Video: Rainbow Collage Glue Book-My New Journal Play #1

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I love collage, have I mentioned that before?


Collage heals me like nothing else. The act of cutting paper, gluing it down with either a glue stick or my collage paste is just so much fun.

I was reading a blog post by iHanna where she was sharing her plays in her rainbow glue book and I decided to give it a shot. It seemed like a fun way to utilize junk mail or catalogs as well as miscellaneous ephemera I have.

I am using a standard composition notebook that I picked up from The Dollar Tree and I am setting it up with the following sections: pink, white/cream, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, teal, purple and rainbow. The notebook has 100 pages so I am doing 10 pages for each color/section although rainbow seemed to work out to be 9 pages so I am guessing I miscounted somewhere along the line which is fine with me.

I decided that I wasn’t going to be too critical of my photo choices. If something felt pink I used it on my pink page even if it had some other colors too. I want this to be fun so I am not going to be fussy about my choices.

I also thought it would be fun to record my play session and share it with you. So if you would like a little creative time why not join me? You can get out your own supplies or maybe just pour a cup of your favorite beverage and have a little relax time watching me cut and glue? Either way I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you like to make glue books? If so please share what kinds you make.

Music by Joystock – https://www.joystock.org

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Little and Often: Sharing My Creative Week

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I am sitting with a cup of coffee as the snow and ice fall outside. My oldest two are enjoying their video games and my youngest is happily pushing her dolls around in her Hello Kitty carriage while simultaneously sneaking candy.

I was able to enjoy a decent amount of creative time this week and to spend it in my favorite way-little bits of time through out the day. Embracing my natural self, the person I truly am seems to be a longer process than I had thought it would be. Realizing all of the ways I have limited, trimmed, scolded or adopted things that really have nothing to do with me seems to be a process I don’t imagine I will ever be done with. Even as I write this I hear voices whispering their beliefs and criticisms of what I am saying. Recognizing what’s truth and what’s not is a practice I am learning to be gentle with so I can see it and then just let it go.

I have been reclaiming my creative time too.  Letting it be time spent being creative without expecting anything other than time enjoyed being creative. It’s a subtle switch but one that releases me into my creativity and allows me to play and enjoy my time in my little creative world.

Little and often is my favorite way to be in the world. I am not a project person-someone who likes to clear a day to dig in, upset and resettle something. I like to pick, doing a bit here and a bit there as I move through out a day consisting of little or no plans other than to eat and sleep at some point.

It’s a different way to exist in a world that has times for everything. A time we should be in bed and a time we should wake up. A time we should accomplish certain things and a time when those things should come to an end. I releasing myself from the burden of “shoulds” and of time as much as I can manage. I have long thought about letting go of clocks all together, perhaps even dates and days of the week all together. To focus more on just being and experiencing life rather than rushing towards a destination.

As with anything it starts small. It starts with releasing expectations around the easier places, the safe places like my creative corner. To allow myself and my creativity to be with one another without the expectation of more or tainting the experience by a judgment for what it should look like or result in the end.

I hope you are able to find some gentle time with your creativity. To meet it happily and with no other goal than to enjoy each other’s company. I hope as you move into the weekend you are able to do so with a gentle disregard for time and to focus rather on the being in the now.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Little Books of Words Part 1

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is love-story-g080aef9a6_1920-1024x768.jpg I am in love with poetry.

I have always loved poetry. I began writing poetry at the age of 8. My first poem was about my Cabbage Patch Kids and was co-written with a loving family friend. The same woman who first introduced me to poetry. I have piles and piles of poems and find that my writing tends to come and go through out my life.

I rekindled my love of poetry watching the TV Show “Dickinson” on Apple TV and I found it really inspiring. It has reconnected me not only to my love of writing and reading poetry but my love for Emily Dickinson‘s poetry. I was introduced to her poetry at a young age when I purchased a small collection that was called “love poems.” She moves me like no other.

All of this has brought me to my latest project. Emily Dickinson collected some of her poems in hand bound books she made herself. She wrote on recycled envelopes and I just love the idea of making some miniature books of my own.

So I decided to create a little project making similar books of poetry. I don’t plan to stop with poetry either. I am planning on making lots of little books. Some with little pieces of art-think ATC cards in book form. A collection of quotes or song lyrics. Random images from magazines-the possibilities are endless! The past week I have been having lots of fun dying copy paper fun colors. I did a batch with Rit Dye and they came out beautiful. I was interested in finding a way that didn’t use dye so I tried Kool-aid mix which came out just as great! I love the crinkly texture of dyed paper but I am less interested in the vintage look you get from coffee or tea dying so this a great alternative! I have made pink so far (it’s my favorite color) and I have some orange mixed up for my son since orange is his favorite color and a pack of purple to try out later. I think this paper would be wonderful for my first little book of poetry.

I hope you are having a wonderful start to your week. We had plumbing issues at the start of the week which landed us in a hotel room for the night. It was a fun little adventure for the kids and I and actually rekindled my spark for some solo adventuring that I hope to be sharing with you soon. So that is all I have for today. Please comment below if you plan to make some of your own little books or if you have ideas for little book themes-I would love to hear them! I also would like to leave you with a few lines from Ms. Emily Dickinson:

“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all”

-Emily Dickinson

 

Until next time,

-Michele

Video: Simple Heart Collage Canvas

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Happy Valentine’s Day! I know there are mixed feelings about the holiday but for me personally I love pinks and reds and hearts-definitely hearts. I love flowers and chocolate and any excuse to be reminded that love should be the focus of our days I am up for celebrating.

Today I was treated to a lovely handmade gift from my 7 year-old son. He made me a paper frame of our most recent family photo and added colored cotton balls around the perimeter. It was beautiful! It meant so much to me that he took it upon himself to make a gift for me.

Tonight we will give the kids little goodies-nothing extravagant but I did want to make them something and this weekend I realized I was running out of time. So I decided to make little canvas paintings for them. I wanted to keep them simple and something that was unique to each of them.

I made the hearts using collage and painted the backgrounds with their favorite colors and added some glitter glue. I added their names as well but to be honest they didn’t come out that great. Some of the letters blurred a bit but I am pretty sure they will still love them.

I made a video showing you how I made them. It’s really easy and you could do so many variations and you don’t really need any special materials. You don’t need the mini canvases you could just as easily use cardboard from packaging and collage right over it. Instead of glitter glue you could outline the heart in more acrylic paint or even string that you glue down. The possibilities are really endless.

I hope you like this little craft. If you make one please comment below I would love to see it!

Music by Joystock – https://www.joystock.org

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

 

Seed Starting and Sun Searching

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Free Image Credit:  Jill Wellington on Pixabay

*If you have a blog post about what you are doing in February for your garden please share it in the link party-details are at the bottom of post*

I started my first round of seeds indoors (insert excited “squee” here). I do love gardening. I love starting seeds, watching them grow and then seeing plants in the garden growing big and strong knowing I started them from these itty bitty seeds.

I started some vinca vine seeds, marshmallow  (which is now tucked inside my fridge for the next 4 weeks), rosemary, lavender (also in the fridge), columbine (in the fridge), snapdragons, scallions & leeks. I purchased some seeds online from two different Etsy stores and Botanical Interests. I am really impressed with all the information Botantical Interests includes on the seed packs. Another favorite seed company is Renees Garden-I think the tomatoes I grew last year from her were the most delicious ever! I also planted Lavender seeds last year bought from Renee’s Garden and they grew into flowering small shrubs giving me lots of flowers in just one season! I don’t love the fragrance of the variety I chose but I they are still beautiful and the bees loved them. I am growing English Lavender this time around and I am hoping to be able to create an entire lavender garden one of these day. (The links in this post are just shared in case you would like to try what I purchased. These are not affiliate links-I’m just sharing for your information 🙂

This year I am focused on growing a cut flower garden. I love cutting flowers and bringing them indoors in various mason/repurposed jars and setting them up all over. It makes me so happy to cut flowers outside.

We have been in our home for 21 years and when we first bought the home our backyard was all shade. I mean a lot of shade. So I planted a rose garden out front and some veggies and it eventually became these very large front garden. Over the years there has been an upsurge of invasive weeds-the fast growing, vining, wrap-around-everything-can’t-dig-them-out-with-a-shovel type weeds.

And to be honest, I hate maintaining it. There has been a shift as well since trees in the neighborhood are taller that our front yard gets more shade than it did once upon a time. I am all about making things simple. I hate chores and projects and I want to enjoy my garden. It’s supposed to be something that restores me-not another have to on my list. So this year we are making some big changes.

Firstly we are digging out all of our roses and moving them to our backyard (which is now full sun). We are transplanting some volunteer rose of sharon plants along our driveway and ultimately (if we can) removing our butterfly bushes to a new garden in the back along with the roses.

It’s a lot of plants to move but I think they will thrive in the new location and it will give us the ability to dig out the mulch (it’s mounded pretty high) and add it to our compost bins and then work on digging down and hopefully digging out these weeds. It’s been nearly impossible to dig them out when they are really intertwined with the roses. Did I also mention that in my youthful excitment for an herb garden I planted mint….in the ground….yep. We have gotten rid of most of it using black paper but it’s still there. Beside the lemon balm I planted….in the ground…

So with the yard a blank slate we are hoping to plant some grass and then at least we can mow down the weeds as they come up in our already weedy grass patch.

I’ll be moving some holly bushes out of the backyard that we inherited with the house and also our apple tree. We planted 2 but sadly only one remains so we will be buying a second and moving them to a small garden area next to the driveway. In the space where the holly bushes and apple tree are is where the rose bushes and hopefully the butterfly bushes will be re-homed. We aren’t sure if we can get the butterfly bushes dug up. They have been in our front yard for years and years. I love them and all the butterflies that they attract but the location isn’t my favorite. I think they will look beautiful in our new back garden.

I am also going to be making a new vegetable garden. I moved the vegetable garden from the front yard into the back yard a few years ago. I love it back there. It’s great because the kids can play, it’s fenced in and private and I can just enjoy the gardening time. We built raised beds and I decided this year to make this my cut flower garden. I am going to be focusing on only growing the foods we love to eat and I am going to be using the fabric pots of purchased last year to create a new vegetable/fruit garden. I’ll fence it in (to keep the dogs and groundhogs out) and then transplant my strawberries, raspberries and blueberries into the ground but everything else is going to be grown in fabric pots. What I love about this is I don’t have to worry about crop rotation as I will refill the pots each season and I think it will keep everything a lot tidier.

I am hoping to take some video to share with you as we go about the process of moving everything. Eventually we are going to be growing some privacy trees along the back fence but since we have a lot to get done in early spring I didn’t want the pressure of planting 10 trees on top of everything. With any luck, if the weather is warm and we can get out there early we can still do the trees this year as well.

In the meantime I would love to hear what you are growing or answer any questions you might have. I am in zone 6 so I have a while before the ground is thawed and I am out digging. I am however working on making my own garden journal to capture this season in. I hope to have a flip through video to share with you soon.

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Wishing you a beautiful day!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

 

Tired Creativity

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Making time for our creativity is something I think we can all struggle with. Often when we have the time we don’t have the energy and when we have the energy may be committed to other things such as job, family or just doing laundry.

I have often found myself in this cycle of needing, really needing to spend time with my art. I long to sit in my creative corner and paint or collage and to just get lost in the art of creating. More often than not the only time I have to do this is at the end of the day and the end of the day finds me tired. And usually it’s more than tired it’s the drain that comes with taking care of others all day with little focused energy on yourself. Or perhaps it’s the drain of spending your days focused on work that isn’t your passion-or worse-work that you really dislike doing.

It’s always surprising to me how often I put off that which I know I love most. The practices that make me smile or even better sigh with pure, unadulterated joy, are the ones that I put off the most and my creativity is no exception.

I do however pay attention. I take note of the habits and thoughts that run around in my brain. I try my best to be conscious of the choices I am making in each moment and it’s the times when I engage with my creativity that I noticed something you may have also experienced.

Creativity fuels me.

Creativity heals me.

Creativity releases the toxins, the sadness, the pain and it refills me with joy, truth and love.

It takes mere moments of me putting some color on a simple journal page for me to feel the calibration starting to happen. My energy raises, my mood lightens and I am rewarded by a feeling of rejuvenation I would not have thought possible a mere 5 minutes earlier.

I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to make time for my creativity when in reality I wanted to find time when I was at my best, fully awake and ready to go. I wanted hours upon hours of creative time. I wanted my creative time to be as long as-if not longer-than the time I spent at the day job.

Here’s what I have discovered about the beauty of creativity.

It’s there to heal us creatives. It is what keeps us moving through life, what keeps us reaching for the unconventional, the new, the non-mainstream. Creativity, unlike the day job, doesn’t demand from us our best. Instead it is like a loving grandmother, arms outstretched providing us with a safe place to rest. A place where we can dump all the hard and the taxing and leave with all that is bright, inspiring and real.

Instead of seeking ways to make time for my creativity, I challenge myself to just sit down at my workspace even if it’s with a cup of tea, feeling exhausted and completely lacking in inspiration. I might pick up a favorite material (current my Tempera paint sticks are my most favorite-so much fun for adding layers to a journal) and a simple composition notebook and just put some color on some paper. I am not seeking to make a masterpiece-or even to make anything at all. Instead I simply want to be with my creativity. To sit together, connect and just be. I start with a goal of 5 minutes. 5 minutes I sit there and doodle, scribble, paint or glue scraps to paper.

Almost every time I feel the energy flow in. I start to sit up straighter, smile maybe a bit and before I know it I am creating where just minutes before I was too exhausted to make myself some toast.

Creativity is a magical gift. It is there for you and you only need to knock on its door to feel the rewards. A Creative practice isn’t something that needs to be big or thought out-it is after all practice. You simply visit with it each day-and on the days when you want to skip it remind yourself that it’s then you need it most. It is the moments when you are lost, tired, sad, scared, frustrated that you need your creativity.

And it is always there for you.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante