My first Art Journal

The incredibly talented Liz Hicks launched a free year round class on making an art journal.  Not only is it immensely generous of her to share with us a year's worth of expertise, but I'm uber excited about seeing what she creates to motivate us.

I've never really been a free hand drawer.  It's not that I can't draw (I can a little)...I guess it's just a skill I never developed so I don't have the utmost confidence in devoting a whole project to illustration.  Well, this is the year where I challenge myself...so Liz's class was a great place to start.

So not only am I going to be forced to draw...I'm also going to be forced to JOURNAL (something else I don't do at all).

I started by buying a few supplies
1. A sketch journal
2. Pastels (something she recommended but wasn't needed)
3. Drawing pencils - apparently a charcoal and something else I don't know how to use (ha!)
4. A small artist's palette for acrylic paints

So I had some fun new supplies but now I was supposed to actually start my journal.  I completely FROZE!  Where was I supposed to start?!

I cheated....I did a little google searching...and found some great sources of inspiration. I saw examples of others' work and made note of the elements I liked.

And well, that's all I needed to get me going!  Can't wait to see where this goes...

I sketched with a pencil and then went over my drawing with a micron marker.  I fought the urge to trace exactly.

then I used the pastels - and used my fingers to blend (messy fun!)

not sure how to set the page so that the pastels don't come off, but I'm pretty happy with my first page

my colorful curtain detail

Well, I went for it!  I need to go back and fill it in a bit, but it's too late to continue tonight.  I'm exhausted!  Wanted to make sure to post the pics.

I chose to go with this color palette.  I liked the variety of colors and thought it was still "light" to brighten up the now sunshine filled room.

I refused to spend a ton of money on this for fear that I would hate the way it turned out.  I went to the sale section and grabbed fabric that worked with my palette.

I have a 70 inch bar to fill, so I made my fabric strips wide enough to take up some space.  I went with 4 inch wide strips.

Almost done!  I'm too tired to fill in all the gaps, but I'll go back.

I purposely cut the fabric strips at different lengths and edges to add texture to the colorful display.  I'm pretty pleased with the final version.  The colors are fun.

Not sure how long I'll keep this color scheme...but at lease I now know it's pretty easy to make!

I also need to mention that I put up the curtain rod all by myself!  This is extra impressive because I have plaster walls...so I had to pull out the power tools to drill the holes for the anchor.  I've had to force myself to get comfortable with drilling holes in walls.  Ha!

color palettes for my curtain detail

I couldn't wait.  I had to take  5 minute breather to look at some of my favorite and saved color palettes on pinterest. 

I realized quickly that I want the colors to be on the warmer side.  Most of my home is currently in the cooler zones...blues, greys, chocolate browns.  Love them but they are in my places of peace and rest.

My kitchen has dark orange, brown and pops of red and yellow.

Yellow....it makes me happy. It truly does....but I don't want the entire curtain detail to be sunshine.  I want it fun and I want it edgy.  So here are some of the palettes I'm going to use to guide me final fabric choices.

I like the variety of colors in this palette.  I think I could have some fun with fabric textures and prints.

this is on the cooler side...but it has the pop of brightness that I like.

I know...no yellow.  But I heart the lime green and fuschia combo here.  It's also a bit cooler than I want. But I think it's sophisticated.  And one of my shelving units is dark grey.

I love the red in here.  I have a beautiful, small art piece my cousin made that incorporates red so it would be nice to have red in the room.

my new apartment

I moved into my new apartment about 11 days ago...

Seems like an eternity ago because I've done so much to it (with the help of parents, family and friends).  The craft room is a room I'm trying to tackle on my own because at the end of the day, I am the only one that knows what I use most often and what layout will make the most sense for me.

I'm slowly starting to sort through the boxes of stuff, and I'm trying to make zones for easier organizing.  I have a paper zone, an idea book/magazine zone, stamp zone, etc.  I have a lot of things to still sort through, but I'm feeling like I can finally breathe a bit.

Which is why I gasped in sheer delight when I discovered an adorable blog called 36th Avenue.  I think she is a fellow Latina blogger, so I'm really excited to delve deep into her posts to see what other beautiful things I can find.

One of her posts had this picture of a no-sew curtain detail using fabric pieces.

I don't have fabric laying around but I think I might just have to make a stop at a craft store to do something like this for myself.  I was thinking of using ribbon, but I soon realized that my ribbon costs would probably greatly increase the cost of this project. 

Because I'm in an apartment, I can't really experiment with paint or creative wall hangings (partly because most of my walls are plaster - what a mess)...so I have to get creative.

I'm going to take tonight to explore some color palettes that I like, and then I'll have some fun trying to recreate something similar tomorrow after work. 

I'm not sure how much fabric to buy, so I'm sure I'll over buy...but better safe than sorry, right?!

tomorrow - the big 3-5!

In a few hours, I will be hitting a milestone year -- my 35th year - and I've decided to set a couple of goals for myself to make the year even more memorable.

I've spent a few weeks on vacation this past December which allowed me to really think about what I wanted to focus on in 2012.  I'm going to share some of those things here...especially the creative pieces...but some will stay personal (as some things always should).

Visually/Creatively
One of my first goals this year is to take a picture a day and to make a scrapbook layout for each day.  I've never been much of a journaller (is this how you spell that?), but I've neglected capturing my own memories.  I'm literally packing up my apartment right now, but once I'm in my new space, I plan to scrap all the days from this year. I'm still trying to get into the habit of making sure I take the picture - I actually missed one day but a friend took a picture I'll use for that day. 

I did, however, use my vacation to practice taking some fun shots. I wanted to play with my visual surroundings and capture the color I see in life (both physically and spiritually).  These are two of my favorite pics from Hawaii.

My trip was filled with some adorable little munchkins and their presence was evident in everything around me.  Abigail's baby sandals sitting on the boogie boards is just a glimpse of some of that cuteness.

We were lucky to take part in releasing four sea turtles into the ocean.  On that day we also went snorkeling and ran into a huge turtle....a sign of good luck :) Hope that luck is for the whole year!

These two pictures bring a smile to my face...and I hope that my photos from this year will do the same when looking back

Professionally
While on vacation, I had a heart to heart with my friend and mentor.  We met while I was in college and I (almost) instantly became a part of her family.  Her children are sources of great happiness in my life, and I'm so lucky to still be a part of their lives.  During our heart to heart, she called me out.  She told me that I like to get comfortable professionally - that I'll sit somewhere just because I'm surrounded by good people and enjoy the work.  These aren't necessarily bad things, but they become bad when I stop creating goals for myself professionally.  I just settle.

So....a major professional goal is to NOT SETTLE.

I need to do some deep self-reflection to figure out what that means exactly, but it may require some tough decisions - some of which I may have been avoiding for some time.

Physically

In October 2010, I finally joined a gym....about freaking time!  The next month, I met an incredible physical trainer through my best friend who is guiding me through my toughest fitness goal.  Before this year is up, I will run a HALF MARATHON!

He has many other goals for me (some of which I think are crazy)....but completing the half marathon is the ultimate goal for me.  The subsequent healthy goals that will result from this training will be an added bonus.  Check out his site for info...he rocks!

I will also be taking better care of my health.  I work at a hospital, but I don't have a primary care physician.  RIDICULOUS.  I will be changing that this year for sure! I've been lucky to be generally healthy, but I'd like to have someone to call when I do things like strain my calf muscle while on vacation!

Financially
I'm super close to paying off all my credit cards.....one major credit card to go.  It will be gone by the end of this year!

Business-wise
I took a fantastic course by the amazing Laura Bray that forced me to think about my passive and active streams of income for my business.  Have I followed through any of the items that I decided would be good first steps to expand and develop my business?  Nope!

It's time to revisit, re-evaluate and strategically implement some steps to taking my business to the next level.

Why am I jotting this all down here?  To hold myself accountable. 

So here goes nothing...