Journals to the People: Tea Shop

This is another Marketplace Challenge journal featuring tea and florals. The cover is all kinds of mixed media with a batik fabric interior.

I love this image so much. I really should have kept it for my personal journal.

My printer has a very odd reaction to yellow

I had a lot of paper dying fun with this round of books although it's still a mystery as to how to get the imprint of the doilies onto the paper. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Journals to the People: Tea & Roses

This is another repurposed Reader's Digest book covered with collage paper and a strip of tea towel printed with vintage botanical images. For the past several years one our regular customers at the market where I work give these tea towels as a holiday gift to each of our staff. A few of my co workers have given me theirs and I've hoarded them.

This is one of four challenge journals for The Marketplace at Nevermore Creations so there were digital kits that were required. The theme was tea and florals.

This is a little notebook I saw on Patricia Viramontes' channel. I've got a lot of book pages to use. 

One of my neighbors left a bunch of Victoria magazines in our lobby about the time I began thinking about this theme so that was cool. It's not really my style but I had a very inspiring harvest of them.

I love using the illustrations from the Readers Digest books. 

I did a bunch of paper dying using magnolias.

The leaves are copies of my original watercolors. Book page collage with a decorative napkin, dyed doily and stitching.

Tag and journaling card from the Readers Digest cover papers

A print of one of my mixed media backgrounds.

I'm really happy with how this series came out and enjoyed the process of completing one book at a time though I still struggle with using the digitals and the more beautiful the digital the harder it seems for me because I have to resist the inclination to serve the digital art rather than using it in a way that serves me. I wanna deconstruct it all toss everything in big bowl and make a collage salad 😉

I still haven't quite decided whether or not to do the next challenge. It's Winter/Holiday themed but the required digitals are skewed heavily toward Christmas. Got nothing against Christmas but I don't have anything Christmas...but... there's a reason it's called a challenge.

On my Desk: Watercolor Week

I've been working on a series of journals to send off to Lindsey's Marketplace later on in the month as well as a book for great nephew #2 expected to meet our family next month.

I'm also playing around with ideas for a piece of artwork for the baby's room. I'm a bit ADD right now and need to focus on baby.

This week I'm all about watercolor and Instagram Inspiration so I can finish up the baby book with a smattering of my own original art. I tend to get lost in detail and really want to dial it back so I can move more loosely and quickly. One of my favorite artists is Rae Missigman. Her watercolor florals are right up my alley.

Yesterday I had a play.  I made some copies and added some quick line work.

I've had these pics floating around on my desk for weeks. This is great nephew #1. I love this pic. He's so Baby Gap❤️ and there's the two of us at Christmas. This is the last time I saw him.

Anyhoo...I had a packaging card from some Gelatos I bought a few weeks ago and quicky created this tag that can now live propped up on my desk lamp.
 

Journals to the People: Garden Party

 

This the first of the journals I'm creating for the September Marketplace Challenge at Nevermore Creations. The theme is tea and florals using a selection of Lindsey's digital kits.

One of my neighbors left a box of magazines in our lobby several weeks ago which included some issues of Victorian Magazine. Generally not my style but perfect for this series.

I'm taking a different approach this month by finishing one journal at a time. I overwhelmed myself last month by setting up 6 journals from the start and working through them in stages. It got a bit tedious and though the journals turned out beautifully, they all looked the same and finishing them up felt like a chore.

I'm also struggling with incorporating digitals with my aesthetic, my art and staying true to my junk.

There's also the need to keep learning new things and getting out of my comfort zone now and then.

I had some fun dying paper earlier in the week. The flower department at the market where I work had a bunch of broken marigolds and of course my first thought was hmmnnnn....

and I love the color I managed to extract.

I anchored each of the two signatures with Gelli printed cardstock.

The yellow "letter" is marigold dyed paper.

The results are quite a mash-up. On to #2....