I don’t have much to show myself… my arm is doing better every day but still not healed properly, so I art journal a bit but only for short periods of time – building up a spread takes a couple of days that way but at least I can CREATE a bit! This week I also started working at my job again. Only two hours a day to see how that goes. The first day I was very tired afterwards but it is getting better every day. We build it up carefully.

I took a photo of my desk early this morning so you can see what’s on…

WOYWW #606

If you read my former post you know that I was interviewed by a journalist of a local door-to-door news paper (do you have those abroad? A free newspaper with local news from your city?) He took a lot of photos of me and my art and the article should be in the newspaper today (only, it wasn’t in the mailbox, so I haven’t seen it printed yet)

but that’s not all…

He got so excited about everything I do that he also made a video-interview! It’s in Dutch, of course, but in case you are interested to see (and hear) me talk and move, you can view it HERE

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you are doing well in these bizarre times… we’ll get there eventually, keep hangin’ on and stay safe!

Anyway, let’s not jump ahead ’cause there is something nice happening right now too… I’ve been published in The Daisy Yellow E-zine!

This zine is a publication by Tammy Garcia from Daisy Yellow and it’s chock full with interesting articles and inspiring tips (just like Tammy’s blog Daisy Yellow itself.) Take a look at the the table of contents.

Awesome content isn’t it? You can purchase the zine HERE

The article I wrote for the zine is called ‘Always Something to Write About‘ (it’s worth the read if I may say so myself) and you already know of course that I always have something (or a lot of things…) to write about. My Chronicles pages illustrate that. Here’s a bunch of spreads from my Chronicles art journal that I haven’t show you yet.

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 44

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 45  

The Chronicles of Marit 2015 – Week 46

I ordered a new A3 block of drawing paper, the kind of paper I use to bind my journals with, so I can make a new Chronicles art journal for 2016. The 2015-Chronicles-journal is 15 cm x 21,5 cm {5.9 x 8.5 inch} the spreads are 30 x 21,5 cm and I like to change the size. I love the size of my ‘Grandes Chaleurs‘ journal so I am thinking to bind the new Chronicles journal in a similar size. It’s kind of a tradition to change the size every new year.

I’m also reflecting on my ‘word of the year‘ (in my case it was a ‘sentence of the year’ in 2015, but for next year I might pick a word again.) Did you choose a word to ‘live by’ in 2015? Did it work out for you?

Thanks for swinging by my blog today, I hope you all have a nice week. See ya soon and remember: Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World 😉

1. It’s my birthday today!
   .
   
2. My article and art is published in the Autumn edition of Art Journaling by Somerset Studio..
3. I cleaned and re-organized my atelier, it feels brand new!

Overview photo (click to enlarge)

Here are the photos again… with a little explanation.

These photos should give you a good view on how my atelier looks like right now.
I’ll show you what is behind the doors of the grey closet some other time.
I’m signing off for now to eat home-made cake and celebrate good times.
Have a great weekend you all,
be creative,
bake a cake.

Here’s the photo of my desk, just as it was this morning.

WOYWW #308

I’m glad that my desk is not empty and clean, but shows fun things. Projects and art journal pages that I work on just for ME! That does not mean that I do not work on the assignment I talked about earlier, but now that the end of that job is in sight I have a better view on the time left to finish that. And since I’m well on track, I’m less nervous that I won’t make it before the deadline and don’t feel so anxious anymore to plan some free ‘play time’ in between.

I did create a few art journal pages last weekend that I planned to post today, but my plan was thwarted by the following EXCITING announcement that I want to share:

Last week, this amazing book by Dawn DeVries Sokol was released…

… and my art is in it!!

I haven’t seen this book myself yet (cannot wait to lay my hands on it) but Marcia Beckett – who’s art is in the book also – was so kind to take a photo of ‘my page’ and send it to me.

Here are the three pages that are published in the book.

The Chronicles of Marit 2013 – Week 13

 Thunderstorm I

 Thunderstorm II

Wanna have a peek at more pages? Marcia put a video on her blog HERE in which she flips through the pages. “A World of Artist Journal Pages” is not yet available in the Netherlands, but if you are interested, it can be ordered at Amazon (see link in the side menu.)

And that’s it for today folks. I will post the art journal pages I created on another date (like Friday) so you will have to come back here then if you’re curious to see those. Thanks for stopping by and have a great Wednesday.

I skipped blogging last Wednesday but today I am back with – as the title suggests – a very special tale from my studio… so put on the music and do the happy dance with me. This is what I am so happy about:

See that? That is my name there, on the index page of a book… and see all those numbers behind my name? They point to the pages I can be found. Pretty impressing huh?!! The ‘double pages’ in the book show photo’s of me and/or my work and the single numbers point to pages where a quote of me can be found…  I’ll show you some glimpses at the end of this post but there’s more to show today, so come on in and enjoy!

A “Golden Oldie” layout to start with…

(I don’t create ‘traditional scrapbook layouts’ anymore but every Wednesday I dive into my albums and lift a ‘golden oldie.’ The layouts I pick are random, YOU – blog readers – name the number of the album and layout to show. Let me know in a comment which album you want me to open next week – to avoid that you name layouts that have already been requested, you can find a list showing the ‘free’ numbers to choose from on this page.

This request came from Bonnie Leukert. Bonnie found me/my blog via my facebook page, and she choose album 7 – layout 11 as her birthday is July 11th.

Mother & Son

Isn’t this the sweetest layout? Maybe a bit too sweet for my likes – I do not like using flowers in my work at all… and I honestly don’t know where this came from… but the layout dates December 2007 and I tried all kinds of things back then… that should explain it. My son was 15 at the time this photo was taken and it’s one of my fave pictures. He is now 21 years old and has a beard, ha! (Which makes me think: I should have our photo taken again, before he shaves that beard off.)

And here is a photo of my desk how it looked this morning… well, I cheated a little bit because the Mixed Media book wasn’t there (the rest was.) I placed the book on the table on purpose. The photo is taken for “What’s On My Work Desk? Wednesday.” WOYWW is  and event where crafty and artistic individuals around he world share pictures of their desks. Never heard of it? Hmmm… hop on over to Julia’s blog Stamping Ground to find out then ’cause everyone is invited to join.

WOYWW #234

And here… as promised… a glimps of “my” pages in the book.
(…and no, I don’t own two copies of the book… I ‘tricked’ this photo to show both spreads.)

The book is titled: The Mixed-Media Artist [Art Tips, Tricks, Secrets and Dreams from Over 40 Amazing Artists] and this group of artists is brought together in the book by Seth Apter from The Altered Page. There are indeed fabulous artists in this book and I find it very inspiring to see and read about all those inspirational individuals who share their thoughts, dreams and works. I am so proud to be published in their amazing company!

One last thing: I joined Free Art Friday on facebook…

Here’s a bit of an explanation coming from SCOTT WONG, the artist who owns/runs the Free Art Friday – Wisconsin page.

“This is it. The revolution of all revolutions. The movement of all movements. The day where every street corner in every community in every city within every state is flooded with art.

[…] On Friday, Nov. 29th, 2013 a.k.a. BLACK FRIDAY, I want every creator, every artist, every painter, every photographer and sculptor, inker and anyone else who does even the faintest idea of art participating. […] Do a piece of art and leave it on the streets in a public spot for a random stranger to find, take home and love.[…]”

I like the idea so I am making a piece of art that I will leave on a public place for someone to take home for free next Friday…

Wish you all a beautiful and artful day!

I wasn’t around last Wednesday but I am in the studio today, so come on in to hear my tale (and see my latest art.)

As always: let’s start with showing you a “Golden Oldie”

(I don’t create ‘traditional scrapbook layouts’ anymore but every Wednesday I dive into my albums and lift a ‘golden oldie.’ The layouts I pick are random, YOU – blog readers – name the number of the album and layout to show. Let me know in a comment which album you want me to open next week – to avoid that you name layouts that have already been requested, you can find a list showing the ‘free’ numbers to choose from on this page.

IKE requested the golden oldie layout that I am about to show by saying: “I would like to make a request please… ALBUM 5… No. 5 since 5 is my lucky number.”

I found one of my fave scrapbook layouts there: Dialogue

There’s quite a story to this layout!
You can find that, along with the complete ‘dialogue’ text and detail photo’s, in this old blogpost from December 2008.

If YOU want to request a ‘golden oldie’: you can find the list of layouts to choose from HERE. Let me know in a comment which album you want me to open up and which layout you want me to show next time…

Wednesday is also another “What’s On My Work Desk? Wednesday.” WOYWW is Julia’s weekly blog hop and it is THE event where crafty and artistic individuals around he world share pictures of their desks. So let us take a look at my desk today.

WOYWW #230

See that book on the left? It is the Dutch edition of Dawn DeVries Sokol‘s book “Art Doodle Love” (The Dutch version is called “This Is Me,”  which is totally weird as that is also an English title. Why translate a book into Dutch and give it ANOTHER ENGLISH title???) Anyway, I had a voucher left over from my birthday and I decided to buy this book. I just had to have it – and that has a special reason because last week I received an email from Dawn saying:

Hello! One or more of your pages have been selected for inclusion in my next book, tentatively titled “A World of Artist Journal Pages”.

WOWZAH!! This is some news – and I received that email only a few days before my  post about me being published in THIS BOOK came online. Yes, I feel blessed and honoured!

Now you would think that all the excitement lead to the next, bright, spread in my art journal that I am about to show. These pages indeed look bright and happy. However, they are from the week before…

The Chronicles of Marit – Week 42

I hope your day (week!) is bright and happy!

P.S. Thanks to all who send me emails to check on me and my family after the storms that hit the Netherlands. The storm mainly hit the coastline – the west of the Netherlands – and since I live more inland, we did not have the heaviest wind overhere. My beloved and I even went for a long walk across the meadows – walking on paths with big trees growing next to it – enjoying the wind. We learned only later that the storm had been that bad and that accidents had happen in Amsterdam… but we are fine here, we do not even miss a roof tile…

Now what does this mean, you might think?
Come on in and I’ll tell you!

..
This group of artists is brought together by Seth Apter from The Altered Page, to be published in his book and yessss… I’m in there too!!!

This book will be released
on November 15, 2013 and
Seth uses the time leading up
to that date to introduce all
artists that are in the book
on his blog The Altered Page.

Here’s what he says:

“30 artists…30 days.
Spend the month of October
with me at The Altered Page
to meet the 30 spotlight artists
in my book The Mixed-Media Artist:
Art Tips, Tricks, Secrets and Dreams
from Over 40 Amazing Artists.

See them in action in their studios,
read their ‘quirky’ bios written in
their own words, see some of their
art that led me to invite them to be
a part of my book, and hear my
story of what they each mean to me.

Then click on over to their sites
and see what they have to say about
The Mixed-Media Artist.”

Today it is my turn to shine!

In his blogpost, Seth says we crossed paths online for many years… I agree of course and when I read that, I got really curious to find out when it was exactly that we came across each other.

I remember it was me who found out about Seth first, because I bumped into the disintegration project on the internet, and I wanted to know more about it. I was fascinated by that project and played along. The first blogpost I wrote about it was on July 8th, 2009  – I was still scrapbooking back then but searching for other ways to create and already finding my way to art journaling. Which, as you know, I found out about. I started art journaling and never looked back 🙂

Now that you are here on my blog, I take the opportunity to point you to FEATURING magazine

FEATURING magazine is an international publication. A printed magazine about art journaling, mixed media and more. The magazine is shipped world wide and available in the online store. We released four issues now and the respons is very positive, but we notice that still a lot of people haven’t heard of our magazine… in order to keep my baby – this awesome art publication – alive and going, we have to spread the word and get more brand awareness so we can reach more customers. The release of the next issue depends on that. Therefore, I decided to set up a special promoting CAMPAIGN that is running right now. Go visit the campaign blog and order your copies in the online store.