Being all artsy-crafty and stuff.....

First, this is totally off-topic but I know my blog header is long overdue for a change. That one is way too wintery! And I am tired of it! 

Anyhoooo, I thought I would give you all a glimpse in to some of the artsy-craftiness that has been going on here in my world. I know I slacked with my blogging, but I have been pretty good with creating!

 Yep, I have been crafting it old school. Broke out the old glue gun. And burned my fingers way too many times! Ahhh, some things never change. I have been in to making wreaths. This is a project I have wanted to try for quite a while. Some of you may be familiar with the book page wreaths that were all over the crafty blogosphere and Etsy in the last year or so. Well, I have so many old paperbacks that are definitely not literary classics by any stretch of the imagination, and knew I could give this project a shot.

It takes forrr-ev-errrrr! But I love how they turn out! This is so "me." Books. Love. Crafty. Love. So far these are gifts, so just one more sneak peek and that is it...

This one still has a lot of layering left to do. This is actually the bottom of the wreath.

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The other thing I have just been in love with recently is paint!!!

All types and colors of glorious, wonderful paint!

I have always loved paint! Speaking of old school crafts, did any of you ever do tole painting? It was all the rage in the 80's, and probably 90's, too. You know, that decorative painting on wood? I used to love that. And event though tole painting is not my thing anymore, I never lost my love of paint. I use paint in so many projects: minibooks, scrapbook pages, altered canvases and books, etc.

I love all my brushes!!!

So I have been painting a lot. This is a piece of canvas that I gesso'd then painted with cobalt blue heavy-body artist acrylic. I have plans for it.....

I have really been in to blues lately. It is not a typical color for me at all. I tend more toward the earth tones. But I have found myself reaching more and more for blues in all shades. My friend Staci mentioned a while back she had been very attracted to blues lately, too, so she did some research to find some meaning behind it. She found this...

BLUES: Creativity, Communication, Spiritual Quest (searching), Calming, Peace, Quenching a (Metaphorical) Thirst, Pride, Self-expression, Holiness...

So it makes total sense that blue has been a go-to color for me lately!

I have also been playing around with my art journals a lot. I won't share much about those because they are personal, but I here are a few snippets of a few pages...

And I also can't get enough of painting canvases!

I have been making a series of canvases with quotes from the book "She" by Kobi Yamada. Kind of little crafty reminders of this journey I have set out for myself.

And, in the midst of all this inky, painty, glue-y goodness I have done some scrapbooking, too!

I made an 8" x 8" album of the pics from my 40th birthday party that I will share in a post tomorrow.

So that is what has been happening in my artsy-crafty world. How about you?!