2015 Calendars - Only One Month Late

I've been making calendars for family and friends for several years.  For some odd reason, January comes as a complete surprise and finds me in a state of panic about the calendars.  A normal person would plan ahead, and maybe even do something crazy like make pages throughout the year to avoid the last minute frenzy.   What fun would that be?  So much better to be down to the wire, hoping for twelve brilliant ideas, perfectly executed.  What could go wrong?

It's pitiful to admit this, but for the past couple of years I've had the calendars start with February, rather than do what everyone else does and start the year in January.   Sneaky, huh ?   This gives me another month to get my act together .  To be fair, I do end the calendar with January, so everyone gets a twelve month calendar, but a bit off.   Honestly, it would be so much easier if Christmas didn't come in December.  Maybe I could get the calendars done on time if it weren't for the Christmas frenzy in November and December,  just when  I should be doing calendar pages.

I have a  New Year's Resolutions that doesn't rise to the level of "Please let me be perfect this year", but that will mean I may not need to put on an addition to the house .   I'm going to attempt to only shop my stash - no new supplies unless I've run out of something or need something for a specific project.   No hoarding stuff , no buying stuff because I saw something new that everyone else thinks is the best thing ever.    I do know that this means I'll most likely only be buying ink, ink pads and adhesives.  Pretty sure I won't run out of much else.  (Fortunately I have an artistic granddaughter who loves new art supplies, so it's not like I won't be buying some fun stuff).

So the calendar pages had to be made with stuff I have .  In addition to having too much stuff, I also have this notion that I need to "save" things for some future, yet undetermined, perfect project.  No more - now if it works in a current project, it gets used in a current project .  

The calendars are out to the printers and I don't want to take away all the surprise, but here is one of my favorite pages:

The image was from an advertisement for a magazine.  I love the man's expression as he watches the woman laughing.   I've been using some artist papers from some of the Somerset magazines as backgrounds. There's nothing more intimidating than a blank  piece of white paper, so the ready made background makes a good place to start.    I swiped some gesso over this one to tone down the color a bit.   Seems like most of the artist papers are too bright or busy for my taste, but a bit of gesso works magic.     Then I added  a wide piece of ribbon and a narrower piece of vintage linen tape.    A big Seven Gypsy's tag and a tea tag pick up the red and green in the wide ribbon.   I've started edging pieces with some color to frame the piece - this one with a red Gelato crayon.

Now, if I had any sense, I'd be starting on next year's calendars.   

Happy New Year

 

Journal page for New Year's Day. 

Sharing some smart thoughts on the new year from fellow bloggers. So many resolutions focus on what we should stop doing.  I like switching the tape in my head to what I can do with this brandie new year and these bloggers have done just that.

From Toad at To The Manner Born :     Work this year to enjoy yourself more.

From the talented Jane Lafazio who asked her readers for their word for 2013 and then created this:

 Lynda at Bloom, Bake and Create decided to take Ann Curry's 26 Acts of Kindness to another level and make it 52 acts of kindness in 2013. 

 

 

Happy New Year and another chance to get it right while being kind to ourselves and others.

Celebration!

Whew, think we're finally over the Nastiest. Bug. Ever. To celebrate, we went to a local farmers' market over the weekend. In keeping with our New Year's resolutions, we're trying to eat more locally grown food, so we were delighted to find local winter farmers' markets. We are regulars at the summer ones, but just found out about the winter offerings. This weekend the market was at a greenhouse and it was mobbed - police directing traffic, cars parked all up and down the road - crazy!

There isn't much for vegetables yet, of course, but I did snag some lovely little beet greens. There were fish vendors and several small farmers selling organic, humanely raised meat. We've cut way back on our carnivorous tendencies, so even though "happy" meat is more expensive, we're probably spending less than we were on the industrial stuff. The Captain found some huge pork chops and ground beef for his nights to cook.

These lovely duck eggs were our fun find. They are so amazing -- blue-green or brown speckled and BIG - how could we pass up these beauties? So this morning, I made scrambled duck eggs - a first for me. I couldn't bear to break the shells, so recruited The Captain's help in blowing out the eggs. A careful poke or two with a skewer, a bit of back and forth to break the yoke, some huffing and puffing and the eggs plopped out. ( Easy for me to say, The Captain did all the work). These eggs are really thick, almost the consistency of pudding. Tasty, tasty and so pretty - that's a lot of goodness from a little duck! We rounded out our feast with toast with maple butter from Dean's Sugar House in Charlemont, Mass - JD makes the best-ever maple butter!

The shells found a new home in a great little nest - I know ducks don't live in little nests in trees, but they look so darn cute! The nest is in my new studio -stay tuned for the final installment on the reno!On the way out, I bought a couple packets of seeds and some pussy willows - spring is here and we are over the plague - life is good!

Calendar Page Meets 2010 Resoultion

I've been making decorated calendars for a few years, but this year's are a bit late - probably because I bragged about having my Christmas cards finished in October! My revised goal for the calendars is to get them mailed before the end of January. To make up for the short-fall for 2010, I did decorate the January 2011 page !

This page is one of my favorites. I started with some artist paper for the background, then used chalk ink to do the faux torn paper technique demonstrated on this site. I didn't do the over stamping because I carefully positioned the paper so the printed text was heavier on the bottom, eliminating the need to additional stamping.

The stamp is one of Tim Holtz's fantastic Ideology line. I love the vintage, shabby chic look of his stamps. I stamped it on white card stock, trimmed it closely and then mounted on more white card stock, then a piece of blue.

Then I added a bit of ribbon and some "paper reinforcements" made of mica.

I printed the quote in old typewriter style font that matched the vintage feel of the image. (I love fonts , but that's another post entirely).

In thinking about the quote, I realized that it is the major heading for all my 2010 resolutions . Whether it's personal, professional, artistic , think being the best you can is what sums up my list of resolutions. It still helps to have the details of how that might happen, so guess I won't throw away my list of specifics! I need direction and baby-steps in this goal to be the best version of myself.