"Live as if there is no tomorrow." You've probably heard those words at least a hundred times. I would imagine that they come up most often after someone has died. And so it is for me. The Back Story In March 2014, I was offered a designer position with Oscraps and I,...

Digital Art Journaling was not in the mainstream of the digital scrapbooking world. How does it fit in?

While I write about art journaling and mixed media because it's the current path on my unexpected journey, that passion has revealed itself in my digital art products, too. Mixed Media Say Hello to the Digital World The digital scrapbooking world has evolved to...

Art journaling and mixed media in general makes me happy. In my Art Journaling 101 post, I talk about what art journaling means to me and outline some reasons people keep an art journal. In subsequent posts I'll talk more about the various styles of art journaling and...

What the Heck is Art Journaling?Just the words themselves confuse people. What is art journaling? I think it's fair to say that if you asked 15 people you'd get 15 different responses. Read my post Do Art Journal Pages have a Purpose? for an anology that might be...

“In with the new,” as the saying goes. Those of you subscribing to my newsletter know that we've just moved from our home (waay out in the country) of 17 years, to the Sacramento area. It was time to downsize and move closer to our son and daughter-in-law (more on...

Creativity is a fickle thing; it comes and goes.You can yearn for it, but you can't force it. You can cry because you don't have it and you can beg for it. No amount of wishful thinking will make creativity appear. If you're a creative (of any sort) you know exactly...

Artistry. An artist is defined as "a person who creates art." Art, at it's most basic level, is defined as "something that is created with imagination that expresses important ideas or feelings. Hmmm. Creativity. Creativity is defined as "the ability to make new...

Out of the box thinking was called for on this dreary, rainy, windy weekend, so I decided to start my 2017 art journal.

Renew. That's my word for 2017. Wth everything going on in the world right now, I knew I needed help to keep focussed and positive. I puzzled over which word was right for a long time - but everything I came up with seemed forced. I decided to let go of it, knowing...

Creative mojo is a fickle thing. It comes and goes. You never know when it’s going to visit and when it goes it can be gone in a flash. Very rude of mojo to behave that way. At the very least it could give you some warning it’s leaving town, so you don’t get all dressed up and have nowhere to go.

Play Time! Last week I shared my Dollar Store Score video – showing you all the goodies I scooped up at my local dollar store.

Score!! Cleaning up a computer’s hard drive is a real chore – especially for someone like me who has a 3TB hard drive! I have over 50,000 photos and a bazillion other digital images – scans of my art and Photoshop files necessary for my business.

Card-making … have you ever tried it? As I’ve mentioned previously, I discovered my creativity rather late in life. And frankly, it was sometimes an appalling experience.

I’ve recently discovered a passion for watercolor paints.They are not the easiest medium to work with because they tend to have a mind of their own (like me) when it comes to how they move on paper. But man oh man, even just trying to get used to them is fun!

“Keep it simple stupid” (“KISS”) is a phrase coined in the 1960’s (I think) to illustrate the principle that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated.

It's been some time since I shared any of my art and the truth is that stressful family matters have completely deflated my creative mojo. I know what you're thinking - stressful times just scream for the release of art play. While I know that intellectually, I just...

Our normally golden (ok, dried up) hills are very green, the oak trees are starting to leaf out and color is starting to appear in the garden. Spring is my favorite season – our temps have warmed up, the days are sunny and clear and the little rain we’ve had is enough to bring the daffodils up!

At the risk of annoying those of you in the middle of some very harsh winter conditions, I have to tell you that I am thoroughly enjoying the 80 degree temperatures here in Phoenix, Arizona.

In 2014, I chose the word “fearless” as a guideline for my approach to life in general and my art and business more specifically. “How’d that work out for you?” you might ask. Trying to be “fearless” didn’t solve all of life’s problems, of course – and it may well have have caused me to stir a pot or two that might have been better off left alone

Greetings from rainy California! We’re finally getting our much needed rain

Sometimes you have to throw caution to wind – just let go.

It’s not always easy to do of course. Life throws us so many curve balls, right? And you either hit those out of the park or you swing and miss.

Sometime, doing something different – something out of your comfort zone –  is just what you need to get your mojo going. My head has been filled with all sorts of emotions lately.

Thank you all so much for your supportive blog comments, emails and FB messages after last week’s post about my struggles trying to make an important decision.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been struggling to make a decision

My friend, fellow digi designer and art journaler, Amber, asked me to be a part of a group of “artsy” type (I always giggle when that word is used to describe me) bloggers who are answering questions about themselves. So, here we go.

In last week’s post about printing onto deli paper, I mentioned that my mojo for The Documented Life Project had dried up.

It’s been awhile since I shared my Documented Life Project journal pages. Now, I know you’re not sitting on the edges of your seats, eagerly awaiting my next post about the DLP, but I did want you to tell you that I’ve been in a DLP drought – dryer than the brown hills around my home here in water-starved California.

If you don't look forward, you're bound to run into something unexpected. You might run into it anyway, but if your eyes are open you'll manage. You can look back - certainly you can learn from the past - but if you dwell in the past, you might as well be in quicksand...

Did you see Cilenia's Week 15 Letting Go page?  It's really thought-provoking and has a quote that really caught my attention. It says "Letting to is hard, but holding on is harder."  That's true, isn't it? I've always believed that you don't change until the pain...

We’ve just returned from our second trip in three weeks. This time we were in Texas for my folks 60th wedding anniversary. My sister and her family (who came from Minnesota), my brother and his wife, and some friends who’d been in my parents’ lives for almost 40 years were all there to join in the celebration.

Sometimes you feel like a nut … sometimes you don’t!

My husband and I just returned from 10 days on the East coast. It was an opportunity to visit our daughter in New York City and to reconnect with family in Maryland – some of whom I’d not seen since I was a child. It was a great trip down memory lane and it reminded me of the importance of face-to-face contact with loved ones – even though, in this age of Facebook, it’s possible to stay in touch across many miles.

Did you ever get an idea in your head for a project? And get really excited about it? So excited you can’t wait to start? And then you start … and … stare blankly at the page (or screen)? Sigh.

As part of my “fearless” art journaling adventure this year, I had the lofty goal of recording each of the weekly challenges for the Documented Life Project. And while I sill would like to do that, it turns out that’s not always practical – sometimes inspiration strikes at inopportune times.

The past few days here in the California Foothills have been gorgeous! Uncharacteristically warm for this time of year - into the 70's! I actually golfed twice in three days for the first time in a long time! Big rain storm on it's way though - which is great because...

As I mentioned in my last post, the past six weeks have been tough. So, Cilenia's Artful Intentions Week 6 challenge to me - to journal about something I'm doing to take care of myself - was something I was not at all in the mood to do. I'm in a melancholy mood right...

I’ve got lots to do. A video to edit for my Documented Life project page. My Week 6 challenge response for Artful Intentions. I need to put together my art journal travel kit for this coming weekend. Product to finish for an upcoming release. A sale ad to create. A Valentine’s card to make …. just lots of stuff.

If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been filming (video-ing???) my Documented Life project pages and sharing the process with you. This week, I tried to stretch myself a bit more. Instead of narrating the video after the fact, I recorded myself talking through what I was doing as I actually did it.