5.6.11 ... scout with her new art supplies

my daily creation is photos again today. scout's brothers gave her an early birthday gift - groupons to jerry's art-a-rama. here are the fruits of her first visit.

she is having fun drawing with her new colored pencils. she has not had her own set like this before. we also tried a new recipe from a houston restaurants cookbook i spied on the new book rack at the library the other day. it was a tortilla strip topped soup and was fantastic. scout made dinner - including the friend corn tortilla strips which were lovely and she did a super job. i am sorry i didn't get a photo or two. enjoy your mother's day weekend. 

sweet dreams, everyone. thanks for stopping by. until tomorrow. happiness to you. from me. with heart. ox joon

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2.23.11 ... einstein . save the whale . mini idea book

i was making circles - not to be confused with going in circles which i do everyday so that goes without saying - and i thought about albert's birthday coming up in a couple of weeks and started messing around with two of my einey stamps. i have another one i did not get to experiment < --- {a true einey term} with today.  then i had a stack of envelopes waiting for me to cut them into bookmark corners and strips for circles...

...and a piece of junk mail that had two pages with this beautiful ocean blue color. so i made some stamps for future stickers and some circles just to have for backgrounds although the one that says 'of art' i will use as is.

and here is everything ...

...this is my collection for today. and for tomorrow, i started making a cover for this old S.O.G. with P.O.P book. remember those? 'silly old grandma with pictures in pocket' {or pocketbook} i haven't seen one in about 30 years or more so i was really happy when i spied it in the thrift store bin yesterday. for all of .50 i will now have a mini idea book. i can slip my sketches and clippings etc. into the photo pages and open it up whenever i need a project. i used my colored pencils to create the book cover paper.

and besides, i love square anything and this makes it all the more appealing to me. 

sweet dreams, everyone. thanks for stopping by. until tomorrow. happiness to you. from me. with heart. ox joon

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2.5.11 ... upcycled food can pencil cup

today i covered a can with fabric so i have a new desk cup for my colored pencils. last year i made a pencil holder from a crest toothpaste box. i love it and keep them in it in my drawer, but i need them on my desk when i will be working on paper art for long periods of time. here are before photos:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

i love it. especially the prime position of TeXaS. woo hoo. watching church chat lady so ciao for now. sweet dreams, everyone. thanks for stopping by. until tomorrow. happiness to you. from me. with heart. ox joon

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2.4.11 ... melmac impressions II

i spent some time experimenting with various papers, colors and mediums - crayons, pencils and different brands of colored pencils. you can see a couple of tissue paper rubbings here in these photos. this is a much more challenging activity than i imagined. the recess of the cup bottoms is a real problem. the raised logos are not consistently level. the stetson cups are especially challenging in that respect while the lifetime cup's deep inset makes the rubbing very difficult. the angle of the crayon or pencil is too steep to grab a clean impression easily. and the paper moves despite what i feel is an iron grip. but i did enjoy this and made progress on feeling successful. it's handy for me that i love folk art. the imperfections are right at home here.

my camera bit the bullet today and that is a truly panic inducing occurrence. i make a commitment to create and blog every day of the year and on day 35 i lose a key element toward that end. ack! luckily, scout was generous enough to offer hers - a much better camera. i think i will have to borrow hers indefinitely. i can't even begin to think about a new camera for myself.

i also made homemade tortillas and smothered green chili burritos for dinner. one of these days i will take tortilla making photos and share my recipe and process with you.

i hope you enjoy today's art and are enjoying a lovely friday evening. here's to a beautiful weekend. stay warm. i'll be back with who knows what tomorrow.

sweet dreams, everyone. thanks for stopping by. until tomorrow. happiness to you. from me. with heart. ox joon

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1.27.11 ... pencil valentine & pastel flower magnets

i was cleaning up my art room a bit and sorting through papers and came across a rescued paper pencil bit that i had clipped out of a discarded children's book and punched a row of mini hearts across. that gave me the idea for this illustration with the single heart punch and the traditional puny sentiment. i used my regular colored pencils for this drawing and my beloved le pens for the sentiment.

then i dug out my pastel pencils and made these simple flower magnets based on a little sketched flower i had done one day and saved. i love how they turned out. i don't have many opportunities to use my pastels because they smudge easily but the mylar on buttons and magnets preserves them. so they're good for these projects. i also made the background paper using the three flower color schemes. all in all, highly satisfying creative spurt. ciao for now.

sweet dreams, everyone. thanks for stopping by. until tomorrow. happiness to you. from me. with heart. ox joon

Posted via email from just joon

Pencil Box

A few months ago, I serendipitously matched up a toothpaste box with my colored pencils and have been surprised at how darn handy and perfect it turns out to be. I carry that thing all over the house. Yesterday I decided that if it's going to follow me around for a while it needs to become joonified. Naturally I have a story to tell.... Also, yesterday we received yet another piece of mail from Massachusetts, the entity, the commonwealth. We officially moved from there August 2008. We completed the required transition tasks ~ even speaking with real live people face to face. Yet the cities and state send mail piece after mail piece for things like income tax {huge booklet}, car registration {& taxes, of course} to our TEXAS ADDRESS. Someone had to have entered those address changes into their systems. Maybe I shouldn't get so annoyed but the knowledge that trees are dying over this incompetency makes me a bit nuts. How many more of these go out every year? I have to admit I am too often a glass is half empty gal. I don't want to be, but there you have it. I save a lot of paper and, at first, I was going to break my habit and throw this envelope into the recycling bin because of the negativity it brought to my environment. Then I thought: No. Instead I will transform it into something happy and positive. So here's what I did.

I made a photo record of the process. Hope you enjoy it.

Here is the original makeshift pencil box.

Here is the envelope after I decorated it with my favorite vintage and new stamps.

I wrapped it around the box and taped it inside. By the way, notice how a business envelope is an amazingly perfect pattern match for a toothpaste box. :) Here is the bottom.

Then I took sticker paper and measured pieces to fit the inside bottom and inside and out ends and put those pencils to work a bit. Put those in place and viola! Originally I planned to cover this with clear tape but I like it better this way. I can doodle on it.

Hope you all are warm, healthy and happy this evening.

It's a great day for America, everybody. Yes it is.

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010