This Happened Today!

Way back in 2011 Ellen, Lynn and I did a year long ABC trading card exchange....it's one of my very favorite art trades! We went through several rounds where we sent a letter to one person...the next letter to the other person and we kept the 3rd. 

We continued this cycle until we made it through the whole alphabet. This was my R card...for Rainbow. It features Ribbon and Ric Rac all in Rainbow Row! 

You can see all the cards here in this post:

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-abc-project.html

I've been watching my Bowman's root plant closely that I got from my sister Nancy.

The airy foliage has had these marvelous slender buds for a couple weeks and I've been waiting for the first one to open. It happened today!  

The blooms are tiny wispy stars that absolutely melt my heart. 

And this happened today too! Once I got started...there was no stopping. Time to shop my stash for another rainbow puzzle! 

The Other Side

Here is the other side of Anne's motto book.  Did you notice?  I couldn't crop out my succulent bloom in the background....and I promised no more photos.

I made this collage taking images from Anne and Dana's California bike trip blog. It seemed to fit the quote so well.  It was a major part of that year...so it's probably fitting that there are two pages honoring it.

"Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed."  Corita Kent

Check out their "Back in the Saddle" blog from their trip.  This is a link to the first set of posts...keep hitting newer posts at the bottom to see all the unbelievable photos along the way.

I love sunflowers!   "...blissful is their end."                                                                 

This was one of my favorites pages that I created. "When love and skill work together...expect a masterpiece."  John Ruskin

I love this quote. "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  Melody Beattie

This collage actually has a copy of one of Connie's watercolors in the background. The tree is a paper cut from a notecard. "God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauty of nature."  Anne Frank  

Anne used her own hand made paper for her cover. I used torn pieces from the calendar and tissue paper. This was a fun project Anne!  We will have to try something else sometime!                                                                           

Anne's Motto Book

Side One

It was fun to see Anne's motto book during our visit last night.  Just to refresh...we did a year long exchange where we created a page each month inspired by a quote from the Quaker Motto Calendar. We kept the first one...sent the second one...kept the third....and so on. So each of our books contains 6 of our own pages and 6 of the other's.  For more information use the link above...and here for side two of my book.

Here is side one of Anne's book.  (I shared a few of the ones I did in the older post....but I didn't have photos of all the pages I sent her.)

"The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness." John Muir

"Let your light shine before others so they may see your good works." Mathew 5:13-16

Here Anne shared pictures and the route she and her husband Dana took on their bike trip along the California coast.  "For each new morning with its light, for rest and shelter of the night, for health and food, for love and friends, for everything thy goodness sends."  Ralph Emerson

I did two pages using this fabric design...one for her book and one for mine.  "May we believe that glory may dwell in the commonest task of every day."  St. Augustine

I liked what Anne did here....she took two images...sliced them up and alternated them. "Let us continue to plant, and our children shall reap the harvest."  Robert F. Kennedy

"Feeling strong and strongly feeling. Being glad and glad of being. Sharing self and selfless sharing. Full of spirit, spirit filling. Will is warm and warmly willing. Giving joy, enjoy the giving.  Life is love and love is living."

Joseph Byron

Can you find the error in my page?

"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples." Mother Teresa



I'll share side two tomorrow.

The Rest of the Quote Journals

Here are the last four pages I did in the various quote journals....and the pages Ellen and Lynn created.

I want to make note of the fact that this project lasted well over a year. We were all busy with our lives....so had each other's books for months. It has never been about getting a shared project done quickly....we stay flexible...and just do what works. However long it takes...in the end it's worth it and a joy to see the finished products.  

Thanks Ellen and Lynn!

At some point...we will tackle another shared art project....it's a good thing. 

I used a variety of torn tissue paper and matte medium to make the background.

The description of this quote journal project can be found here, and other posts can be found here and here.  

Cake!

This is a silly little pop up page I added to Lynn's quote book....

and yes, some things just require cake!

I thought it paired nicely with a slice the rainbow cake my sister LaVonn made for her son's birthday. You either have to have a lot of patience....or a lot of pans.  I think my sister has a combination of the two.

The Quote Journals...Continued

I said this quote by Brian Andreas would reappear...and here it is
again on a page spread I did in the quote journal I started and ended with.

At the time I made the page below I saw this quote on Pinterest....
it was the perfect quote for me at the perfect time.

The little shapes on the right are snippets and scraps from greeting cards.

These little shapes on the left were made with washi tape and watercolor. I made sheets of alternating watercolor strips and washi tape...embellished them a bit with pens...and then cut them up.

Have you heard of Angelina fibers?  The are a very interesting product and I have only played around with them a little bit.  The fibers come in all colors and are kind of like tinsel...or Easter grass...sort of.

You can pull off a little chunk of fibers and iron it between two pieces of parchment paper and the fibers fuse together. If you use a lot of fibers you can actually make a sheet that's fabric like and cut out shapes.  But I like these loose, organic edged swatches. 

I want to play around with it a little more...I think it could be useful for needle felting....or art quilting. 

Below I stitched a little swatch of fibers into this art journal page from a while back. And to my delight...there is a "little joy" in the middle.