PAJWLH- Discernment Part 2 and a little fun with Courtney Walsh

So this last month we have talked about relationships for our art journal project. With our last prompt on discernment and understanding how we can better help friendships, with this post I really wanted to talk about friendships...true friendships. 

This is a page that I made to record a special moment that I shared with a friend. Along this same theme, I was asked by my dear friend Courtney Walsh to help her out with the promotion of her new book 

A Sweethaven Summer. Courtney has written two craft books and this is her debut fiction novel. I was fortunate to have met Courtney while she was writing this book so to see it come to fruition is not only exciting for her, it is also exciting for me to see all of her hard work pay off.

When I met Courtney, I was surprised how much we had in common. My family had just moved to Fort Collins in 2009 and she and her family had moved to Fort Collins exactly one year later. Our lives have paralleled to where, Courtney jokingly says that she is living my life, just one year later.  I am a firm believer in things happening for a reason, and since the beginning of our friendship, I felt that pull in my heart knowing that both Courtney and I were brought together for a reason. These reasons have revealed themselves as we have taken turns encouraging each other and cheering each other on in our lives. With our experiences being so similar, it wasn't totally surprising that we had both had our hardships in relationships/friendships as well. These hardships prepared us to see in each other the qualities that we valued in true friendships. I am very fortunate to have a friend like her and I hope you will take a moment to check out her promotion that she is running on her blog.

It is hard to have friends. Sometimes friends take more out of us, than we have to give. Sometimes friends are in a different place in their lives than we are. Friends are not always the blessing on our lives that they are meant to be. I have gotten to a point in my life where I now value the few true soul friends that I have rather than the massive amount of friends that I might have held close in the past. I have realized that good friends are so hard to come by, yet NOT hard to maintain. Good friends don't fault you for time apart, yet they pick right back up where you left off. These friends should be held close and treasured. In my heart of hearts, I want to be the type of friend that loves, gives cherishes my heart and soul friends even if the list of these friends is short. I have learned the hard way that quality is what I need in a friend... not quantity.

So with this page, I wanted to have a little something to remind me of a special moment that I shared with a friend. A time that I was blessed to have this person in my life. This page acts as a reminder in my journal that there are people in my life that make me happy. This page (I will refer to these pages as Little Victories) is just one of the many blessings I want to record in my art journal. There have been to many pages in  art journals that are therapeutic or maybe dark, I really want to be able to look back (or have my children look back) at an art journal that is true to who I am and part of this is recording the good along with the not so good.

So for this prompt, I am going to make it pretty easy :) Here ya go!

Prompt:

• make a page for a friend, or to record a way a friend has blessed your life.

• Use NO PAINT (No acrylic or water based paints, inks are fine)
• Use scraps in a creative way (as a border, basket weaved, as a stitch, to create your background)

If you are joining us today for the first time and are wondering about our art journal project, feel free to check out the link here to our year long free art journal workshop. This will link you to the getting started page and you can follow the link from here to the first posts page.

Thanks again, for joining me :) This was the first page I had ever made without paint, I guess I never tried to do it any other way, lol. I hope this encourages you to enjoy a different medium to create with, even if it is just paper :)

~Liz ♥

Guest Blogger: Jennafer Martin PAJWLH

Some of you may know Jennafer Martin as the Senior Editor of Creating Keepsakes Magazine. That is how I originally met her at a lunch meeting for a company that I use to work for. I am so glad that I was able to really get to know Jennafer through the years and to find out what a beautiful heart she has and her gift of helping others. . Besides working for Creating Keepsakes, Jennafer is also a business owner at zoesoulspa.com.  She does some amazing things with her gifts. From what I have noticed about her,  she has a very special way of understanding a persons heart and that is why I asked her to join us this month as a guest blogger. She enjoys many different types of crafting. I love how she incorporated the theme into her project. 

From Jennafer: 

Relationships Are Important to the Heart & Spirit  

Amanda and me, 2011

My younger sister, Amanda, is one of the most important people in my life. She always has been, although I didn’t always know it. We’re very different from one another, so different that people who knew us growing up seldom believed we were related. Those differences as well as just being sisters paved the way for many arguments and rivalries. And even though, in an attempt to patch up fights and help us understand the importance of this relationship in our lives, our mother would often tell us “Friends come and go, but you’ll always be sisters”, I still sometimes found myself wishing to be an only child. 

That’s the way it is with sisters, right?

These days, my sister’s importance in my life is a given, and one I’m grateful for. Amanda and I are still very different people, and we lead different lives. She’s an environmental biology major and I was an English major. She’s a wife and fabulous mom to my niece and nephew, and I’m an unattached mom to feathered kids. We think differently and have different talents and gifts. But we also are great friends and learn a lot from one another. I’m incredibly proud of her and proud to be her sister. Our mother was right: friends have come and gone, but we’ve remained and always will be sisters. And I’m so thankful for that.


What are some of the most important relationships in your life? Whether they are romantic or platonic, familial or business, relationships are a big part of what makes up the fabric of our lives. They offer us support, challenge us, and help us grow and enjoy life. They also help our spiritual wellbeing. Because the essence of spirituality is connection—to people, to purpose, to ourselves, and more—connecting with others through relationships helps to ground and center us, reminding us that we’re not alone and that we’re loved, that our lives have meaning and purpose. Relationships lift us, get us in touch with our truths, and give us perspective to get beyond the day-to-day stresses and move forward. That they add joy to our lives is a plus.

In honor of relationships being such a large part of our hearts and spirits, I created this necklace to accentuate the importance of that heart connection with rose quartz and rhodochrosite beads. Both of these gemstones exude love, connection & healing, strengthening the heart chakra---things relationships give us as well.

  

It was simple to create by stringing the beads first and then cutting and threading tubing to finish. It makes a great gift to give to someone you love or a gift to yourself to remember those you love.

This week, I encourage you to make time to connect with someone important in your life. Whether you enjoy a good conversation or a fun activity together, be present and enjoy that connection. Let it relax and rejuvenate you and add meaning to your life.

Oops.

So looking at our last prompt for PAJWLH, I never thought about how intimidating the "Sketch" part would be. I am so sorry. I guess being a student has me excited about what it is that I am learning and eager to share it with you all. Looking back at the post though, lol... I guess I really didn't do the best job of explaining it. I hope that you see this prompt as a light hearted attempt to further our skills together. I do hope that you can attempt sketching to some degree, and if not... no worries :) That is the purpose of this journaling workshop is that it act as small prompts and lessons that anyone can attempt, ala carte.

On another note, I haven't had a chance to do my last two pages... I have been overwhelmed with school work since I returned home from CHA. On my few spare moments I have been trying to catch up with my kids and husband. It has been a whirlwind of a time and jam packed with deadlines all crammed into a small period of time. Now I know, don't take a week off of school when you are taking 15 units. Period. I have been swimming in assignments this last three weeks and finally this week I feel like I am coming up for air. It is crazy busy but exciting. I am in love with being a student, especially an art student.

The funny thing about having my head stuck in books this last few weeks is that now that I have some time to notice what is going on around me, I have noticed that my housework has fallen by the wayside. I told a friend yesterday that it looks like I am hoarding clean laundry (because my husband actually washed it all for me!) and dust bunnies. I would be the first to admit, housework is not my forte. Balancing this new life of mine is going to be a learning curve. Finding a new normal is never easy, especially when it involves housework :)

So tonight I am hoping to wrap up my last two pages as well as finish up a project that I am working on for my friend, Courtney Walsh's new book (A Sweethaven Summer) release. I will go ahead and post it tomorrow, hopefully along with Part 2 of the last prompt and my pages (fingers crossed).

So I hope you will forgive me for the scary prompt :) and join me tomorrow as I share a new prompt and art work.


~Liz ♥

PAJWLH- Discernment Part 1

 Discernment. What is this word exactly? I honestly can say that this word was not an active part of my vocabulary till about 15 years ago. I guess as a kid growing up, you never really have to think to much about discerning..or making the right choice a lot of grace is given when you are younger because well... when you are young you are still learning. To me, the word discernment has become pivotal these last few years. These last few years have been tough on me, but the one thing that I can say it that my definition and sense of discernment has been heightened. I know that the optimist will argue that in every trial there is still a lesson to learn, or at least there is hope of a brighter outcome, but going through the trials and the muck... the optimist in us generally is a little  quiet. Even in the toughest of times, the tightest of deadlines the one thing that I have learned to appreciate is TIME. I have learned that TIME is MINE to control. In any situation, I have the ability to take control of MY TIME. It might be tough in some situations, especially when you are dealing with others, but in reality we all have the ability to work towards making time our own again. This is the one thing that I am so grateful for when dealing with transition or painful times. Taking the time to heal, to think, to process... it is so tough when we are right smack dab in the middle of our situation. Sometimes clarity comes when we can walk away and clear our heads. This is the time that I find that my discernment is strengthened. I treasure this time to process things and to figure out how it is that I could better myself from the situation and as well decide just how much weight I am going to allow for this to take effect on to my life and what I have to offer. During times of discernment, I can process my emotions, my thoughts re-evaluate my actions and decide how I can learn from the situation to better myself and my decision making. I have seen so many relationships deteriorate because this time of discernment (cooling off period) was not allowed. This is something I have had to learn the hard way. I am not always the most level headed. I am a tender person and have sometimes jumped to the wrong conclusions because I have let my emotions make decisions for me. Being able to process my thoughts and emotions has helped me so much in evaluating my judgement on situations and how I handle them. Another thing to consider in your discernment is the value and weight of opinion that you allow some one to hold over you.  In the past, I have often blamed myself in some situations because of the trust that I put into those who were around me. This is something that has thoroughly helped me when I consider the situation that I may be in, as well as the value of the opinion of those that I may be in a misunderstanding with. It is so easy for someone to define what they think of you, the hard part is trusting yourself to discern the worth of their opinion. Most of the time these nay sayers have a 0 value of opinion, but because someone...ANYONE would quantify your value verbally... we take 100% offense to their opinion. Remember, their opinion... is THEIR OPINION. It is not truth, sometimes there might be a bit of truth that we can learn from, but that does not mean that 100% of their opinion needs to rest on your shoulders. Discern the true weight and value that YOU see their opinion as, take a truthful look at yourself and decide just how much is their opinion truly worth to you.

This idea of discernment has helped me tremendously. So much that I have a second part of this segment that I will share on Monday along with my page using today's prompts.

For today's art journal prompt I want to share a series of elements that we can use together to create a page.SO I guess this will work more as a challenge as opposed to an actual step by step. So here it goes!

PROMPT:

For your page- USE A CLEAR ITEM. You can layer the clear item on top of other elements or use it by itself.

Some ideas for your base surface:

• plastic wrap
• sandwich bag
• acrylic page
• acetate
• page protector

Because this is a non porous surface, you will want to use elements that work well with this. So a few ideas are:

• acrylic paint
• alcohol inks
• markers (permanent, solvent based)
• ink pads (Staz-On- Solvent)

Some techniques to consider:

• crumble your plastic
• add a little heat to contort your plastic
• twist your plastic
• punch shapes or holes in it with die cuts or crop-a-dile 

 Now that you have your surface and elements. Here is a twist.... Now this is mostly because I just had the most amazing time in my sketch class... but for this page, let's give a try at sketching/drawing. There are tons of tutorials on You tube so I won't bore you with my beginners knowledge but I will give you a tip that helped me IMMENSELY with my recent sketch I did for class. When I was having a tough time attempting my sketch (see below image of my daughter), My teacher suggested that I do some larger strokes to outline my direction, he also had me identify my mid point of my subjects face as well as draw a semi-circle defining the view point of my subject as well as the position of the eyes. From there you continue to do loose sketching adding cheeks, ears, and other features until you get a basic face form that you can then start to work some detail in. I used a 2B graphite pencil for my sketch as it is a light pencil and easy to erase. Here is my beginning sketch as well as my final attempt for your reference. Oh I almost forgot... another great suggestion that my drawing teacher gave to me was to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! He told me to try my sketch at least 10 times so that I felt comfortable with it. This totally helped me, as it really helped my brain to process and memorize the image I was attempting so that when I went in to finalize the one I liked best, I now knew my image really well so I could catch mistakes as I made them.

This might be a tough idea to process but it is a FUN FUN FUN technique to know. I would never have thought that my illustrations would go anything beyond what I learned in 1st grade, but allowing myself to try and not doubting myself really helped me to bridge the gap in my confidence. You can do it too. remember, no one ever needs to see this if you don't choose to let them. Even so, we are usually our toughest critic, so if we can get over doubting ourselves... chances are other will be blessed by your work.

 Here is my final sketch, I used only the 2B pencil, so I might go in with some darker valued pencils later. Overall I am really in love with it :)

 Here is the original, you can see that my daughters perspective is a bit different in the sketch than it is in the original. Eh... it's a little thing, but I notice in hopes that it will train me and refine my skills.

 Here is how I started my sketch, this is the loose drawing AKA gesture drawing that my teacher suggested. This totally made my work a ton easier, I highly recommend using this idea when attempting a face.

  And here are my practice girls. This is a full page of attempts. I highly highly highly recommend practicing as it honestly helps so much in refining your skills as well as allowing you to better understand your figure in which you wish to illustrate.

Since our surface is clear, I would suggest placing your sketch behind your surface and working onto of the clear surface as not to effect your sketch, but this is totally up to you... I am excited to see where you take this :) As always, if you have any questions about the prompt or sketching (again, I am beginning so please don't take my advice as what you would a professional, lol) just email me. I truly look forward to chatting with you and working along side you on this project.

Thanks for being a part of this fun project... I hope this message blesses you and that it encourages you to create something beautiful this weekend. I will go ahead and post my page on Monday with the second part of this prompt.

Thanks again, See you Monday!

~Liz

PAJWLH- Share YOUR Message...

So today is Valentines Day. I thought for today I would share a little project that I made for my husband James for last years Valentines Day. In recent years we haven't really celebrated Valentines Day in the traditional sense. We tend to stay at home and watch a movie or find something that we both enjoy. Since we have moved to Colorado we are kind of out here on our own and although we have an excellent support system out here of friends, going out just hasn't been as important to us. It seems that what is truly sacred is our time together. So as mundane as it may sound to just stay home and enjoy a movie alone... we enjoy it and thoroughly look forward to it.

With this piece of art, I really wanted James to know just how much he meant to me (us). Beyond just our couch dates and watching movies together... I knew at this point that this phrase was exactly what he needed to hear. This art came at a time when I new that my husband really needed to be reminded that when he went to work, those of us who he left behind appreciated it, and that we looked forward to his return. Sometimes it is tough for a husband and daddy to leave his happy little family behind. I really wanted James to know that his absence was not in vain... and that his sacrifices for his family were appreciated.

Supplies used: Mod Podge and Acrylic Paints- Plaid 

wire, sequin and gems- Art-C Mixed Media Exploration (LYB)

metal embellishment, Oil Pastels, Charcoal and China marker vintage paper- Unknown

 

 

 Although Valentines Day is the day of LOVE, I think it is important to remember that we all express and receive love it different ways. For some it may be the simple words, some it might be actions, gifts... others it might just be time. Whatever it is that your loved one needs this is a great day to remind ourselves of their importance in our lives and how we can strive to bless them each day. Valentines Day is a simple reminder... that we are blessed with loved ones each day.

So whatever it is that you have to give... Send it out. Share it. Let your message be sent. This is a great day to remind ourselves of what it is that we have to give/offer to our loved ones and to this world. Our presence is so specific to this world and we can never forget that our presence is so very necessary and important to more people than just ourselves and those around us. Our lives, even the simplest lived... impact so much more than those around us. Share your message today, to all that are around you. Let them be blessed by what and who you are so that they may bless others in return.

get out and GIVE:

LOVE.HOPE.FORGIVENESS.KINDNESS.JOY.HUMILITY.TENDERNESS.AWKWARDNESS.JOY.

PEACE.HAPPINESS,LAUGHTER.HUGS.ADORATION.GLEE.ENCOURAGEMENT.HEART.KEEPING AN OPEN MIND.AFFECTION.APPRECIATION.BLESSINGS

What ever it is that you have to give today...let it be a gift to someone. Let this day be more than just love. Let it be a reminder of just what a joy it is to give to someone the amazing gifts that we have to give... without expectation of return... just because that is who we are. Be who you are. Proudly.Willingly and lovingly. There are some very special people out there that depend on it :)

This piece of art now hangs by our doorway so that even our children can be reminded that we love them so, and that anyone of us that leaves the house... it is noticed.

I hope today is a blessing to you, that you escape from the normal hustle and bustle of Valentines Day and are reminded that we all have a very special gift to give.So much more than LOVE...

~Liz ♥

PAJWLH- Dear to my Heart

Hello Friday! WOW how this week has flown by. We returned from California Sunday night/ Monday morning around 1am and it has felt like life just kicked back into high gear. Missing a week of school was a toughy for me. I came back to my classes in full swing and it took me this full week to catch up. I am happy to be back home and back to normalcy :)

As I mentioned this month we will be looking at relationships. For today's post I thought I would talk about some of the foundational relationships we hold dear to our heart, those of our family.

Family I can understand may not always bring up warm and cozy feelings for each of us. When I think of my nuclear family, I am constantly reminded of our goal to create a loving family environment that our children can continue to see as a safe place to be themselves and grow in their gifts. This has been very important to me and my husband. Looking at what the world has to offer right now for our children as they grow, there are no real promising areas for people to feel safe. A family is one of those things that both me and my husband strive to create as a safe environment for our children. As our children grow together, our goal is that they find peace within their relationships with each other and can count on one another to remain a safe place. This is a tough objective... Although I am proud of my kids and what they continue to strive for, we are not their only influence in this world. That is true for each of us. We are all constantly surrounded by others that may not always lay a positive impression on us. My goal with our children is to help them differentiate the difference between those who are good for them to have around, and those they should probably stay away from and not feel guilty for keeping harmful people at bay.

This is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way. I was always taught to love everyone and if you are a good person, than you are friends with everyone regardless of their adversities. This is a tough habit to break and there have been two defining lessons that I can remember that have taught me how to manage relationships. The first was when I went to Brave Girls Camp and I listened to Melody share her experiences with relationships. During this lesson, I learned different boundaries that were OK for me to have with the people in my life even if some of those are family members. (This lesson is offered online via BGC Soul Restoration, I highly recommend it!).

The second lesson I learned was choosing the quality of the people that I hold close. This lesson was a part of a church service that we attended at our church Resurrection Fellowship. Our pastor made a comment about the story of David and how he was an armor bearer for Saul. This story intrigued me as it is well known that Saul didn't care to much for David, yet through out their story, you see just how loyal David was to Saul. The main summary that I am trying to get to is that when David became an armor bearer for Saul he committed to Saul in all things in life and in death even when Saul was against him.  Our pastor made mention that these relationships are few and far between and these are those relationships that we should hold dear to our hearts.Our armor bearers should be people that strive to protect us in any situation because they know our character and are willing to stand up and protect it. I am not doing an incredibly good job of reiterating the exact message of this story, but I hope you can appreciate that the moral I am trying to convey is that the quality a person we hold dear and close to our hearts should be someone who values our character, trusts us as we trust them and someone that when put in a position would defend and protect our hearts. Even if we are in the wrong, they will hold us accountable to the character that they know we bear.I in no way want this to feel like I am pressing my beliefs on to any one, I simply share this because it was a good lesson that helped me understand the relationships I hold dear. If you would like to hear the full message about this you can find it here on Itunes. It is titled David - The Armor Bearer. 

These two lessons helped me to see that I didn't have to let EVERYONE into my heart in order to show that I cared for them. This is still a tough lesson to learn and I am sure that I will continue to learn through this process, but understanding that those few relationships that I choose to hold dear to me are worth some much more that hundreds of friends that would not do the same for me. I strive to hold these few relationships close to me, knowing that these people would in return protect and love me the same way that I would for them.

 I am not a counselor, so please do not take this info as something that should be interpreted as advice. I am hoping that by sharing my own experiences that this will in return spark an interest in each of you to pursue in your own way.

So here is a fun techniques that I wanted to share. The idea behind this project is to protect our hearts but not to the point of building walls around them. This fun glittered embellishment is a fun way to add a little sparkle to your project.

I am still working on adding this element to my journal page, I am hoping to get it up on the blog on Monday. Thanks again for joining me on this fun little adventure. I hope that this technique inspires you and that my words encourage you to value those who are close to you.

~Liz

Winner of the Art Journal kit giveaway!

Sorry that this post is a little later than I would have liked. I didn't realize just how late we were getting in last night (I should say this morning, 1am!) from California. As promised we have a very special winner that I chose at random from both the google reader list of followers as well as the feedblitz followers. And the winner of the art journal kit it....

kellyaubert@............

Kelly, I  am emailing you to let you know that you are the winner!



Thanks again for those of you who have committed to participating. I am so excited about what this next month has to bring. Our guest bloggers have already shared some of what they are working on with me plus I have been working on my next few workshop prompts as well. I really hope that this months prompts encourage you to realized just what characteristics we look for in those we hold dear, and why it is that we need them so in our lives. I will begin with one of my prompts for this month on Friday. I am hoping to get a few videos from CHA loaded this week and next. I was able to visit with some of my friends and favorite craft manufacturers as well as meet  up with a few new manufacturers in the craft industry (the new ones always excite me!).

Here are a few sneak peeks of some of the booths that I visited with:

Stampavie with Suzi Blu

 Glitz Designs

 Hemptique (Trade Marker International Inc.)

 

These are just a few of the booths we visited. We visited TONS of booths varying different journal surfaces, art mediums and various craft supplies. I am working on editing the videos, so as soon as I get them done, I will post them to my youtube channel and link them here.

Thanks again for joining me on this venture. We are heading into an exciting time together! 

I am so happy to share this with you all!

~Liz ♥

PAJWLH- February=Relationships

Hello February!

WOW how this year has started off quickly. January has breezed right by me. This month with our PAJWLH project we will be talking about relationships. We will officially start next week with our first "relationship" based prompt but I wanted to give you a heads up as to what to expect for this month.

With February being the month of LOVE, I wanted to take a look at who we hold dear, why we hold them dear and how we develop in relationships. I will start off with the first prompt and I have asked a few special friends to help out this month as well. With each of our guests I have prayed about who exactly to invite along with this journey. Our first two guests are personal friends of mine who I believe have a very compassionate heart towards others. Who better than those with loving hearts to share about love? Right?

Jennafer Martin

Ken Oliver

So that is what is up for this month. We are still in California visiting with our families. I am excited to share what we saw at CHA. I think you all will LOVE some of the new stuff I found to play with.

This weeks prompt is again a fairly simple one to get us going. We will start a little more in depth prompts as we progress this month. But for this week I thought it might be nice to start beginning with elements of design. In any project whether it be for play or for work there are certain elements that we innately start with. Here is a good list of elements of design via Wikipedia.

The basic thing to take into consideration when working on a project is the element of Hierarchy. Hierarchy is the element of having something in your work that grabs your target audience (Something we used a lot in marketing). Although this journaling class is not particularly set up for an audience... the same principle applies as with any project, you have your main message that you are trying to convey.

Prompt:

• Use an advertisement as inspiration for the composition of your page. 
• create your page around the layout of this advertisement.

Here are a few examples that have grabbed me in the past:

This is an ad I worked on with our Marketing Coordinator when I worked at SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES BY 3L. This was for a flyer for an event. The main focus of the ad is the MyStik logo, which catches your eye immediately. From here, viewers can see what the product is as well as who makes it, but the idea of this ad is that the stark MyStik logo is what catches your eye first, and hopefully from there you are intrigued enough to check out the rest of the ad :)

 Now this pic, although not an ad has the same effect on me. I am not sure this would qualify as visual hierarchy, but when thinking of this prompt this image immediately came to mind. I first saw this pic in an issue of Popular Photography. This is a pretty famous image that was taken of an afghan refugee. In this image her eyes grab you. I still remember the first time I read this article and how I had to stop and read the entire article just because I needed to know more about this girl and the intensity of her eyes. But this is one of those times that I thoroughly remember an image that grabbed me. In this case of hierarchy this girls eyes were the focus of this shot. So much so that when looking for this image on Google all I had to Google was "The Girl with the Eyes". So I am pretty sure that the purpose of this image was to grab your attention through the intensity of her eyes.

So here are a few ideas of what to look for when you are setting up your page. Pretty much it is something that we all kind of start our work off with. The problem I have found is not distracting from my main focus, lol... (having a look affair with glitter doesn't help with this!).

So I hope you all enjoy this. Let me know if you have any questions. The best way would be to email me. We are heading into the next few days of family time, so it will be tough to justify checking the blog.

As mentioned before, feel free to drop a link to your page here on this thread. I really enjoyed seeing your pages here and on facebook :)

~Liz ♥