Photo: @LenaSchreijenberg

Je t’embrasse

This means, that writing a blogpost costs me half a day. Coming up with a title or theme, shooting the right photos (+ cropping and adding the watermark), finding the right words to share what I want to share… I like blogging though, so I don’t mind taking the time for it to try and do it right.

But

(Yep – you felt it coming – there’s a but…)

I don’t have much time lately.
You must have noticed: my posts weren’t as well thought-out as they used to be. Sometimes even (very) short. And that’s bothering me.

And then there is this:

Yes, sweeties, that’s MY STUDIO!! Well, maybe that’s too big a word for it, but it’s my SPACE anyway… When my son moved out in November 2011 my beloved and I discussed the possibilities for a studio. We came to the conclusion that I would take the best room – the one that has two windows (good light!) and is close to the bathroom and we would move the office space to my son’s old room. Now it was easy to come up with that idea, but not so easy to realise. There would be construction work to be done and – well – you know – we never started on it.

Which meant that I went on creating at the big table in the living room – while upstairs, there was an empty room available.

Mind you, not ’empty’ empty – as there were books and clothes and boxes and things that my son didn’t took with him or ‘would go through later’ (you know what happens when you think ‘I’ll look at that later’ – later never comes!) but space was ‘available’ anyway. When my son visits us in the weekends, he puts his laptop on the desk and sleeps in the bed. That’s it.

Last week, I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore.
The reconstruction of the upstairs is not going to happen soon, so I decided to start cleaning up the room on the top floor and see what I could do to make some sort of a studio. I would of course have to share it with my son – when he’s here I’m sure he don’t like to have his mama sitting next to him all day –  so I will have to come up with a ‘travel tote’ of some sort that I can take downstairs to create when he’s using the room.

On other days – this is all mine:

“Where is the bed” you might ask…
on ‘this side’ of the room (where I stood taking the photo) there’s a bed and another small desk –  I did not photograph that though. The cabinet dividing the room has storage space on both sides.

I love the shelves under the window – it’s perfect to store / display all my finished art journals. The top row holds all of them. On the lower shelf: books I use for altering or cut things from

And there’s a big closet that is filled with more ‘stuff’ – I have a lot of ‘stuff’ 😉

Now… back to the beginning of my post: contemplation.

What’s happening in my life these days.

• A magazine to work on (FEATURING issue 3 is out and available here)
• Teaching an online workshop (starting February 4, registering still possible here)
• A studio that I will have to get used to working in (I’m a ‘routine’ girl – and when the routine gets broken it takes me a lot of time to adapt on the new situation – and no, that’s not ‘old age’, I’ve always been like that!)
• A beloved and a household that needs attention (one more then the other – you tell me which 😉 )
• Private ‘stuff’ that I need to think over and deal with

And then there’s this blog… I want to keep it going but my way of blogging will definitely needs to change in order for me to feel good about it. But how? What? When?

I don’t know yet.
I guess I have some thinking to do – and therefore I decided to take a break from blogging. Yes dear ones – I will be ‘off blogging’ for a while. For how long? I don’t know. I guess, as long as I need to figure some things out. We’ll see. I hope you won’t forget about me and that I find you all back here again when I get back from my ‘retreat.’ I might even show myself on facebook and twitter every once in a while – and if you really, REALLY miss me, feel free to email me!

See ya when I’m back!

I’m still working my way down on the OWOH list of participants, and these
passed days my heart was filled with beautiful art, amazing inspiration
and lovely words. There are so many talented women out there!

I came across a colourful garden girl
I walked along the beach with a sealovin’ gypsy
I stumbled upon a creative dancer
I fell in love with this magical mermaid

and I met many, many other mixed media artists, art journalers,
doll makers, storytellers and kindred souls!

In between bloghopping, I did make some art journal pages too!

..

This is an oldie, from a week ago, but I haven’t had the chance to show it yet.

The chronicles of Marit – week 4

I don’t know what it is with this page exactly, but I don’t like it very much.
Is it the plain colour? The white piece with the little man that I tore out of
the manual from my Ikea drawer? The black text? I added extra yellow dots,
but that still didn’t do the trick for me.

And then I left it alone. Oh well – there’s another week. THIS ONE!
And I can assure you (’cause I’m already working on it) this week’s page
is going to be awesome!

I made two (!) pages for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal

This year, the prompts are kind of neat! If you followed the Gutter Girlz
challenge blog you may remember that there were 3 things that made up
the challenges. Rachel shut down the GG-blog, but incorporated this way
of challenging into these art journal prompts. So you can use one, two or
all three to make your art journal page.

This was the prompt on January 15

THE PROMPT: Starting NOW
THE SONG: Waiting on the World to Change by John Mayer
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Foot Photo

Journaling: Enjoy your life now.
For too long I sat on my butt, hoping that my world would change. I knew
that wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t take action, but Oh well – that was too
much trouble and I just hadn’t the nerve, until it was enough. I stood up.
I took action. I started doing the things I love. No  more fears anymore.

(I jotted this down on the page right away, and didn’t think much about
the English spelling and grammar… As I type this, it strikes me that there are
quite a few mistakes in the text. Those things happen I guess, when English is
not your native language…

And here’s my take on the prompt from January 30

THE PROMPT: Time
THE SONG: Butterflies & Hurricanes by Muse
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Numbers

I just bought me water soluble oil crayons when I started this page!
I played with those on the background. Some acrylic paint to make the
colors brighter. I found this awesome old stamp on a flea market once
(I guess it was from a company or store – to number the articles maybe?)
It changes the numbers automatically (counting up) when you stamp!
My beloved figured out how it worked exactly, ’cause I didn’t have a clue 😀
I stamped from the year I was born up till now and I used sentences from
the lyrics. Since a few years, I feel pretty good, and my life couldn’t get
any better… It sure feels like ‘my time is now’!

This next page isn’t finished yet. I used the instructions that Julie put
on the Art Journal Every Day blog. For each day of the week, she
indicated a task that will take around ten minutes work in your journal.
For this, she divided art journalers into five categories:
painty – wordy – collage-ish – scrapbook-ish – doodler

If you start on Friday and work for 10 minutes on the page every day,
you end up with one page after a week. I went along with the ‘painty’
instructions, but I only started yesterday so I haven’t got a page done.
I completed two of her instructions:

1. Prep a page. (I always use gesso to prepare my pages!)
2. Apply acrylic paint with a credit card.  Scratch into it with a toothpick.

This is a totally new approach for me, I never work like this.
I don’t know what to think of this page yet, but it’s good to step out
of my comfort zone. We’ll see where this leads to…

But so you see: Art Journal Every Day is not only fun and educational for
beginners, it offers inspiration and new ways to explore to experienced
art journalers too! I highly recommend this free and fun blog!

Yep, this was another long post. What’s new?!
Thanks for hearing my rambling on Friday again.
Take care, have a nice weekend and see you next week!

P.S.
Advantage!!! I got an email from my favourite stamp company
VivaLasVegaStamps .They have that huge 45% off sale!!!
You can take advantage too! When you’re finished shopping,
View Cart and enter SuperStamp as your Coupon Code.
45% off all your Rubber, Grab Bags and Miracle Tape purchases!
(Sale does not apply to Bargain Basement)

Coupon is valid through Midnight Pacific time Monday,
February 14, 2011. The email said I could spread the word to
any (stamping) friends, so here  you have it!