Art Journaling (At my Desk Edition)

Last summer I wrote a guest blog post for a friend's blog Squirrelly Minds about the art journals my sister and I pass back and forth. Basically we have two old books that we sketch, paint, tape, cut and all around create with that we swap whenever we see each other. 

I haven't felt inspired to work on it but recently I did a number of pages and fell in love with it all over again. It's so freeing to not have any rules or whatnot and just explore with art. 

What kind of art journaling have you been doing lately?

Project Life at My desk

It's been nearly a month and a half of Project Life 2013, can you believe that? Time flies.

What I Do: 

I print pictures and work on it all week but do the last minute printing and such on Sunday morning. I never plan out my pages or figure out what should go where. I guess you could say I fly by the seat of my pants as far as PL goes. (Which is funny because I plan out the rest of my life to the minute.)

I like taking an hour here and there to print pictures and work on a 3x4 or 4x6 canvas. It seems doable. Sometimes the no planning means I have a bunch of pictures on Sunday but no space so I'll either add a small middle insert or the pictures will go into the month calendar/folder that goes at the beginning of each month. 

(For your info: I print pictures on my Kodak ESP 7250 printer that I mostly love because the ink is super cheap and the quality is mostly good. I use Staples semi-gloss photo paper.)

What I Like:

• having PL open on my desk so I can work on it for 10 minutes or 2 hours depending on what my day looks like
• printing at home - printing at Walmart or where ever would never work for me
• using different page protectors each week (I got the PL Big Variety Pack One which features six different designs)
• having designated workspace for PL (and any other crafts I'm doing)

Observations:

While I'm so loving doing the 12x12 format this year and am glad it's working for me, I think next year to change it up I might try a different size. Just to see. I'm finding this year I'm not using as many inserts yet, but that may change. 

Do you know what I love tho? That even though my life isn't crazy exciting, there's always something to document and share and say and express. Life is what you make it.

Project Life - Day in the Life

Last week Ali Edwards wrote a post inviting us to do a monthly Day in the Life and I decided to play along. My Day in the Life fell on January 31st (Thursday). I recorded what I did on a sheet and took a tonne of photos in Instagram.

Since then I've been trying to figure out what to do with the photos and words. I finally grouped six pictures a page in Photoshop, printed them and added some washi and graph paper. I wanted something simple but where the photos weren't tiny.

I used two 6x12 page protectors and told the story of my day. I love that I kept it simple and that the pictures were large. (I realized one of my pet peeves is tiny photos in my Project Life). I haven't decided if I'm keeping this format every month - I probably will change it up - but it's nice to see how a day of mine looks.

How do your days look?

Project Life/At my Desk

This is a combo post because all my 'at my desk' photos also had something to do with 'Project Life'. Sometimes that's how it rolls.

 In these photos -

• working on the photo of my one little word trust - using too much turquoise as per usual and loving adding that doily 
• so excited to continue with my weekly gratitudes/thankfulness cards this year - i don't think there's a downside to being grateful - also loving that chocolate coconut pie (no downside there either)
• working on a 4x4 insert with photos of #dailyyoga, my gigantic blanket and said pie - using my trusty date stamp and overused and loved stapler

What are you working on?

At my desk

I have a long faux wooden desk that sits under the big window in my living room. I do pretty much all my craft projects on it (with the exception of crocheting which I usually do on the couch). It's always in use. 

In these photos - finally finally finally stamping on these linen bags I've had forever, 

                           the beginnings of Valentine's cards done early one morning, 

                           working on Project Life with photos, washi tape and letters

What does your desk look like?