...

 

Do you know how many quotes there are about failure not being a negative thing?

A lot.  Thank goodness.

I may need to refer back to them often this year.

Because this year is all about believing in myself.

Believe

My word for 2014.

Somewhere along the way in 2013 I lost my belief in myself.

I'm not sure where, nor how.

But happen it did.

However, I intend to get it back.
And luckily I will have a little help along the way.

With this guy.  Ha!

See last year started off with me saying quite loudly that I will do and succeed because,

"I'm a bad ass unicorn!"

He was tucked in my stocking this past Christmas to remind me throughout 2014

that I am indeed

A Bad Ass Unicorn.

Here is to believing in myself again.

 

Do you have a word for 2014?

 



Oh, Hello!

Happy January!

How was your December?

Mine, packed full.

 

 

And it was good.

Except for that one day...

{I almost dragged the tree outside and set it on fire in the middle of the road}

you know, just one of those days.

The other 30 were great.

And January has started off pretty well also.

I am, however, very much ready to put 2013 behind me.

When I look back on the year in its entirety, it was a little too gray and somber for my liking.

I have grand plans for 2014.

Plans full of art and more blogging and some Italian even.

 

Now your turn.

Tell me what you have in store for 2014!

 



December Daily {Days 1-4}

"Simple, simple, simple."

That's my mantra for December Daily this year.

So when Gretchen posted on Instagram that she was going to follow

this photo a day prompt for a December journal,

I jumped on Gretchen's sled!

Brilliant and simple.

 

Day 1 ~ Bright

 

 

 

Day 2 ~ Cherish

 

 

 

When I sat down to put days three and four together,

I accidently switched the photos.

{I was watching TV again.  You'd think I would learn.}

 

Day 3 ~ White

 

 

 

Day 4 ~ Joy

 

 

Neither grungy, nor doodly.

Just simple.

Sometimes I have no idea what will come from my hands.

 

 



Project Life {Week 23}

I am almost certain all the gods of Olympus

were fighting against me last night.

 

It all started when I misplaced my brain.

I'm not even sure when I removed it from my head,

but evidently I did,

and y'all, I hadn't even started drinking at that point.

 

 

You see, I plugged my phone into my laptop

so I could go through the photos on it from June.

The plan was

{which never varies from month to month...  I do it the very same every time}

to choose which pics I would use and move the ones not to be used over to the computer.

From there I could then reformat the ones to be used on my phone for my little wireless printer.

Instead I moved the entire first week of June over.

{and I'm not talking seven photos.  I take a lot of pics.  Have you seen my Instagram??}

Thank goodness I only moved the first week!

 

 

Because once I finished having a fit over that mistake, it only got better.

{insert sarcasm}

I opened those photos up in Photoshop and spent a good amount of time processing

and resizing them.

From there I took my laptop to another room in the house

where the printer resides,

{why we haven't set it up for wireless I'm not quite sure

since the Farmboy is an IT genius}

plugged it in and printed my photos.

 

 

Only to have them come out RED.

{and I swear I did not drop a bagel chip into the printer this time}

I had hoped an ink change and cleaning the heads a gajillion times would have fixed that, but no.

It did not.

So smarty me thought I could beat it

and I changed all the photos to black and white.

Didn't change a thing.

 

And that's when I got the wine out.

And decided to just put the week together minus the photos.

They will have to wait until I get a chance to go get a new printer.

 

Can't thwart me, o ye gods of olde!