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Tag Archives: art journal

Gifts

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by createdforjoy in Make, Think

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art, art journal, branches, canvas, communication, gifts, growth, leaves, make, nature, paint, paper, teen, think, treasure, trees

growthjournal02

Growing up is hard. (I know this because, at age thirty-mumble, I am still in the midst of the process myself.) My precious teenage son has been feeling those growing pains mightily the last few months. He is a head taller than he was a year ago, but his physical growth has easily been outpaced by the changes required of his spirit, heart, and character. There is much more involved in the transition from boy to young man than buying longer jeans and beginning to care about how your hair looks.

We are both new at this: he’s never been fifteen before, and I’ve never parented a fifteen-year-old. Sometimes I have the advantage of others’ wisdom, gained from friends who are decorated veterans of the teen years, and from books on every subject of teen parenting: loving them and being loved by them; exploring their gifts and learning the challenges that are part of those gifts; setting appropriate boundaries and knowing when to bend so we don’t break. But just as often, I am making it up as I go along. I am treading carefully and prayerfully, encouraged by the company and guidance of my sweet husband, but I am absolutely winging it.

Since my own imperfection has long been established, it is no surprise that there are days when I mess up; I over-correct and underestimate, I raise my voice and don’t spend enough time on my knees. But I am trying my best to be present, to be thoughtful, to be unconditionally loving, to make the most of the fact that I am alive and able to do this because I recognize that is no small victory. And it is important to me that in the midst of all this correction and guidance, my firstborn remembers how very gifted and treasured he is. He has a set of grace-given talents and qualities that give him incredible potential, and I wanted to create something concrete that would remind him of those. The pages in this little art journal are the size of playing cards, but they are meant to communicate a big message.

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The envelope in the front contains a personal note to my son, letting him know how special he is to me and how much I appreciate him. It seemed only logical to embrace the growth theme with this art journal, so I used a lot of earth tones and nature imagery. The pages themselves are untreated canvas that I dry-brushed with acrylic paint before layering on rectangles of paper printed with trees, branches, and leaves.

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If there is one thing this journey to adulthood is about, it is embracing and understanding your imperfection. I tried to honor that in my design choices for the journal. I stayed away from perfect corners, hand-cutting the small squares of paper I used as decoration. I also left the edges of the canvas raw so they could fray with handling. (This is not meant as a subtle reference to my nerves, I promise.) I finished the pages by aging them unevenly with tea-colored ink and a little bit of sanding with fine grit sandpaper.

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In the future, I hope this mini-journal reminds my adult son of how those teen years turned out pretty well in the end. For now, I hope it shows him that even on the hardest days, in the midst of all this compromise and growth, it is my great privilege to be his mom.

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Inspired

08 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by createdforjoy in Make

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Tags

art journal, inspired, kids, letters, make, paper craft

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What a sweet source of inspiration my children are! Every day they inspire me to do more, create more, trust more, and love more. They remind me to take chances, both as an artist and a human being. This art journal is my attempt to capture my daughter’s passion, humor, and creativity and what an encouragement those things are to me.

Since this is meant to be more journal than scrapbook, I started by writing a series of letters to Kenzie about the ways she delights and inspires me. Then I added in photos I took while she was in full-on create mode, with sketchbooks, markers, and pencils spread out all around her.

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The journal itself started life as a blank 6″x6″ chipboard window album from Maya Road. Each page has a cut-out that allows you to view the next, so it was a fun challenge to place all the pictures and papers so that images showed from one page to the other. I chose papers and embellishments in my daughter’s favorite bright palette, with a vintage feel that she also loves.

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My daughter’s artwork is much like her: cute, quirky, and fun. I asked for donations of drawings and then cut them out and placed them so they are highlighted among the letters and photos. Her imagination is full of the cutest little characters.

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One of the things I admire most about Kenzie is how fearlessly she loves. Whether it’s the people around her or her newest hobby, she is completely prepared for joy. My challenge as a parent is to help her guard her heart, and yet somehow she teaches me more every day about opening mine up.

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One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my recent health issues is not to wait. I want my loved ones to know they are treasured because I have clearly said and shown it is so. I think this journal is a step in the right direction. :)

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Birthday Wisdom art journal

28 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by createdforjoy in Make

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Tags

art journal, birthday, make, paper craft, sense of humor, wisdom

birthday wisdom main

I made this journal for a dear friend for her birthday earlier this year. It started life as a blank, 3″-square acrylic album from Maya Road. I loved the challenge of the transparent pages and covered one side of each with 2-sided cardstock from paper designer BasicGrey.

pocket closeup

Each page has a 2″-square pocket I made from coordinating papers in a combination of prints. I sanded the edges of both the background papers and the pockets to give them a soft, worn feel, then embellished with twill tape, stickers, paper cut-outs, and stamped text and images. As you can probably tell, I love intricate papercrafting, and my favorite projects are small, detailed pieces.

tags

Inside each tiny pocket is an even tinier tag with an inspirational or humorous quote on it, and each tag is decorated with a stamped design and a loop of 1/8″-wide ribbon. This journal has a sort of “Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly” quality to it. Altogether now: “She covered the acrylic so the papers would show, then folded the pockets to hold the tags, then sanded the pages to make them soft, then made the tags to hold the quotes that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her…” :)

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Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.” One of the qualities I value most is a sense of humor — it’s what first attracted me to my husband; it connects me with friends across days and miles; and it gets me through times when no amount of tears would do the same.

final page

Little did I know how much the words on the final page of this journal would come to mean to me just a few months later, and they touch on the heart of what this blog is about.

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“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.” ~ Maya Angelou

Special thanks to Charity for the wonderful photography :)

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