I have NOT been creating art for WAY too long here, and that has to change. I have been helping my best friend and my brother with their homework (they both went back to college and I am SO PROUD of them!) to the exclusion of nearly everything else for a few weeks now. See, I’ve always been wordsmith-ish. I learned to read so young, I don’t remember when it happened. I was not allowed to attend preschool becasue I already knew how to read. And now I am a Librarian, so words are in my career and in my blood, so to speak.

In any case, I assist most everybody I know with editing and creating things with words, and this means that the “journaling” part of “Art Journaling” has never been an issue for me. I have been writing in a journal for MANY years, but only strarted to ad color and shape to my pages fairly recently. It is still much too easy for me to slip back into the “writing only” rut I had been in (which is why I am trying so hard to expand my creativity, because it feels like a rut) and I am trying to break out of that spot.

I signed up for iHanna”s postcard swap and need to have 10 handmade postcards ready to mail by May 1st. Yeah. Haven’t even started that. And I am so far behind on the Journal 52 prompts, it’s like I haven’t done any (4/16 is pretty lame, I say). However, instead of beating myself up for not doing more, and making this art-making thing into a chore, I’m gonna just roll with it.

So….roll with me?

…not in my posession, but in my days.

I HAVE quite a bit of paint in my stash to work with, I just need to USE it. And “use” is my word of the year…both in the “to use” meaning, but also in the “be OF USE” meaning. I didn’t start this blog to have it become something that tries to make me feel guilty for not posting often “enough” but to have a place to show some of the things that I make to other humans on this planet. I do put color on paper every week, if not every day, but I tend to second guess myself when it comes to photographing and posting these things here. I’m not even sure why, since nobody has been mean about anything I have posted yet. Besides, I’m tougher than I think…

I have written in a journal since I was 15 (for nearly 30 years…DANG!) but have only recently added art/color/anything besides words to what I create. So, the “journaling” part of art journaling is not any kind of problem for me, but I doubt the REALLY BIG doubts about the rest of this.

I came to the delightful realization yesterday, that Monday is a holiday so I get a three day weekend (Thanks, Cesar Chavez!) AND today is Friday (which is always awesome) AND it’s PAYDAY WOOT!!! So…even though I have a BUNCH to do (laundry, oil change in my car, get my hair cut & nails done – first pedi of the season, Y’all!) I do hope to play with paint and perhaps show some more stuff here.

I gotta connect with my painty-muse…

I finally got to turn this thrift store find…

…into this spiffy ribbon board…

I just looked at a bunch of pictures on Pinterest and figured it out.

MAN! Staple guns are AWESOME!!!