Busy busy busy...

Dear Friends,

I hear this little voice from childhood in my head, a cartoon character who is saying, "Busy busy busy!" I cannot for the life of me recall who it is (though I suspect somebody from "Frosty the Snowman.")

Anyway, that's been me, this past month. It started with my participation in A Month of Letters (or lettermo), a challenge to send at least 24 pieces of snail mail during February. Well, I did it! Whew! I sent mail to friends, relatives and total strangers. Sometimes I enclosed a little piece of art. Sometimes the recipient wrote back, which was a nice surprise. I have to admit, it was getting tough toward the end. But I did it!

I also got called to serve my fellow community members. Yeah, you guessed it--jury duty! After three days of sitting and reading "The Flight of Gemma Hardy" by Margot Livesey (which I highly recommend), I was sent home. This is the third time I've been called, and the third time I didn't make it to a jury. And they say third time's the charm? Hmmm...

I've also been busy with my web page design class at our local community college, and with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's 30 Days in Your Journal class (you'll find a link at right). This is something else I highly recommend. I've taken several journaling classes, some online and some "live." Some were great, and others were "meh."

Julie's class is really wonderful! I think the most important thing I'm taking away from it is this: You don't have to do a whole journal page or spread in one sitting. You can just prep a page, or rubber stamp something on it and scrawl a few lines, or glue something down. It doesn't matter--it is your journal and it's a no-guilt process. Even if you don't get to journal everyday, hey, it's OK! Julie has a sense of humor and she's not afraid to use it, and her attitude toward mistakes is terrific. I'm not even sure I'd call them mistakes at this point, since just about anything can be fixed.

Here are some of my pages from her class:

For this page, I used stencils, rubber stamps, watercolor, water soluble crayons, some Glaze pens, some old drafting tape from a newspaper, and Faber-Castell markers. That's my dad's mom and her mom on the right, taken around World War I, I think.

Very basic and quick page done with watercolor wash and splatters of color. I stenciled and rubber-stamped the numbers for the dates.

I stamped the big circles using that very versatile art tool, a toilet paper roll! The rubons are from 7 Gypsies (love their rubons!). The picture of the boat was left over from a graphic design project I did in the fall--I just colored it in with pencils. I wrote under the postcard to keep my message private. The postcard features work by Kevin P. Snow and Betsy Havira.

I love that girl from Paper Whimsy. She has turquoise eyes! Watercolor, washi paper, stenciling, water-soluble crayons, rubber stamping and gesso. 

I'm considering taking a class from Judy Wise, and toying with the idea of 21 Secrets. Do you have a favorite artist who is teaching an online class? Feel free to share with me! I am always looking for new classes!

Next time I write, I will have some news for you. Good news, at last! In the meantime, I hope you remembered to turn your clocks forward, and don't forget to look forward to spring!

All the best,