Deanna's Blog

Monday, March 3, 2014

Life Book 2014 March Lessons

Work has been crazy (preparing for the big switch to an electronic medical record - seems like that's all I'm doing lately) - so I'm about 2 1/2 lessons behind. I miss making art!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Reality Check

Here's a very short video shared at the Life Book site, that hits it on the head. Now to figure out where I am in the process...

Friday, February 14, 2014

Chocolates sound nice...hint, hint

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Today I hope to work on a project with the grandkids. We'll see how it goes.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Life Book 2013 Video Flip-through!

Today I filmed a flip-through of my Life Book 2013 art journal. Twice. Not as easy as it looks. I backed the video with some music, as I'm sure you don't want to hear me coughing and sniffling.

I wish it was higher resolution when I click full screen. Oh, well. It's my first attempt.

Life Book 2014 February Lessons

I'm excited to have finished my last lesson of Life Book 2013! All pages are now backed, and as soon as I finish decorating the cover I'm going to make a flip-through video.

Meanwhile, I'm behind a few of the 2014 lessons while I've caught up with 2013. Now I can move on.

This lesson taught by Tam Laporte uses Dylusions Spray Inks. HERE is Tam's post and art journal page from this lesson.
This is my second attempt at this page today. Grandson Ivan told me (as I got out of the shower) that he'd painted my circle. This lesson was about negative space, and that "circle" was an area that was to be left unpainted. I think he understands now that his art is his and my art is mine. The boy has access to the best art supplies when I babysit and we often work on art projects, so maybe he misunderstood the boundaries. As a result, I changed my word for this page.

Here's the second part of the lesson. I struggled with the looseness of the spray inks. I'm such a control freak!

Jane Davenport teaches the lesson this week.

Another new teacher! Alena Hennessy

This week's lesson is an interview with Claudine Hellmuth.

See my Life Book 2013 pages HERE

or Life Book 2014 HERE -

or just click on the appropriate label in the left sidebar (scroll down).

Friday, January 24, 2014

Busy. Again. Still?

I'm getting ready to head to work in a bit, but wanted to get a post in since it's been awhile. Work and babysitting has kept me busy, and I've been stealing moments to work on some journal pages from Life Book 2013 (the last few lessons) and Life Book 2014. I've started working the first layers on three separate pages to make the best use of my time. By the way, you can still sign up for Life Book 2014 HERE. I've been having a blast, and recommend it to anyone.

I haven't done any sewing lately, but have been feeling the urges to make a doll. Actually, I NEED to make quite a few dolls to take to San Antonio this summer for ODACA Day and the UFDC Conference. The big obstacle to that is time, as per usual. I hope to make my reservations this weekend. I've never been to San Antonio, so I'm excited.

And there's the annual Hoffman Challenge doll to create as well, due about the time we'll be doing the San Antonio thing. I've got the fabric (big pattern, but pretty). I just need to come up with a design...

I've accumulated quite a bit of quilting fabrics, most of which are in the form of charm packs and jelly rolls, so they aren't useful for making dolls. But quilting has to be put on hold for now. So no more fabric for me! But for those who are adept at fabric acquisition, Craftsy is having a sale right now (see below).

Save Big on Craftsy Products!

This Friday and Saturday, save on fantastic fabric and yarn from the Craftsy Flash Sale ! For 48 hours only(1/24 - 1/25), get great deals on supplies from your favorite designers and brands. Save up to 65% off fabric and up to to 80% off yarn. Need inspiration? Craftsy's project kits are also on sale up to 60% off. The sale expires this Saturday at midnight, so when you find something you love, don't wait! Use the links below to go to the Fabric or Yarn pages:

Craftsy Fabric Flash Sale 1/24 - 1/25 Only!
Craftsy Yarn Flash Sale 1/24 - 1/25 Only!

**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Life Book 2014 January Lessons

It's here! Life Book 2014 begins. I'm very excited to see what this year's teacher line-up has to offer. I'm still finishing some of the last lessons of 2013, but really don't want to fall behind in 2014. My goal is to do at least one of the 2013 lessons AND a 2014 lesson per week in order to catch up and keep up.

Today, my grandson and I worked on Week 1's Warm-Up lesson. Here's his work-in-progress. We viewed the lesson on my laptop while we worked, step-by-step. We each picked a split complementary color scheme. He chose his main color and helped find the watercolor crayons that matched the main and complementary colors. As we were using "real artist supplies" (expensive), he took great care to use them carefully. He loved using the brayer to apply gesso and bubble wrap stamping.

Here's his finished page. He drew the hearts, I cut them out and glued them where he wanted. We're both very pleased with the outcome.

And here's my finished page. We used slightly different colors (so we wouldn't have to share colors), but they look very similar here.

The second part of the lesson was to create a Guardian and choose a word for the year. I used the same color scheme. I'm happy with it, but always feel like I muck it up with the handwriting.