pamgarrison

making more journal cards

 

I've been having lots of fun making journal cards for my Project Life project. Feels different to play on such a small scale. The journal cards for the page protectors are generally 3x4 and 4x6. Even if you aren't doing project life, I think it'd be fun to make some postcards , notes, or gift tags etc. like these. Here are the cards I've made recently:

Told you I've been having fun! Are you still with me? It's addicting I tell you. Now to stop making them for a bit and put them to use in my book...still working on catcing up!

These are the products I used that might not be obvious by looking at the above:

white pen, grid journal cards, corner rounder, adhesive, gold pen, water brush pen, water colors, ink, chevron bag.

no excuses art journaling giveaway

My friendGina has a new Art Journaling book coming out:

 and she also has 2 companion DVDs: The No Excuses approach to drawing and watercoloring and The No Excuses approach to mixed media and collage. 

The DVD's are available now, so to celebrate, she's been having a blog release party with giveaways. Here are all the blog party participants:

May 20    Jessica Herman Goodson
May 21    Dion Dior
May 22    Serena Barton
May 23    Chris Kalina
May 24    Kelly Kilmer

May 28    you're here!

May 29    Jennifer Joanau
May 30    Tracie Huskamp
May 31    Lesley Riley
In addition Gina will be having daily giveaways herself, so check out her new site for more info.

As for me, you know I love art journaling, so to encourage you to play along and get journaling, I've added a few things  to the giveaway. Leave a comment on this post before the end of the day Saturday, and one winner will be chosen at random to receive Gina's The No Excuses approach to mixed media and collage DVD as well as Jenny Doh's Journal It! and Creative Lettering, both of which I contributed to, as well as a few other goodies from me:

I had fun painting on the paper with the winner in mind. I plan to wrap up all the goodies in the paper to send to the lucky commenter. Maybe they'll make a journal out of it? or use it in a journal, or wrap another gift with it, or fill it in with paint...tell us in the comments what you'd do if you win (if you want, you don't have to, I'm just being nosy).

So, care to open the mail to recieve Gina's The No Excuses Approach to mixed media and collage DVD, Jenny's 2 books, and some Pam art? Just leave a comment on this post before the end of Saturday, June 1 and maybe it'll be you! (Winner will be announced on the blog and goodies will be sent next week!)

 (Please note: giveaway includes only the mixed media and collageDVD, not both of Gina's DVDs, and not Gina's book which isn't available until fall)

ED:comments closed now, thanks for playing! 

project life • week 15

 

Project Life spread for week 15, April 8-14.

Making progress on catching up :).

I used my Silhouette for the date header card- and a J Crew magazine cover for the color behind the cut out. 

This week's spread is pretty simple; a lot of photos used to tell the stories, and not much more. Not sure if it's what felt right, or if it was due to documenting it so many weeks after it happened, but again, I'm fine with it, it's all part of the bigger whole. And the plan is for me to continue catching up!

saturday study in lines and shapes

 

small steps toward order in the art room

Earlier this year I mentioned that I was moving my "art room/office" from upstairs to down. Way back when, I never thought it would take this long to start feeling some semblance of order. I wouldn't suggest a rush move-everything-in-and-sort-later method that I did. I'm still working on it and finding it slow going since I'm also continuing everything else going on in life. If only we could stop time once in awhile, right?

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the things that are working for me right now. The most effective additions for storage have been the rolling Raskog carts from Ikea. I bought one, liked it so much, I went back for another. I couldn't decide between the pretty teal and grey, but since the workbench that they sit next to is grey, I went with grey. Here's what I've got in them currently:

They sit right alongside the workbench, but since they roll, they do move around a bit.

I'm hoping to have the center workbench be used for project life-ing and art journaling, and here are some of the items that are successfully living on or in it:

This basket is attached to the front and I keep tools that are large or awkward in it for easy grabbing.

To the left of that hanging tool basket, there is a deep drawer that holds all my shape punches and hole punchers.

The drawer to the right holds embossing powders, small ink pads,special ink pads, some stamps that aren't backed with wood and some clear blocks for clear stamps.

Right above this drawer, this two drawer metal file cabinet sits with all my normal sized ink pads. Above it in the old coffee can are my Mr. Huey mists. Also above it is usually this tool box full of wood stamps that I took down to photograph here:

To the left of this area I have a locker basket with my alphabet stickers:

To the left of that, label stickers and other sticker sheets. I had them in a plastic small bin, but the truth is, I use them more this way, and that's what this need for order is really about for me: function/ease of use.

And next to these sits an inexpensive metal tray with some roller stamps, roll stamps, and currently in use washi tape:

They sit like this:

The white storage items/containers are all from Ikea.

All of the above is in front of me when I stand at the workbench. Behind me is prime area for supplies too, since they're within grabbing reach. Here's what directly behind me:

Inside the binders I used page protectors of various sizes to hold clear acrylic stamps in one, and stencils and masks in the other:

I wish I could give credit to the person I got this idea from, but I am having no luck finding the picture I saw. It was either on IG, or Pinterest, or a blog.

I've tried other clear stamp storage ideas and am hopeful that this will make using these stamps the easiest. Love how there seems to be a page protector for every size stamp out there.

To the right of these binders is the wall-o-washi:

and to the right of this, my 2 typewriters:

Here's how they type:

I'd love to find one more at a great price that is a cursive typewriter.

I'm sure I will someday...first I've got to keep organizing so there's room for it anyway!

That's pretty much all I photographed today.

One bite at a time; I'm eating the elephant!

field trip: Olvera Street

On Monday, I joined this cutie above on what is likely my last ever parent chaperoned field trip. The eighth graders taking Spanish class all took a train to Olvera Street in the heart of Los Angeles. It was a beautiful day and everyone, even the "too cool for school" eighth graders, had a great time. Here are some of the photos I took that day:

{Olvera Street is located in downtown Los Angeles, just across the street from Union Station, a beautiful historic train station. 

And then we hopped back on the train to return home.

Hope you enjoyed a little visit to Olvera Street via photos. It's a beautiful spot that feels more historic than touristy. I went many times as a young child and haven't been for many many years, but after this recent visit, I'd like to return again soon.

Perhaps without quite so many 8th graders ;).

project life • week 14

Project Life week 14, April 1- April 7. Yes, I am very very behind. Not just in posting them here, in actually doing the spreads. Getting this one done felt like a big win for me. I am determined to do a week for each week of the year. Of course, it can be done any way, that's just how I decided to do it.

This spread was hard for me for a few reasons: 1. Too much time had passed since the week happened. 2. My printer died and I had to get a new one and get up to speed on it. 3. There were 2 extra inserts; one, my going away, and one my daughter attending a wedding and 4. I went away- being away from home always puts me behind in everything it seems. For all those reasons, I was having a hard time starting again.

So I forced it. I used embellishments to fill in where I couldn't remember the stories I wanted to document. And I'm totally fine with this week now that it's done. I remember that it really is about the year in whole.

I found that little blue heart (velvet flower petal) above on the floor when I was putting the spread together and although it has nothing to do with April1-7, I liked how it fit so used it. An example of leaning on embellishements to fill in the week.

I used a postcard by artist Dinara Mirtalipova that came in my Uppercase magazine subscription for the date header card.

The left side of spread.

Here's the front side of the first insert and some closeups of the embellishments:

And the back side of this first insert, all about my trip to Meg's Whatever Craft Weekend:

The second insert was a photo of a photo booth pic my daughter took at a wedding on the front:

The back side of this insert has another photo booth photo, a text to me when she was heading out the door to the wedding, and phone photos from the wedding:

And the right side of the weekly spread:

{Ed 5/27/13: I've added a couple things to the page that I ran across while working on later weeks. You can see the difference by comparing the two photos above.}

At the end of the week my daughter ran in her first 1/2 marathon.(!!!) How funny are her snapchats to me during the race? Love that she took them and sent them to me.

The three cards above were all hand made. The United States was a print of a google search for "United States map free clip art" which I then stitched my route taken.

So happy that I got this week 14 done, 15 should be easier, because it was less full of activities for the family, and because I'm back on the proverbial horse.

We are currently in the middle of week 21, in case you're counting. :)
 No pressure Pam.

(Riiiight.)

some art journaling

 

Oklahoma.

I love what my friend Mary Ann wrote on her post last night:

Of course, it goes without saying, that I'm thinking about the people of Oklahoma this evening. We all are.

And today as well.

Lots of times, I turn to my journal to capture some feelings, thoughts, as I did last night. I was downloading photos from the day's field trip and turned on the news for the first time all day, my journal was next to me on the couch here:

so I picked it up and used it.

For me, art journaling is not about the result, just the process. The above page is ugly to me, but allowing myself this method of processing information is a positive in my eyes. 

Other times I use the pages to solidify a concept I've just read and am pondering:

Sometimes it's a "checking in" with myself method in the morning:

Sometimes it's about trying out new supplies:

{the pens referenced were: this pen, and this one, and this set of waterbrushes, and this pen too, as well as these, and this set of watercolors along with this one and this one too.}

Sometimes it's just playing with the materials I already have and enjoy using:

Or time with old loves; paper, scissors and glue:

or mixing the two types of materials:

Suffice it to say, I think there is no one right reason to art journal, just play time. And after, I sure do love seeing a whole bunch of pretty pages, like this:

a visit to the beautiful moss cottage

If you follow my instagram, you know I  paid a visit to my friend Mary Ann yesterday. I had a lovely day at Moss Cottage and tried to capture some of it's beauty for you.

I snapped the above pics before Mary Ann realized I arrived and came out to greet me. We promptly began a garden tour. It's always fun to discuss plants and watering methods and transplanting and garden plans and future projects. We admired all the new growth most. Something so exciting about fruit appearing, no matter how old one is (at least for me anyway!).

I was focused on capturing the beautiful steps she tiled all by herself while she carried  all my bags of art supplies in.

Perfect for a little house in the hills of LA.

We continued our garden tour on the back patio.

I was completely struck by the beautiful colors and healthiest succulents I've ever seen. We had plans for me to take many cuttings, but I realized on the drive home we never followed through on that, as always our plans exceed the time allowed. Next time!

We then moved inside for our usual exchange of various items we'd been saving for each other and as she went through my box of goodies, I snapped some of my favorite sights in her studio.

More beautiful colors everywhere.

This collection of water and sand and other items gathered all over the world is pure genius. I hope I remember to do it the next time I am somewhere special.

They are striking in a group but each on their own as well.

After a delicious lunch we settled down for an even more delicious dessert in the form of journal viewing and play.

(And no, that does not say what it seems to say on first glance!!! I didn't realize it until the funny instgram comments alerted me to it. Look at it again, you'll see what I mean.)

We were especially focused on sketching and watercoloring, as her dreamy  travel journal from her recent trip to Umbria was front and center in both our minds (and the table too). I truly can not wait for her class on it, she already had much to share I want more! So many fun different rabbit holes for us all to go down, even within the world of travel journaling. I love that about art, endless possibilities.

We discussed different pens and ended up trading a few, tried all different watercolor sets while discussing what colors and brands would make the best travel set, did a few blind contour sketches (I can't show mine here because I don't want to embarrass her, mine were so much better than hers haha- let's just say that I don't think either of us captured the fact that we were drawing a human, let alone each other), and did a couple excercises in shapes and patterns. Just play and just perfect.

And like every other time I've visited, I left with a desire to return SOON. Art time with friends, so so important. Sometimes I forget how much. Sometimes I think I don't have the time. I'm glad I have these pictures of me taken by Mary Ann to remind me it is, and I do. Always, always time well spent!

{Ed: for a much funnier and less truthful version of my visit go here}

paper pastries stamps & discount code

 

Last week I received my new custom business stamp ordered from Paper Pastries.

I  love it! (As if you couldn't tell by the going to town with it evidenced above.)

Margaret was doing a series of new custom business card designs and needed a few volunteers. Yes, please!

I choose the Vespa design which felt very fresh and modern, different than anything I had.

 

And...Margaret was kind enough to offer a discount code (15% off!) for my blog readers that might want to place an order themselves. The discount code applies to all the custom rubber stamps here, not just the business card design.

Use the discount code PAM when ordering any custom rubber stamps for a 15% discount (expires May 28th). I just went and used it myself for this stamp that I'd pinned on my pinterest. So excited, thanks Margaret!

a free printable to color

This morning I got out my journal to do some journaling about my intention for the day.

I instagrammed it when it was at this phase:

Then I got out all my markers and went to town.

For those that want to know the markers I used: Copic Sketch, Prismacolors, Marvy and Faber-Castells.

I instagrammed the finished page too, I think it's fun to see the change once colored.

I thought it would be fun to make it a free printable for you, so I fixed a few things and made some changes in PhotoShop using my tablet, and made a finished colored in version as well:

And here is the downloadable black and white version for you:

Download YouChoose PamGarrison BWprintable

Happy Coloring!!!! If you do color it in and post it anywhere, put a link in the comments so we can see!

teaching at French General

French General is always a lovely place to spend an afternoon and this past Saturday was no exception. I do believe a fun time creating was had by all, I know I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Just look at all the cute parasols above. Of course, as always, time went too quickly and some parasols might receive a little more love at home, but they're great as is.

We were surprised to see how differently they looked closed vs. open:

Love them both ways. 

Thank you to all the students that came out to play! Such a sweet group. 

Also thanks to friends Jenny and Amy who helped, gifted books, and took most of these photos!

And a really big thank you owed to the marvelous Molly Meng, who runs a tight ship with a big kind smile and killer wit. In Molly speak, "dude! you're awesome", you really are Molly, and everyone appreciated all your hard work! 

After all the clean up was done, we got a little silly with the TimerCam app... practice needed, hahaha:

And then it was over, and we were onto Sunday...Mother's Day.

I hope all of you had a nice Mother's Day weekend! 

xo

new office storage

Meet my new office storage system!

 I've mentioned before, I chose the word "order" for my word of the year, what I want to welcome into my life. Setting up this piece feels like a nice big step in that direction.

Here's the inside:

When I originally saw this piece, I dreamt of getting it for use when painting. It seemed like perfect storage for paintings in progress to dry, since I tend to work on many at once. I also thought about it for the office (technically my husband's office), where I keep all my products and shipping for my etsy shop, but I was worried it was too grungy for in there.

But after a good scrub down, I couldn't resist giving it a try. The office was very much in need, as this before pic demonstrates:

Here's how it all ended up:

It feels really great to have a sense of order and cleanliness.

As for my office/studio/room, I know I promised you shots long ago of the studio switch...it's still not done, I operate out of there, but moved in such a hurry and in a non smart way- (brought everything in vs. one bit at a time as needed), that it's in no way photo ready. I'm working on it slowly but surely. I've shown some recent progress on instagram, and will show some more here soon.

Here are a few more shots from the traditional office (There's no way I could get all my products and shipping supplies in my art room/office!)

That's my Dad's fraternity paddle from college up top with some photos (yes, I did receive a spank or two from it when growning up) and a pottery barn cubby.

I feel so much better when I walk in there now! I know order is the answer to a lot of what frustrates me, but it seems a slow process.

One bite at a time, right? As for my etsy shipping/products? done!

prepping for this weekend's class

I'm starting to pull together items for this weekend's Paper Parasol class at French General. Always fun to gather goodies. 

I'm thankful that Jenny is gifting a copy of Creative Lettering to each student! (I hope she'll bring copies of her newest book Stamp It! for us to see too.) As for the lettering, it will be fun to see if they choose to use one of the specially designed fonts from the book on their parasol, or maybe none at all. I'll be bringing some good quotes in case they want to add one, like I did on this one that cute Sophia is modeling:

Or was trying to model until her Aunt Molly decided to photobomb her! 

Molly will be there on Saturday too...if you join us, be sure to mention her picture posing skills ;).

There's plenty to share and we still have a couple of spots if you have an opening in your Saturday afternoon, we'd love to have you join us. You can register here if so. Back to gathering more pretty things...

sunday

We spent a nice slow Sunday picking up after the celebrating. It seemed like rain was coming (it's here now), so I figured I should go ahead and cut and enjoy the roses that were in full bloom before the rain took all the petals away. 

If you don't care for pictures of roses, this is going to be a boring post, because I just couldn't stop taking them.

The Abraham Darbys...no words needed. 

Thank you for all the birthday wishes for my boy too, he loved the orange rose support and had a good day too :)

xo

saturday ramblings

Today we're celebrating my son's birthday. I woke up happy just thinking about him. I love how much kids enjoy birthdays. 

When we moved into our house a few years ago, I made some comment about wanting to take these roses out. He stopped in his tracks, "why Mom? I love those roses".  Through his eyes I'm learning to love them too...not quite there yet, but walking by them and knowing he loves them makes me happy. He has taught me to love the color orange, just not orange roses, yet.

I was very happy we had some to cut for his day today. 

Birthdays around here means the banner I made years ago comes out. 

Still have to clear my debris from the entry table though...

Time to clean up last Saturday's cuttings too.

And do some general pickup (always). (I hear they have Kantha's for $30.00 at HomeGoods btw.)

Had fun cutting out his home made b'day card.

And a few other things...hoping to catch up a little on project life tomorrow!

and spend some more time on my friend's painting too...

Here's to a lovely weekend! 

today's mood & art journaling

The journal page above was actually from the other night. It's been a long week already (think I started with a bad attitude on Monday and kept it going), and the other night I sat on the floor with a pad of construction paper and scissors and a glue stick and had fun fun fun. Here's another spread from that night:

The Target Kid Made Modern line of construction paper has great colors.

Anyway, this morning when I woke up a funk had set in. Not enough sleep, need to drink more water, excercise more yadda yadda yadda. Nothing big, just worries, real and imagined, too much to do, headache, etc.We all have those days. 

Usually, if I wake up grumpy I can adjust my attitude with a little art journal play. So I grabbed some paints and my journal with that in mind.

I even tried a change of location from the usual, this time sitting in the dining room.  I didn't make it into the TimerCam app pic haha:

Obviously, I didn't shake the focus on my mood much!

Silly girl. 

So I grabbed my camera to head outside and capture some things that made me happy and sat down for a bit. Luckily, Jennifer called about some future teaching trips we have in the works and we had a long art filled conversation. During the phone call I began to doodle and then started painting on the pages too:

It was a looooong phone call ;). And just what my funk needed. The colors didn't hurt either.

Art journaling worked it's magic on me once again. (And friendship too, of course.) So grateful I started doing it all those years ago, can't imagine my life without that form of play and expression. If you've always thought about it, but never done it, I say take the leap and join all us art journalers out here in the fun!

i love to repurpose

I love this little planted wooden bowl so much. 

Thought I'd share this in case you want to make one too. 

I found the serving bowl at HomeGoods, it had a big crack in it all down the side and on the bottom. Which meant it was super marked down. I couldn't resist getting it to use as a planter. I had already gotten some succulents from Home Depot that were in need of a home, so I just tucked some dry moss in the crack to keep the dirt in but still let it drain, filled it with a little succulent fast draining soil and tucked the plants in. 

Really couldn't be easier. I love it on our outdoor dining table. I think it would make a great gift to bring to someone's home too.

I thought it was a fluke, but then a friend mentioned she saw another cracked wooden bowl at a different HomeGoods, so maybe they bought a whole lot of the damaged ones. I know I'll be checking the clearance isle first the next time I'm in one!