Last year, I came across a calendar by Suzy Toronto. Check out her website - lots of FUN stuff and great gifts!

The monthly pages were just as colorful as the front cover and each month contained a full calendar page as well as an 'empowerment' type of thing. Well, the 2017 calendar is still on my shelf. I didn't use it last year because I'd lost track of it... finding the item about August as I was doing the deep clean. Then I found a 2018 and decided THIS was the year I would play.

Here's a sample of one of the inside pages?

I wanted to combine this fun calendar with thought provoking messages with the lovely set of 36 Gel Pens Bob got me for Christmas. You can order them through the link but Bob found mine at Walmart.

I've already ordered a pen case from Scrapbook.com  I have one of these cases for my planner pens. The case holds 48 so I'll have room to add my white signo as well as a couple of black art pens, a graphite pencil, sharpener and eraser. 

I wanted to turn this calendar into a workable art journal with 2-page spreads. The only paper I had was a 9x12 Watercolor pad. I cut the pages down to 6x12", cut the calendar pages in half and coil bound everything. I bound each 2-page spread with a paperie tape from ms sparkle and co. I'm not happy with the tape but we'll see how it holds up.

Here's a blank spread:

In the finished journal:

I just got this idea last night so I don't have a spread done for this post but I'll double up somewhere throughout the year.

Since Mondays are primarily Mixed Media, I'll be showing the current month spread on the last Monday of each month. That gives me the entire month to work on each layout a little at a time

COLOR CHALLENGE - January

With snow swirling outside - finally - I thought I'd pull out some blues and whites for this challenge.

I'm trying to get better at challenges this year so I'm starting out by linking up with Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge. This week is Anything Goes.

Sadly, I needed a sympathy card this week for a sweet lady and the colors lent themselves to the need.

I chose SU colors Wisteria Wonder, Night of Navy and Marina Mist. The Marina Mist is one of the colors in a retired SU DSP - Botanical Gazette. I thought the birds went well with the new set from SU - Beautiful Peacock.

I used Wisteria Wonder base then began the layering with the other two colors. My favorite MS punch, the lace, brought a bit of femininity to the card. The peacock feathers are stamped in Marina Mist and the Peacock in Night of Navy on Whisper White. The trick to working with this set is to use two high contrasting colors against one another. I added Basic Rhinestones in clear to accent the feathers.  The sentiment inside and out is from Thoughts & Prayers. The white and navy circles are cut from the Stitched Framelits SU set. 

That's mine.. let's see yours! Just add the link to your blog post (not your blog URL but the url to the actual blog post) and Mr. Linky will add you to the list so we may stop by to check out your creation!

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18A 

And remember to grab the Color Challenge button on my sidebar to link your followers here. I'd love to have them playing along!

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - The Big Picture!

The big ugly of what I'm dealing with this week. This is my Mixed Media corner of the studio. While I have projects in mind, I am the type of person who can not start a project until every thing is in order. 

To the left of that you see a shelving unit.. was an old stamp display unit from Michaels. This holds my acrylics. Since the main focus on this entire studio was to repurpose items I had on hand, I used one of the 2-drawer filing cabinets to hold painting supplies. The top drawer is all about applicators, latex gloves, etc. The bottom drawer is full of various types of micro-dinner plates, trays, cups to hold paint or use as palettes during projects.

The 2-door cabinet holds all of my blank journals/ papers to work with as well as texturing tools and paints that I don't use very often. 

The main focus of this area is the 6-drawer ikea cabinet. The drawers hold tissue paper, chip board, foam core, cardboard and one other item that escapes my early morning brain. The top drawer is currently empty. I haven't decided what I want to use it for and the purpose will be determined how the top of the cabinet plays out.

Behind that pile of stuff on top there are 2 drawer units I had picked up at Goodwill. Each Unit holds 4 drawers. I wish I'd had the forethought to by more of them. They were $5 each and they had a grocery cart piled full of them.  I've been using them for this and that since moving them from the basement room to the new studio. Now I'm thinking of moving them over to the office corner to store planner supplies in. 

The shelves above will stay pretty much as they are. 

My overall plan for this area is to build a series of cubbies with drawers.. similar to a library card catalog. These drawers will hold embellishments from Tim Holtz and other ideology-type items as well as small crocheted flowers, hardware, etc to use in the junk journals.

Originally, I planned to store the magazine cut-outs in page protectors in a binder. There are days that binders and my hands just do not work well together. Instead, I'm considering a file box with hanging file folders. I can sit the box on the floor in front of the mixed media cabinet area - easy to move if I need to.

The rest of the stuff on the floor ... that's what I'm sorting through and organizing today. The stack really isn't as bad as it looks, just needs taken care of.

Creative Blessings!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Welcome to 2018!

Are you ready? Have you made resolutions? Do you have Goals you hope to accomplish in 2018?

Boy, do I! No resolutions other than to really use my planners this year. The rest will fall into place.

I hereby set the resolution that I will do my weekly planning on Sunday's as part of my Self-Care regiment. 

I'm taking this week off to finish putting the planners in line and get some projects lined up so that I can kick off next year on track - rather than feeling like I'm behind before I even start. 

Not this year! I took my life back in December and now I'm going to work the plan and ENJOY creating again.

Do you make resolutions? Set Goals. What do you want from 2018?

Leave a comment below to be entered into a Mystery Grab Pack of goodies. Also tell me if which Mystery Grab Pack you want:

Yarns/ Fibers

Stamping/ Paper Crafting

Mixed Media

Drawing is January 25th - this gives you plenty of time to Comment and Share this post.

If the person commenting is NOT one of my regulars, I'll be asking who they heard it from. This could get you extra entries... so SHARE!

Creative Blessings!

Kel