What's In A Name?

I've had a lot going on lately.  That may be reflected in how little I've been blogging, and also in the chaotic-crazy manifested in this art journal page I completed yesterday.

I hate it, and I love it.  

"What's in a name?  Everything & nothing, all at once."  So, true, right?  I'm not planning to get up on a soap box here, but let's see what comes pouring out of my brain and through the keyboard, and perhaps edit back from there...

Names are simple identifiers.  I love that when Jillian was a toddler she started calling us Mama Lisa and Daddy Mike to distinguish us from all the other parents at the park.  She wasn't calling for the attention of some generic "mom", she wanted HER mom to respond.  Brilliant, I say!  (And, a cute aside:  she didn't want us to use the MIKE-ro-wave for any of her food--we needed to use the JILLY-wave!)  Yes, names are simple identifiers that make for more efficient communication.

Then there is the old sticks-n-stones adage.  I think it is pretty much common knowledge that name-calling and verbal abuse has a very real and powerful effect on the psyche.  Not that common knowledge means there aren't buttheads out there that engage in it.  (Ironic, eh?  See what I did there? It is just so darn easy to resort to name calling!)

Oops.  I painted and stamped over my ampersand (&).
I'll keep searching the magazines and add one in when I find one.

And labels.  Don't get me started on labels.  Alright--a little bit on labels:  Person-First Language.

Person-first language is a concept I learned about, and is encouraged by my local autism support group, Santa Clarita Autism Asperger Network (SCAAN).  The idea is to put the person before their disability when speaking or writing about the person, because a person is not defined by their disability.  For example, "She HAS autism," not "She IS autistic." Autism is only ONE of the MANY traits that define her.

Ok, So back to this journal page.  I've been soul-searching lately, trying to get to know myself on a deeper level, and define some goals and a path for myself.  And feeling at once lost, because I don't have a label for myself, and feeling that that's FINE.  Except...wouldn't this be easier if I could just have a simple identifier??  

I carved this stamp when I was taking Julie's online class.  This assignment was to create a damask stamp.  I wanted to do something original, but struggled with free handing a symmetrical design.  Many times when I feel artistically befuddled I turn to ideas and projects I remember from elementary school.  Do you remember name art?  You fold a piece of paper in half and write your name along the creased edge, cut it out, and unfold.  I wrote my name, scanned it, inverted it, and placed the mirror image next to the original scan.

Then I sketched a design out of it, transferred it to a piece of Speedy Carve and made this stamp.  I love it!    It's so cool!  It's just my name, and yet it is so much more than that!

I went berserk with it on that art journal page.  And as I stamped, all this "stuff" about names, and labels, and the various "hats" we all wear, and the impossibility of defining oneself, and changing one's name to a symbol doesn't help any because people still need a verbal identifier for you so you never get away from just being "Prince."  

Names.  So simple.  So complicated.  Who am I?  Really, that is what I am trying to figure out.  In the meantime, just call me Lisa.

Thanks for visiting!

Her Lullabies

My dear daughter turned fifteen last week!  FIFTEEN!!!!  Shocking, I know! She is a lovely young woman finishing her freshman year of High School, with one foot out the door as she contemplates University versus Art School.  Fifteen.  Where did that time go?

I remember her third birthday so vividly.  Well, not the birthday so much, and the pictures of her Minnie Mouse themed party do help bring the memories back.  But I remember the NIGHT of her third birthday. I remember going to bed and lying there, sobbing.  "She's THREE!!!  She's only going to be living with us for FIFTEEN more years!!!!"

And now here we are, at the conversial milepost, where she is fifteen and there are (theoretically) only three years left to her time here at home before she heads out at eighteen to take on the world.

I didn't cry this year.  Maybe because we have many opportunities for higher education near enough that her moving out to attend college is not inevitable.  Maybe because she has grown into such a mature and lovely person, with good sense and good morals, she doesn't appear as vulnerable as a three year old anymore.

My first project on Remember When's Design Team was to use  the On The Go line of papers by Bo Bunny.  There was also some of their gorgeous Vintage Dot paper in my kit.  I wanted to use this "boyish" transportation-themed paper in a non-boyish, non-transportation themed layout--pretty much just for the challenge of it.  I cut this semi-circle out of the "Vroom" paper, eliminating the tiny trucks and airplanes in the design, with the plan to journal on the lined area.  When I placed that on the gorgeous deep blue dot paper I immediately thought of the moon, which led me to the idea of documenting the lullabies I used to sing to Jillian way back when.

All papers by Bo Bunny; Distress Inks in Wild Honey and Broken China;Distress Stain in Picket Fence Distress Markers in Wild Honey and Walnut Stain;  Glimmer Glaze in Saffron; Sakura Gelly Roll Pen in White; Prima Ingvild Bolme Distressing Tool 

Handwritten and fussy cut title

Cut outs mounted to scrap cardboard and applied with pop-dots for dimension

The journaling reads:

We had a lovely bedtime ritual, Jillian.  After a story (or two!) I would sing the same three lullabies every night.  They were all from a CD called Disney Baby Lullaby.  The first was "Dreams are the Flowers (That Bloom in Your Heart)."  You loved the vivid, magical lyrics. The second, "La La Lu," had a "pink cloud" that I would change the color of based on your current favorite.  Finally, "Nighty Night" would round out the ritual.  It was last because it could go on indefinitely, until you'd finally drift into Dreamland.

The funny thing is, when I was looking through our old photo albums to find a picture of her sleeping, she settled in next to me to look on.  There was this photo of her eating a piece of string cheese, and here, lo and behold, here she sat, a dozen plus years later, eating a piece of string cheese as we looked through those pictures together.  Thank you, Blessed Universe!  Thank you for giving me a sign that Jillian is still my little girl, my little sweetie-petite-y, who will sit with her mom and giggle and eat string cheese, even at the age of fifteen!

Beautiful Girl of Mine

My daughter, Jillian, is an amazing artist.  She is constantly sketching and drawing, creating with polymer clay or origami-ish paper sculptures.  It has ben a pleasure to  see her explore different media in her art class elective in this first year of high school.  Not many of the projects make there way home as the class collection fills every bit of wall space in the school studio, so I was so giddy when she shared a little tidbit with me recently.

The challenge was to create a face as a contour line drawing, meaning drawn from one continuous line, trying not to trace back over any parts.  My immediate reaction was, "Oh!  This is beautiful!" I followed the line in awe; I studied the brilliance of the abstract suggestion of hair, the use of negative space.  I pulled back my gaze to take in the piece as a whole again, and was struck with the realization, "Oh!  This is YOU!"

"Yeah," she said with a soft chuckle.  Then she explained that the drawing was just Part 1 of the project.  Once the students created a contour line drawing of their visage, they were given a length of copper wire to bend and curve following the lines they'd drawn.

This is part of the collection now hanging in the front lobby of the school.  I loved looking at all the different faces, seeing where each person decided to start and end their sculpture.   Here's a closer look at my beautiful girl!

Thank you for visiting!

Toot-Toot! (That's My Horn)

Ok, I've got some NEWS!  You know that Reese's Peanut Butter Cup layout I made as part of a challenge from my local scrapbook store?

Well, that "challenge" was actually a little bigger than a just- for-kicks-maybe-I-could-win-a-button-for-my-blog-or-some-cute-paper-to-play-with kind of contest.  I was afraid to admit that I was really applying to be on Remember When's Design Team.  But, guess what!  I was selected!  I made the team!

Everyone, quick!  Cabbage Patch!  Chant with me!  

"Go, Lisa!  Go, Lisa!  Go, Lisa!  Go, Lisa!"

Thanks, James!  You sure know how to party!  

  I'm sure I'll be visiting http://www.jamesvandermemes.com/ in the future for more of you!

I can't tell you how excited I am!  We had our first team meeting yesterday, April 1st.  April FOOL's Day.    I had a little pit in my stomach that I was going to show up at the designated time and be humiliated. Punk'd scrappy style.  The part of my application where I admitted to loathing glitter?  That could have been used against me in the most craft-nightmare-ish way.  {{Shudder!}}

Whew!  It has not a horrible trick!  Instead, I found a lovely group of women, a smaller group than I imagined, meaning that my being a part of it is even more humbling.  Tonya, the store owner is fun, gracious, and a talented baker.  And Stephanie, the design team coordinator, is sweet  and perfectly organized, with infectious vision and motivation.  I am so looking forward to getting to know everyone as we work together to inspire others and stretch our creativity!  

Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity!  I'll be sure to post my Remember When creations here, and you can also check out work done by the other team members at www.rememberwhenscrap.blogspot.com and on Remember When's Facebook page.  "Like!" 

An Homage to H.B. Reese

Who is H.B. Reese?  WHO IS H.B. REESE???  Just the most brilliant confectioner of the 20th Century, or, dare I say, of ALL TIME!!  Harry Burnett Reese,  the inventor of the famed Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!  My hero!  My... I'm not afraid to say it aloud...my LOVE!

In following a creativity prompt issued by my local scrapbooking store I was pondering the phrase, "My favorite..."  Well, I am a lover of a lot of things.  Many genres of music co-habitate my iPod.  When I speak of books or movies, my favorites are usually relegated to a somewhat amorphous "top 5".  I thought about my favorite season, holiday, time of day, place to relax, my favorite shoes, jeans, sweater.  I even considered putting all the bickering to an end and finally picking a favorite child.  (Just kidding.  They don't bicker about it.  They know which one I like best.  Again, just kidding!) 

Then I went a little further back in my personal history.  What has been a long standing, unchallenged, steadfast in my list of favorite things?  It came down to two things:  the song "Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus, or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  With no pictures to document my gettin' down wif da funk, I decided an homage to Mr. Reese would make a lovely scrapbook page.

Papers: Cocoa Daisy January and February 2012 kits; Tape: Amy Tangerine and K&Company Smash;
Embellishments: Sassafras/Cocoa Daisy and handmade by me! ;)

Oh, and I'd better get this disclaimer out in the open right away:

Many Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were harmed/consumed
in the making of this layout.

I had such a blast creating embellishments for this.  I colored the tag with Distress Inks, wrapped a candy wrapper around it and used a paper piercing tool to poke around the Reese's logo.  Then I used brown embroidery thread to stitch it, and added a hand cut peanut butter cup silhouette to complete my title.

This Reese's wrapper rose was a bit of a challenge, as the paper is wax coated and even my heavy duty double-sided tape wouldn't stick to it in order to coil around the petals.  Tombow Mono liquid adhesive did the trick for me.  The leaves were easy to form from mini Reese's foils, and the little flowers there were pretty simple to create.

I painted a couple bottle caps to mimic the brown wrappers, hammering the edges out a bit to widen them up, and glued in a paper cut out to coordinate with the Sassafras patchwork flowers.

I have a specific way of eating a regular sized Reese's.  The third bite (step 4) is pivotal to proper enjoyment, getting as close to that ridged edge while maintaining the integrity of the curve is crucial.  More often than not there is breakage.  Thankfully, there are two tries per package. (And Von's is currently running a sale, Buy 2 Get 2 Free.  They may still have some in stock.  Please refer to above disclaimer.)

I took photos of each step, and used PhotoScape to turn them into pencil drawings.

So there you have it!  A page about one of my favorite things!  And, as luck would have it, the day I finished this layout, Challenge Me Happy posted their latest which happens to be "Make Your Own Embellishment"!  Perfect!  So happy to be playing along! :)

Thank you for visiting!

Stamp Carving Frenzy

I have a new crafty hobby/pastime!  Carving my own rubber stamps!  I have been taking an online class, Stamp Carving 101, from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, and I. Am. Hooked!  It is a self-paced class that you can join anytime, so if you are interested, you can check it out here.

Here is a sampling of some stamps I've made and some tags I created from them.

And, finally, here is a layout I made that incorporated a few of them, including heavy use of that alphabet set:

Thanks for visiting!  I'm still carving away, so will share more at a later date!

Local Girl Triumphs

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Laugh if you must.  I've lived in the Los Angeles area for almost 18 years.  And the first three years I had a job that required me to drive to a lot of different areas.  I am really good at driving from A to B.  But if I have to get from B to C, it'd be best for me if I drove back to A and then headed out to C.  I'm a homing pigeon of sorts, I guess.  Also, my A point in those days was the LAPD Crime Lab, so if you need any directions, I'll have to send you there for a layover before heading you out to your final destination.  Except, now that I think about it, they have since relocated the Crime Lab.  So, unless they've also moved the duck slaughtering facility that was next door to the lab :-(  , and Chinatown adjacent, you're better off asking somebody else for directions. 

Which is why this seemingly trivial event is really a notable achievement for me, and I felt kinda like a local for the first time. 

Here's the story:

 

And here are those girls!  My daughter, Jillian, is there in the middle,

dressed as a favorite character, Lichtenstein, from the anime Hetalia.

It really IS the little things! 

Thank you for sharing in this triumph with me! ♥