Art Journal #1

This past weekend I created my 1st art journal. This 28 page tome is called

Family History 101

and is for my 16 yr old grand daughter's Chanukah gift.

The book is made from a 6" X 8" cardboard page children's book. I covered it in left over hand painted and hand stamped fabric that I found on my design table from earlier projects.

And I adorned it with a charm and the word

Imagine! This is the spine of the book.

And this is the back of the book. Some of the pages are covered in gesso and paint, some in paper and fabric. It opens to this double page with history about Kaeli's Great Great Grandparents (fraternal). My grandparents. Perhaps you can read it if you click on the photo and enlarge it. I tried to find stories that she could relate to like my father's entering military service at age 17 during WWI; or my grand father coming to this country from Russia at age 16 by himself, her age now. I have shared some but not all 28 pages as I decided to protect the privacy of some living and non living family members.

If you have followed my blog long you may already know all about me

so this is not news!

Here are three generations of grandmothers!

Yes, that is my Grandma's bag in the bottom left corner!

As an important part of sharing family history with Kaeli

I stressed the accomplishments of her elders. She is in her last year of high school

and is looking at colleges so I wanted her to see what other family members did

in their educational decisions, and accomplishments including what they accomplished in the arts.

So I used my self as an example following in the footsteps of my own grandmother who

was an accomplished seamstress, and my mother who knit and drew and wrote.

I want Kaeli to be inspired by the eldest and the youngest of our family members

who all have created in some way!

It was also a fun way to chronicle my own art work over the past two and a half years.

Now I'll have to make a book of it for myself.

I made up this little quote for Kaeli! And I added a pocket to fill with more photos (wallet size) of my art quilts than would

fit on the pages of this book. I hope to advance in my art journaling to use more drawings and stamps etc.

But for a first this feels good to me!

I hope you enjoy it too.

And of course I hope Kaeli will treasure it always.

Sunset At End Of Beautiful Day

Six word Saturday:

Sunset At End Of Beautiful Day... This view from my daughters living room window looks out over the San Francisco Bay. enjoy your weekend

OY, I Can Hardly MOVE!

Sharing my Thanksgiving Day with family with you makes me smile. Here you see my son in law and grandson, and daughter. She is talking to my brother...before dinner. Pffifer the cat is 17 years old, and must have been driven crazy by the wonderful cooking smells in the kitchen...

My daughter remains oh so calm throughout all the preparations. Her brother in law and husband helping too...

My husband entertained us with song...

The guys and some gals were outside playing football in the back yard!

My grand daughter entertained herself with her Polly Pocket dolls...

My grandson got into the "project" I brought along, as is my habit...almost the first words out of their mouths when they see me is "Did you bring us an art project, Grandma?" Of course I did!

And then there was more football playing...it was such a beautiful day out...

Grand daughter loved playing with yarn and sewing her plate. She also caught on quickly to crocheting a chain.

And grand son showed his great uncle how he was learning to play chess.

And finally it was time to eat! Please notice my mother's Lenox China gravy bowl in the front. My daughter has inherited all of her china but only used this one piece yesterday. I think because the plates have to all be washed by hand. I made the yams. Everything was so delicious. The turkey was moist, the stuffing seasoned to perfection including chestnuts...my favorite!

My son in law out did himself with baking this HUGE apple pie using three different varieties of apples.

And there was pumpkin and ollieberry pies as well...

I went home feeling like a blimp! I had to be rolled out of there. But it was oh oh oh so good.

I was full of good food, and good feelings of the love we have in our family. The little kids got to have two sets of grandparents visiting at the same time, one set having come all the way from Boston! Uncles, great uncle, friends, parents...who could ask for anything more? Not me, that is for sure! I hope your day was as good and as memorable.

For those of you who do not celebrate this holiday I hope you can enjoy it through my experience. It's fun to share the joy. See it as just another wonderful excuse to gather family and friends together to share and appreciate life.

Happy Grateful Thursday and Happy Thanksgiving

I took my usual noontime walk yesterday to our downtown area. I let my camera capture the beautiful abundance of color that was at my feet... And in front of my eyes and looking up towards the beautiful blue blue sky

I love all the color, the brisk barely cool air, the way my body feels as I walk along

feeling glad oh so glad to be alive!

I think Grateful Thursday and Thanksgiving must sound like an oxymoron. They are one and the same. It's on Thanksgiving in the USA that we take time to think about how grateful we are for the good things we have in our lives.

I feel shy about shouting my personal blessings to a world

where others are dealing with the sadness of losses

(loved ones, jobs, health, homes, war, etc)

So I will use this space to send my love to everyone;

those who are in need of hugs and comforting;

I'll put some money out there to charities who help feed people at this time of year;

and in the hands of some on street corners in immediate need.

I will hope my smiles of good cheer will warm a heart

and hope the work I do in my job will be helpful to those who come to me for that service.

And I will also enjoy the love

and warmth of my own family with whom I will have the joy and good fortune of

sitting with today and soak in that goodness.

Happy Grateful Thursday

and

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Animal Wednesday

It's the day before Thanksgiving.

Some of you will be celebrating this holiday, as will my family, tomorrow.

Some of you live in countries where this is not a celebration at all or simply

choose for other very good reasons not to take part.

The former will undoubtedly be stuffing our faces beyond normalcy.

The latter can sit back and be grateful they are not feeling as stuffed as we

Celebratory Americans

will be feeling.

What I like about Thanksgiving besides the turkey stuffing, yams,

cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie a la mode,

is the excuse to be with family,

and to count our blessings that we have each other

to enjoy another year.

Happy Thanksgiving To Those Who Partake.

Happy Grateful Thursday to Everyone Else!

Henry will be home waiting for his "leftovers".

Bloomin Tuesday and Last Saturday Continued...

Last Saturday we traveled to Winters, CA...maybe 20 minutes from

home up I-5.I wanted to check out this art gallery that my friend, Cherryene told me about.

If you look very carefully you can see me going toward the door. There was quite an eclectic variety of art there including many paintings and sculpture. This metal art structure is my contribution for Blooming Tueday this week!

I was drawn to these heart mosaics

and their wonderful words filling them. Thought they looked great on the red wall.

These tiles were made for stepping stones in the garden

but I am not sure I could step on them

And I thought of saving the gallery cat for

animal Wednesday, but he really belongs in this post!

This table caught my eye with its ceramics;

but especially the little Chinese figure carrying water buckets,

as my grandmother had the same figure in her home

when I was growing up in the 40's and 50's. I like that green pea pod too.

I have emailed the owners photos of my art quilts to see if this is a potential next stop

for them or not. They did not have any textile art at all on display.

And a young woman working there said they'd tried some quilts there once a long time ago,

but they did not sell. I told her mine were contemporary art quilts

and hoped they'd give them a chance.

I haven't heard anything yet.

So we shall see.

If not here...then onward ho!

It's fun finding all these art galleries close to home.

Wishing you all a happy Bloomin' Tuesday.

Lisa's ArtySoulSisters Sketchbook Page

Our traveling ArtySoulSisters sketchbook reached me this past week from Mim in MA. I am to make a page for Lisa and then send the book on to Suki, who will add a page and then only two more pages needed from Kate and Caroline for this book to make it back to Lisa! It already is chock full of awesome art from many other artists in this group. And if you want to see more go to our blog at ArtySoulSisters! and scroll backwards to see all the incredible pages for all the wonderful books and their progress! This is a felted velvet and wool butterfly surrounded by variegated ribbon yarn, embellished with beads and stick on glass thingies that shine! The butterfly is on a scrapbook page of paper.

This is the back, which I left bare to see. Not so sturdy maybe this way, but interesting to

see...

each prick of a needle that was used to adhere the fabric to the paper! I hope Lisa Likes It! and

Happy Cactus Monday!

Almost forgot.

Let the needles of my felting machine

surfice for needles on a cactus today

please????