Victory Against the UFO Bin!

Finally!  I finishing SOMETHING!! Ok, so it only took two days, but nevertheless it is a small victory in the war against my UFO bin.

Crocheted Stash Bag - pattern is by Purl Soho, yarn is Lily Sugar'n Cream Cotton Solids

Ok, I'll back up.  For those of you who do not knit or crochet, UFO is short for unfinished object.  Often fiber crafters, like myself, get all fired up and want to to make everything new and fun they find online.  Ravelry is good like that.  It provides us scores of lovely patterns to choose from and often they are just a click or two away from arriving in our hot little hands or email inbox.  More patterns are more better I say!

So, you can see how easy it is to fall into the habit of starting something and then finding something even cooler to start a few days later.  Sunday I finally scored a victory against my pile of UFOs.   It always helps when the project is quick and easy... only 12 more UFOs to go!  Sigh....

Creative Crossroads

In mid-July I took a really fun art journal class at my LSS (local stamp store) Ink About It.  I take quite a few art classes throughout the year to learn new techniques and hopefully find inspiration to be creative at home as well as during my classes.  All too often when I attempt to let my creative juices flow at home, they seem to fail me.  I get all excited, pull out a whole bunch of fun paper, stamps and ways to add color and then... nothing. I'm stumped.  All the possibilities for materials and layouts are totally overwhelming.  I can't even think of where to begin.  After my most recent class, I have found a solution.

My first completed art journal page - Music

The class I took was Art Journal Pages with Nancy Lefko, a mixed media artist who currently lives in New Hampshire.  She offers both online as well as in person art classes and her teaching style is fantastic!  She walked us through the process of creating these journal pages layer by layer and gave us plenty of time in between each section to play with the materials as we went along. There was no need to rush; I just played with the different techniques and created.  The whole process was very satisfying.

The second page - Nature

While I left the class without any of my three pages technically "finished", I still felt really good about them.  What's even more telling is that I went home and the next day I worked on the pages some more... Bwah?!?!?  Yes, I kept creating!  I happened to have the day off and probably spent a couple hours finishing up the details of the Music page and then attacked the Nature page with gusto. 

The third page - Inspire

It didn't stop there.  This Friday I spent the day crafting with my mom and we made three  background pages together.   After she left I completed the Inspire page that afternoon.  I'm so happy that starting this journal has allowed me to be creative at home and use all the awesome art materials I already have on hand.  As an added bonus I have been using a lot of my own photography for the collage element of the pages.  It makes the pages so much more personal.  Each one reminds me of somewhere I've been or an experience I have had.  So, by using my own photos I'm telling eve more of my story than by just using words alone.  Wicked cool!

If you are local to Westford, MA and would like to take a class with Nancy Lefko, she is teaching art journaling at Ink About It again on September 7, 2013.  Click here to see the class description.  If you are not in the area, check out her other teaching venues here.