Tweet Up!

So a couple of weeks ago I went to Tulsa for the weekend for some R&R from Nana and everyday life. I also went so I could meet some friends from Twitter in real life. They live in OKC and Tulsa is half way for both of us. I've known Heather for a while now. She has a super cute Etsy shop called A Scrappy Design and you'll find the link for it in the column on the right. I'm on her design team because all that creating of supplies doesn't leave much room for actually scrapping. Or so she says. :)  I've probably followed Heather for a year or more now. Well recently I started following her friend Jami (boycrazedmomma) because that is how Twitter is. You follow people who are friends of friends and have similar interest and so forth. I already knew these girls were funny and fun! But it was like meeting two new BFF's. And they are BFF's in real life and have been for years. They finish each others sentences and all and have stories galore for years back. Anyway we meet at Cheesecake Factory for lunch and then did some scrappy/thrifting/mall shopping.  I was a bit surprised that we went to a scrapbook store and I was the ONLY one who bought anything.  So here's some pics from our day.  I hope to see them both again before I go west.

 Heather and I in Value Thrift

Jami, Me and Heather

Jami & I 

 Jami & Heather

An Explorer of Life

 I was just reading this blog post here by Heather Plett, whom I follow on Twitter, about who we are. Americans seem to especially define themselves by what we do to earn a living and it's a question I've often struggled with. As I wrote my response to her post I figured I'd share it with you here as well.

I often struggle with this question myself.  There have been times when my profession defined who I thought I was and times when I did not. I'm primarily a caregiver now & for the last 4+ yrs to my grandmother, but I don't particularly like being defined by that, although taking care of ones grandmother 24/7 is an honorary purpose I don't ultimately relate to it.  I'm here because of love, not because of passion. I'd rather be known as the job I will go back to: a hairstylist. That tells more about me I think. But I see the negative in that too. Ultimately I'd like to be known as an artist. I spend most days creating in some way whether scrapping or art journaling or taking pictures or painting quirky little gifts yet I don't feel like an artist because I don't support myself with that job, yet it's my passion. I'd like to be known as a reader for I love a great book but the books I love reading aren't the types of books "well read" people read.  Traveling the world is one of my greatest dreams, & I've spent some time in a handful of places, but does this qualify me to be a world traveler? I love photography and I take a ton of pictures but the other day someone was describing a friends scrapbooking compared to mine and said that this other person was a photographer and that made her layouts pop because the pictures popped where my lo's were about the art. I took a slight offense to this. Does the other girl take great photos? Yes she does but does her expensive camera give her the title of photographer over my cheapo camera? I think not. I think I can take a great picture, just a different picture than she and maybe a little less to work with than her. But I am an artist, a caregiver, a reader, a very amatuer photographer, an art journaler, a hairstylist, a would-be world traveler, an explorer of life. An Explorer of life kind of sums it all up for me.

Creative Every Day

This year I've pledged to be Creative Every Day . Now I KNOW this might not happen EVERY day, but I think it can happen most. I mean I already scrap almost every night last year (well until the holidays came) and I promised myself that this year would be the year I started fostering more of that creative spirit inside of me beyond scrapping. I'm participating in The Erosion Bundle Project and I'm a guest host at Year in the Life Art Journal and many other things that I'll share as I go along. I've got so many things I want to participate in this year that I'm starting to make list and write them on a creative calendar.
The CED challenge got a lot less daunting when I realized that I could just work on something every day. I didn't have to finish it. Also it's not just art or scrapping. It's taking photos and cooking too. Since I'm doing the Project 365 on my iPhone that might be all I do creatively for that day. And if I forget a day so be it. So this week I've taken my photo every day! Can't BELIEVE I've remembered. You can go see them on my tumblr acct if you'd like. I've tried some new recipes. Both Nana asked for seconds! I've searched for inspiration in fabric and nature and colors in general for my Inspiration Defined class. I did last weeks homework which was to pick a fav lo and to lift it.
The old lo:

and the new lo.
Last night I worked on my next Gutter Girlz LO which you won't get to see until next Friday while creating some new friendships with some scrappy girls from Twitter. Tonight I plan to work on the art of lettering writing for my Happy Mail partners.

Inspirational Resources

So I'm taking this class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking called Inspiration Defined by Elizabeth Dillow. I felt I had lost my mojo and some Twitter girlfriends were taking it and I joined in their party. So far I've started a Tumblr blog for links and quotes and pictures that I find inspiring. I'm also posting my Project 365 photos there which I'm taking this year on my iPhone and posting with the Project 365 app. I'm editing those pics with mostly the camera bag app so far. You can check it out if you want Just A Girl Inspired and if you follow me I'll follow back.

So one of our assignments was to make a list of things that inspire us. I'm inspired by so many things. These are the things that came to me right away:

• Color
• Photography
• People's personal stories
• Paintings
• Sculpture
• Graphic Design
• Art 
• Cute little Japanese toys
• Animals 
• Feathers
• Sequins
• Sparkly things
• Things that light up
• Candlelight
• Design
• Printmaking
• Drawing
• Computer Graphics
• Fashion 
• Nature
• Snow & Ice
• All 4 seasons
• Architecture
• All kinds of vintage items
• Modern sleek design
• Collage
• Movies
• Music
• Song lyrics
• Quotes
• Poems
• Books both reading and visual
• Travel
• History
• Friendship
• Suffering
• Triumph
• Overcoming obstacles
• Dreams
• Nightmares
• Jewelry
• Paper
• Ads
• TV 
• Textures
• Laughter
• Love
  

Anything on your inspiration list I might have missed? I'd love you to share.

Wreck This Journal Part 1

Usually we spend a lot of time trying to make our art pretty or pleasing to the eye or sending the right message or whatever, so when I saw @starshyne on Twitter talking about her next group project and it was Wrecking This Journal by Keri Smith I just knew I had to play along. Even more so when I discovered several TallyScrapper sisters were interested also. This started a couple of weeks ago but this is my first post. I really need to get busy and do more wrecking for sure. And my idea of wrecking I realize needs to go a bit farther. I was thinking that in the end I would want to keep the book but I think that is not going with the theme of the project so be prepared to see lots more photos of me DESTROYING this book! hehe How often do you get creative license to destroy something? So this is the beginning. Can't wait to see what the end will look like. If you'd like to join it's not to late. Just click on the link up there, sign up, grab a book and start wrecking. It's fun times I swear.
So my fist page I wrecked was sticking my pencil through this page:


I love the look of coffee stains but after my first pouring I wasn't impressed. Of course I thought it needed MORE! I was much happier with the second or third pouring/splatters. Much more visually pleasing. I need to use coffee stains more that's for sure.




Ok this page got me started by the lines but I'm thinking I'm suppose to WRECK this journal, not treat it nicely in any way SO this is just stage one. There will be more tearing. LOTS more tearing!


You spin me round round baby round round like a record baby round round round round.


It is going to take a LOT of fruit to cover these 2 pages in fruit stickers! Her's what we have so far though.


I'm having fun with this page. I've been wanting to do this thing with some canvases for a while now so there will definately be more spilling on this page. I wanted to show you what the first couple of coats looked like though.


I'm thinking now that I stopped that maybe I should have kept going on this continous line until the page was covered. Oh well. There will be much more wrecking before this is all said and done!

I used some hand scrapping tools to scratch up the surface of this page. Thank you Tonic & Tim Holtz! I used my distressor and then my piercing tool.

This page wanted my name written several different ways.


It took a nice dip in the pool on a hot summer day last Thursday. I see more water sports in her future.


Then we layed out and worked on our tan while getting a little makeup in the form of doodling. We were still a bit wet though and really needed to dry first.


The book and me are off to the pool again today. Check back often to see new pics.