MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Documented Life

NOTE: I had hoped to have some actual pages done to show you this week but I'm on a deadline with my first BIG freelance assignment so I've not done any art work or 'staging' for the Organzied Challenge that I had hoped to this weekend. 

I know I've shown this picture before but I wanted a quick reference. Those long notepads are  my To Do List. And so far they are working out perfect!

This is my Desk Set. I attach the weekly page from the DL planner to the clipboard and keep it handy. You can see at the top of the page I've designated lines to list the Blog numbers of the WOYWW blogs I visit each week. I can also see at a glance if there is anything special I need to pay attention to such as the Reindeer Club coming up on Wednesday. Wednesdays are bad days for me so I will probably move my Christmas card making day to Saturday this month where I can catch up on Januaray's and February's cards.

The other thing is the Montly list pad from the B & N Kit. I have written the day/ date at the top of each one and keep the notepad on my side pull-out. This is where I list EVERYTHING that I either need to do or get accomplished on that day. I also include phone calls and password changes.

At the end of the week, I remove those seven day To Do's and the Weekly page from my desk.

I turn the Weekly page over and adhered the To Do pages on the back using Washi Tape. I'm not positive I like this because I'm finding some Washi does not stick as well as others. Once I'm in the studio I will pay closer attention to the ones that work better and stick to those brands for most everything. 

I continue to layer in the 7 days of To Do's until the back of my Weekly page looks like this:

You can see how each page is stair-stepped just a margin's width out from the one below it and that I can just fit the 7 days. Behind the weekly page I include Swap outline sheets and anything else that was a part of tht week. 

For things like those swaps and other documentation I LOVE the kits from BoBunny. Although you can't see the picture well, this is taken from BoBunny misc me! life journal - Vintage Note Paper. Click the link then click on the Vintage Note Paper to enlarge and see the beautiful variety of papers in this pack. I keep the entire pack on the clipboard below my Weekly Page 

Since this is Monday, I have a new week of tasks begging to be done so best get moving!

Creative Blessings!

Kel

WOYWW #292 - Displaced Work Area

WARNING!

This post is a bit longer than our hostess, Julia, prefers. And I'll be more brief from now on. But this week is all about getting myself organized.... and is my only work surface at the moment.

Have no clue what I'm talking about? Each Wednesday for 292 weeks and counting, a bunch of us from all over the world invite you to peek into our creative spaces. Need a map? Pop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground for all the details.  I hope you'll join us!

This is where most of my creativity will come from for the next few weeks. My dungeon studio is a disaster. I hope to work on packing up some stuff later this week so I can at least work on my desk some down there.

This tote bag has seen a lot of variety since it's purchase almost 10 years ago. I used it for toting tools back and forth to Michaels for the classes I taught. Then the bag sat on my desk here until Bob built my permanent caddy out of 1x4s. I don't go to crops so I didn't need anything portable. At that time, I put it in my rolling art bag in case I were ever lucky enough to attend a Mixed Media art retreat. Which I would still love to do.

One of my challenges with the DL project last year was not making enough time to do the art journal prompts... which is like a major point of the whole thing. LOL  While researching ideas for my dayplanner I came across THIS YouTube video by Nadine's Mixed Plate.

Cool concept! This will allow me to have all of my tools at hand while I'm watching TV in the evening. And when I travel, I have a basics art bag to go! Let's take a peek inside...

This is the collection of goodies I unearthed from the office to select from plus what I purchased at 

$ Tree and Walmart to fill in the gaps. 

My notepad/ post it note assortment. Those ones in the front with the kissy lips... are left over hostess note pads from my days of selling Undercover Wear. ;-)

This is what I wound up actually putting in the bag. Some things are packed in the old clamb shell stamp boxes from Stampin' Up. Example is the stamping case in the upper left corner. I have a few acrylic stamps, and a square of a stamp scrubber. I still need to add a memento pad so I can use the watercolors and watercolor pencils. The 2nd clam shell box holds various adhesives and the third my variety of ink pens. I should have opened that blue diaper wipe box. Inside I have a selection of large paper clips that I have decorated the ends by hot gluing decorative buttons or ribbons.

So far I'm on track. Tomorrow I'll be showing you how my Mitten Tree project turned out for 2014 and my plans for 2015. 

Creative Blessings!

TECHNIQUE TUESDAY - Documented Life Planner

This is one of the inside 'daily' pages in my 2015 Documented Life planner. Kind of plain, right? I agree. But I'm fixing that... little by little. 

All of the Daily pages will look like this. I'll use the spaces for appointments and keep the notepad for the To Do's. I can also use these spaces for doodling and marking repetitive things such as the reindeer on the 25th of each month. The reindeer denotes that this is Reindeer Club Day. The day each month I will make one batch of Christmas Cards. No boxed cards to be mailed in 2015! 

One of the things I'm striving for this year is to take the planner week by week, day by day. For someone who has always been a planner this will be my challenge for the year. But I'm going to give it my best shot. 

I wanted to be able to work with any medium on the daily pages. Rather than a 2-step process I added a bit of acrylic medium to white gesso then spread a single coat on all 52 weekly pages. The color varies by month. I picked School Bus yellow (the only yellow I had) for the month of June. But I still wanted to break the weekly up into 'daily' time slots. I was inspired by a picture one of the other DL participants did. Since I can't remember who it was, I won't post her picture without permission. Instead, I'll show you what I've done to mine... or will do - week by week.

Sunday night will be my time to sit on the couch, watch my favorite tv program(s) and do the art for the week. 

Remember, I mentioned yesterday how I am finding my Daily To Do works best on long notepads? While shopping at B & N last November, I found this gift kit. 

Cute, right? Each notepad has enough sheets for every day that month. The little flag post -its to the right match each of the longer pads. So here's my plan. I use one sheet per day for my Daily To Do then attach with Washi Tape to the weekly page, just as I did last year. But these pages are so much prettier than the plain notepaper pad I used then. And the flags are super sticky. They don't peel off their pad very easily so when I put them in the dayplanner to mark something, I'm pretty sure they are going to stay put.

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Documented Life Project

I am on track to begin the Documented Life Project through Art to the 5th with the rest of the group this year... instead of 3 months into the year. The above was my DL planner for last year. Well, one of the four. I used composition books - one per each quarter of the year. By the end of the year I found it frustrating to go back and find things I'd entered in earlier dates that I needed to reference.

What I liked about last year's planner:
The size and basic layout

What I didn't like:
having to break up the year into quarter books.
My small desk area wasn't really equiped for the full dayplanner but a long, narrow notepad I could do.

My challenge was how do I get an entire year into ONE planner when I don't traditionally work 'By the Week'. My Day job has to be done in 'Daily To Do' tasks.

What I wound up doing was using a long, narrow notepad for my Daily To Do. I would put the date at the top, do my daily tasks then at the end of the day use Washi Tape to incorporate it into the journal.

So with a new year of DL approaching I took to YouTube looking up all kinds of things having to do with planners. I figured I could take any planner idea and adapt it to meet my DL planner needs.

I came across THIS video by Danielle Batog about using a deconstructed compostition book. DUH!

So I set about cutting a composition book down the middle. I then decided on my cover for this year. I loved the papers from DCWV Once Upon A Time I used last year. This year I decided to use my favorite slab from Colorbok - Rosewood. I pick up a new slab at Walmart about every other month.
I chose to use some of the swag from the slab this time and picked out Cherish the Moment for the cover accent.

I covered the front and back covers of the comp book. Added border trims from the same slab then covered the entire thing in clear contact. This will help protect the DL planner from anything that might mar the beauty as I cart it from place to place... though I'm not seeing 'carting' being much of an option unless I'm traveling overnight.

Inside, I have a 2-page calendar page:

I had this anchor stamp in one of the sets I purchased from Close To My Heart earlier this year. The anchors note the days my husband is on the boat. This allows me to plan my travel schedule at a glance. 

Aside from the calendar pages, each of the weekly pages are edged on the hole punched side with washi tape then covered in a 1.5" wide strip of clear contact paper. This acts as hole reinforcement. The binder rings are the 2". 

Tomorrow, I'll show you more of the inside 'weekly pages' - which I think I can work with as well as how I'm doing my Daily To Do (DTD).

Then on Wednesday, I'll show you how I'm conquering (at least that's the plan) my absence of actually doing the art challenges last year.

So stay tuned... 2015 is full of Creative Blessings!

WOYWW # 259

Progress on my Documented Life Planner. I was able to take the journal with me when I attended the Books In Bloom Festival in Eureka Springs Arkansas last weekend. So far the layout is working well. I'll show the insides to you on Monday.

But as you can see, the dining room table is still my working area. My desk downstairs is still clean but by working up here, I'm able to multi-task. You can see the other two comp books in the back waiting for their calendar inserts.

Everyone has commented on the amount of washi tape I have. I went all in LOL. I went from thinking I would never use it to 'ooo I gotta have that one!'.  But as I've stated, they were purchased primarily for the Documented Life Planner project. Washi tape is used as the hinges as well as the page accents. Do I have enough? Probably... but there are a couple patterns in the SU mini that expires the end of this month.

If you want to know why I'm showing you mine and would like to see what others in the community are up to, visit. Stamping Ground for a complete list of folks to pop in on.

I didn't get around to any desks last week. I was swamped with work and prepping for yet another road trip. I'm home this week and will be around to visit.
Creative Blessings!
Kelly

WOYWW #258 - Documented Life Progress

I've not been playing with anything the past few weeks. There was the prep for the Texas trip, the trip itself, which got extended then the catch-up once I got back a couple weeks ago. But I am determined to get this put together so I can use it this weekend.

By the end of today I should be able to put the eyelets in place and run the elastic band. I'm going to try using elastic headbands.

Books in Bloom author festival in Eureka Springs Arkansas on Sunday and this will be the perfect place to tuck author's bookmarks and business cards.

If you don't know why I'm showing you this, hop on over to Stamping Ground where Ms Julia opens up her tour for us to peek in at creative blogs all around the world.

WOYWW #253 - A Secondary Workspace

This is my work space this. If you want to see what my actual table looks like, I'm still buried under Project Life. You can see that post HERE if you missed my amazing shopping trip. I hope to have it organized this weekend.  I've been working on the dining room table for a couple of weeks. Don't really have enough room on the studio desk to spread all three of these composition books out anyway.

I have 34 pages left to gesso. Then I can FINALLY put my Documented Life Project together. I'm so excited to start working IN  the Documented Life Planner instead of pages that are here and there. I figure I'll have a month or so to determine if I want to work with this style of planner on a regular basis. If so, I can start now on gessoing next year's planner pages.

Most artists have more exciting desks than mine to look at. So head over to Julia's at StampingGround where you will find a whole list of bloggers ready to welcome you in. Julia can explain what I'm talking about. 

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Washi Tape!

My Washi Tape arrived in the mail on Wednesday. I still can't believe I bought so much on our trip. The 3 packages of 4 in the center of the picture were purchased on our trip to Springfield this past weekend. I found them at Office Depot. They also 2 separate displays of Scotch brand Washi Tape. Scotch was $2.99 per roll. These are called IE by Office Depot in a 4-pk for $4.99. Much better deal and I found colors I liked better than from Scotch. 

You know me... if it isn't organized I can't do anything so my first task was to determine the best way to store my washi tape AND have EACH roll visible for when I'm creating. Most of my washi tape will be used on the Documented Life Journal and what prompted the washi tape purchasing spree. I had a box storage that seemed to be the perfect fit. I cut the lid off, made dividers using foam core board. I spaced the dividers based on the width of the rolls. some were wider than others.

This is what 45 rolls of Washi Tape look like! :-D

I do have 3 rolls from SU. Normally, I would store these with SU product but since I will primarily be using this for DLJ and nothing else, I decided to keep everything together.

Oh yeah... one more thing. See the little squares of white paper in the bottom left of the box -below the blue washi. Those are preprinted labels I made. Each roll of tape has a label on the inside of the spool with a company name. I like to give credit where credit is due. Example: the rolls in the very top right - from the skinny orange to the pink with brown polka dots - Heidi Swapp... long before we knew what washi tape was. The tape is slick and more 'tape' than paper but the same concept. These rolls came to me in a Secret Sister box my very first year as a Quacker from sister Maggie. 

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - The Documented Life

While looking at others blogs last week I came across an incredible piece of art. I can't show you a picture but if you click on Art to the 5th, you'll see what I mean. This is called The Documented Life Project.

This journal is the brainchild of Lorraine Bell. The book is actually 3 books in one.

A Dayplanner
An Art Journal
Diary

Lorraine and most of the other over 1200 members of this project use a softcover Moleskine Weekly Planner.   With the planner as a base, the concept is to have something to track your daily life, include art and make it YOUR OWN.

Well, you know me... I have to invent the wheel. Partly because I don't want to wait to start putting mine together - we are already into Week 10 of the challenges and additives. The other reason is I've discovered the one thing that works best for me as a dayplanner - well two things - a Monthly Planner from the Dollar Store and a Composition Book. I use the planner to keep track of Bob's schedule but my daily tasks are written on a page in the notebook. I'm thinking The Documented Life Project will let me combine these two items into one AND give me the opportunity to include some art in my day - something that has been lacking of late.

And if you're wondering how THIS planner is working out.....

It isn't. I've not even had it out of the bag since Week 2. I'm not sure why other than the composition notebook and I seem to connect. I'm a list maker and I think the preset planner took that away from me.
The Documented Life Project will allow me to still use my composition book, to make my lists but I hope to incorporate pieces of the disinherited planner.

I've been gathering supplies while I try to get the studio in order so I hope to show you the beginnings of my book in 2 weeks. There will NOT be a blog post next Monday as I'll have nothing to schedule and I will just be getting back from a road trip (unless weather turns, keeping me at home). We'll see.