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Art Journal Magic

Well, I did it. I made time to play in my art journal this past week. Not every day. Like the days we were in San Diego. And a few other random days. But most days I played. And got paint on my fingers. And it made me happy. And it made my heart happy.

Today

Well peeps. We're looking at 4 month together today. A quarter of a year.

120 days.
105 posts.
2562 total page views.
956 page views in last month.
43 comments.
4 canvases sold.


Other changes:
   1.   Removed photo from blog header. Just felt like it was too big. May end up adding another photo in the future.
   2.   Closed big cartel shop tonight. Hope to open etsy shop in the morning.
   3.   Making plans to take my canvases out on the road.
   4.  Opened a new checking and savings account for all luckypennylove transactions.

It's been an amazing journey. And I'm so excited to see where I will be next month. Glad to have you with me.

Now go do something today to make your heart happy!

And for those of you working on the Photo A Day-August challenge, today's prompt is: ONE

Starbucks Love

I was working on organizing my photos on my laptop when I realized that I have several photos taken outside the local Starbucks.
This is the most recent. See how reflective the sidewalk is. That is called rain. I know, some of you may know this already, but we don't see much rain around here.

 

Spring. I love the yellow puffy balls on the Palo Verde trees. It counts as color. In the desert.

 

I know. Those puffy yellow balls are evil to some people with allergies. And they make a big mess (see next picture). But I still secretly love them.

And just to mix it up a bit, one taken at night. Doesn't it look all cozy and inviting? I really can't help that I consider this place my home away from home. It just oozes comfort.

I thought it was interesting that I had several photos of my favorite local place.

Or is it strange?

Do you have a favorite place to chill?

CHA Sneak Peek

Happy Saturday.

Have you seen all the sneak peaks for the upcoming CHA show?

I'm like a kid in a candy shop. A kid on Christmas morning.
So many pretty things. Whispering to me.
So I thought I would share a few of my favorite ones.

Crate Paper's new line Acorn Avenue:

Love the paper with all the date stamps!



And these flowers are gorgeous.






Did you see the wood veneer pieces at the top of this group of photos? And the stickers that look like pieces of tape? Makes my heart swoon!

Studio Calico stamps:

And everyone needs an "Oh snap" stamp.


Lily Bee Designs Persnickety line:



And the book text clouds? I likey. Any chevron print is good in my book!




Seriously? Chevron stamps and a Polaroid frame? Yes. This one is a must have!



More from Studio Calico:


And another must have!



And these kraft heart stickers.

Anyone else out there loving all the sneak peeks?

Please share with me!

Invest

Have a happy tuesday! Made a promise that I would stay off the computer today and do something fun before work. Either paint or do a project. I'm down to 3 hours, so I'd better get busy!

Today

Today is the 3 month anniversary since I began this blog;

90 days.
74 posts.
1606 total page views.
647 page views in last month.
36 comments (half are my responses).
1 possible canvas sale (working on a request for a custom order).
18 canvases available for purchase on my shop.

Current thoughts? I'm lovin this blog. Who would have thought I would enjoy writing? And posting?(once I got over the fear of "is this stupid" and "will anyone out there enjoy reading this?". It turns out that I really love journaling my life and things that make my heart happy!

Hope you are enjoying too! Take a moment to leave a comment and let me know what you think. I love to see comments in my inbox. Love It!!

And if you are having trouble leaving a comment, you could always send me an old fashioned e-mail. Just saying.

luckypennylove@yahoo.com

The 9 Nanas

Happy Sunday everyone!

You HAVE to click on the link below. It is truly an amazing story!!! A triple exclamation point story!

The 9 Nanas

And all my posts MUST include a photo of some sort. Hope you enjoy!

Spring Break Mini Album

Hello everyone.  I know Spring Break was over 3 months ago, but I just now finished the mini album (started it yesterday). I even have some unfinished projects that are older (2011 December Daily would be one of them). So, I'm crazy about this album because it has lots of everything. Photos, receipts, brochures, journaling....but not lots of everything for every day. It just seems like the right balance for documenting the trip.

See all the bits and pieces sticking out? Love it!

I used a Smash book that I decorated before the trip. Just added random bits of paper and embellishments (Disneyland themed and colored) and stamps (ocean animals for the beach days). And I pulled a few things from my stash.

I packed a gallon size Ziploc bag in my purse to hold anything and everything I might want to save from the trip. I save everything that is flat and can be added to an album. Then I make decisions later as to what goes into the album and what gets tossed. This trip I saved extra copies of stuff to share with Chelsey, since she wanted to make her own album.

So, now we are back from the trip, photos are printed, and free time is available. I decorated the cover with a panda photo that was included in the photo pack I purchased at the San Diego Zoo. Didn't even know it was there until I was digging through my Ziploc bag! Out came the gel medium and I had an instant cover. I also added the Mickey key chain that I picked up while at Disneyland.

So here are a few of the pages out of the album.

Brochures and parking stubs for hotel.....

Simple pages...

pages with just journaling....

You can see that I used washi tape to layer photos again in the album. I like that I can fit so many photos on one page, but not have it so cluttered.

photo booth strips and entrance tickets to zoo....

Disneyland postcard (sent to my house before the trip) and my photo on the bottom...

lunch receipt and journaling...

Page documenting the trip cost.  I questioned doing this (do I want to share costs with other people that might see this album?), but in the end I wanted to include this because I have wanted to refer back to costs of previous trips before. And it will be fun to see what the costs are 10 years from now.

This is another first in a vacation mini album: the notes to self for future vacations. Sometimes the memories fade and I don't remember things that may be useful in the future. So now I have a place to note things.

I highly recommend these Smash books. They are just so fun and they come with the pen/glue stick attached to the book. The glue does not work great with photos, so I just use washi tape instead. The glue does work great with paper items though.

Have you used a Smash book yet? What project have you used your book for?

Carlsbad mini-book

I finally got prints of all my photos and had some time to play.

I started with a basic color theme. And rather than use patterned paper I chose to stencil designs using the 3 paint colors. The goal was to keep it simple, but different from my other projects

However, I did use paper for the covers. I used gel medium to adhere the paper to the book covers and added some rub-ons and a few stamps.

The inside of both the back and front covers are the same polka dot paper.

I attached the photos using tape. Some pages have 1 photo, some 2 photos, and a few even have 3 photos.

They are attached so that 1 side can flip up to reveal journaling on the back of the photos.

The only embellishments used were rub-ons and some inking around the edges.

I wanted to keep the focus on the photos.

I can't believe that I took so many photos in just over 2 days. I originally thought this would be a smaller book. I had to make several design changes due to various factors (such as dropping the Instax idea due to terrible quality of the photos).

The book has about 25 pages, but about 50 photos.

Hope you enjoyed! If you have a fun summer getaway planned, let me know how you are planning to document the trip!

Be Afraid

Be very afraid. There is a new teenage boy out driving on the open roads.

Alec got his driver's permit today. Passed the written test. And we all know what that means.

7 months from now, December 14th, he will be eligible to take the driving test and earn an AZ driver's license.

Congratulation big guy! We love you!

Friday Wrap

Happy Friday everyone!

Here is this week's version of the Friday Wrap.

One of the things I promised to get done this week was clean my art area. The Art Studio. So I took this "before" picture. Then I never got around to the big cleanup. Maybe this next week. Maybe Tuesday before the big surgery day.......

Logged into my blog one day this week to find my canvas featured on simplyautumn.com.  She won my canvas in a giveaway and sent me some love on her blog in appreciation.  I can't tell you how excited I was to see my art on someone else's wall. I'm thrilled. Now the goal needs to be to sell one of my pretties.!

Laundry time. My favorite way to do laundry is to watch HGTV and listen for my washer and dryer to sing to me, alerting me it is time to move the next load. Having a Sonic Diet Coke to sip on just adds to the fun.

Waiting at the hospital for some pre-op work. I had to have my blood drawn for a CBC. The phlebotomist had to stick me twice (no luck), then have a co-worker help. 3rd time was the charm.

Emma talked Mark into wearing her Snuggi. Size small. It was quite hilarious! I'd share the photo taken of the backside, but this is a family friendly blog!

The girls got to experience their first pedicures. Just seemed like we all needed super cute toes for the beach.  They really enjoyed the treat! Especially the leg massages and the flowers on their toes. Emma even got to have her fingernails done (teal with white polka dots....makes my heart flutter).

Not much of a week for me. That's ok.

I have a few photos from last night, but I'm holding off sharing those. I'm saving them for the Carlsbad album.

Click on the link to see other blogger's InstaFriday.