Deanna's Distractions: January 2014

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...

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.