Wreck This Weekend: Post Five

Another weekend is here to wreck. Welcome back!

The Wreck This Weekend Mini Series has been a great motivator to getting pages in my journal done. I'm really glad it's a weekly feature for the blog.

Here are the pages I've been working on:

August 1st

Kid friendly batiking prepared me for this page.

August 2nd

The black paint is me trying to do something a little differently. I'm still not sure if this different is good or not...

August 3rd

Dirt is awesome.

August 4th

I used a bunch of different coins and two necklaces for this page. One of the coins is a Latvian 1 lats coin with a mushroom on it. Can you find the coin?

While you're looking, try to find the smooshed penny with Spongebob and Patrick on it, too. It's like Where's Waldo, you know, except with pencil rubbings and not some happy little guy in a stocking cap.

August 5th

This one is a work in progress. 

Finding stains is hard work when you're actually looking for them. Maybe I should try not to stain the page. Then I'd be sure to find some stains for it. Either that or I could give it to a pregnant woman to wear as a bib. There's nothing messier than a preggo eating a meal. At least that's the way it was for this preggo anyway.

Because I feel bad for having a half finished page for this day, I'm adding another half finished page. I have been slowly accumulating stickers for this one. I'd have to be crazy hungry to eat enough fruit to fill this page with stickers in one day so it's going to be a work in progress for a little while.

August 6th

Something about pushing really hard on a page while drawing is cathartic for me. I'm not sure why this is, but it is.

August 7th

Any excuse to cover my hands in paint. This one was fun. I got to mix up some paint for it, too. :)

(Sorry for the picture quality from August 2nd on. I had to use my back-up camera and it's not as good as the Canon Rebel is.)

What did you do this weekend? Been wrecking anything? :)

Wreck This Weekend: Post Four

My apologies for being away this past week. My husband tore his meniscus and had knee surgery last Tuesday so I've been a bit busier than usual. I've missed you so...

* * * * * * * *

I'm very proud to show you these journal entries for this week's installment of the Wreck This Weekend Mini Series.

There is one page in particular that I'm quite smitten with. It was a pleasant surprise to say the least--but I don't want to spoil the surprise so I'll let you read on for that one. Even the simple pages ended up giving me satisfaction when they were complete. I'm not sure why this surprises me, but it does. I did not give some of these projects the credit that they were due creativity wise. Just because it's something you used to do in elementary school doesn't mean it's silly or simple. Sometimes quite the contrary.

Also, if you haven't tried art journaling before, I fully recommend it. It's very theraputic. I love my Wreck This Journal because it gives me prompts for projects. That's a big part of my problem at times...I don't know where to begin. Once those creative juices are flowing, I'm good. It's just that sometimes I'm a slow starter. Anyone else have that problem?

Alright, that's enough jibber jabbering. It's time to Wreck This Weekend!

July 25th

It's surprising exactly how easy it is to find four letter words. For instance, there were 3 four letter words in that last sentence. There are the four letter words that you can say on TV and then there are the ones that you can't. I couldn't resist the urge to paint one word in particular using bright orange paint before covering it with other four letter words. I mean, do what makes you happy, right?

July 26th

My son was kind enough to lend me his nerf gun and some darts...although I'll have to replace the darts. They became casualties of the craftiness...

So, I missed on purpose a couple of times because the bottom of the page looked a little too white. Believe me, it looks WAY better with the intentional misses.

My painted fingers

July 27th

I didn't have a whole lot of time on the 27th. Good thing there are quicky pages in the book like this one.

July 28th

I love this page. Love it, love it, love it. Did I mention this is my favorite page? :)

And the best part is that this page happened completely by accident. I dripped a bunch of spots of paint onto the page, closed it, and when I opened it this is what I found. I was not going for butterfly, believe it or not. I really did just randomly drip a bunch of paint all over the page. Yeah. I'm as surprised as you are. Probably more.

July 29th

After a lame attempt at drawing a bed on the bottom of this page, I found an old Dr. Seuss book that the kids have a double of and cut out a page with some sleeping turtles on it to glue over the lameness. I like how it turned out.

July 30th

The funnel totally leaked out the bottom. Good thing I drank water out of it and not cranberry juice as I had originally intended...

Ahahahahahaha! I lifted my pinky while I was drinking! I didn't notice that until posting these pictures. How proper of me. Perhaps I should make up some tea.

July 31st

That was a lot of work for such a mild result! But, on the bright side, at least I burned a few calories that day.

There is still plenty of journal left so come back next weekend for another Wreck This Weekend Mini Series post!

Wreck This Weekend: Post Three

More Wreck This Weekend Mini Series you say?

You're right. I agree.

I think this weekend could use some wrecking. So let's do this.

July 18th

This one made my mouth tired. If you try this, hold the pens/markers in your teeth. Way easier than using just your lips.

July 19th

Writing the same word over and over again is amazingly therapeutic

July 20th

Things found around my house

July 21st

Another exercise in which I learn what a journal tastes like...

July 22nd

My first urge was to just scribble all over the whole page, but then this occurred to me. I think I like this better than scribbles.

July 23rd

I'm so happy I managed to get my favorite color a page to itself. :)

July 24th

Office supplies really can be artistic!! I was doubtful at first.

Hidden secret messages and ninjas seem to go together. Plus, I like ninjas.

The hidden message, unhidden.

And those are my wrecked pages from week three with this journal. What have you been wrecking this weekend? Journaling? Crafting?

Wreck This Weekend: Post Two

That's right folks, it's time for another installment of Wreck This Weekend!!

I'm excited to share my pages with you...although looking at the flickr groups make me feel a little inadequate, but you know what? I am having fun so even if my finished project isn't like theirs it is still totally fun and worth it.

So without further adieu, I give you Week Two of Wreck This Weekend:

July 11th

You know, the directions didn't say to draw a tree, but based on the topic of the article I thought the tree was fitting. :)

July 12th

Because my voice will always be loud and I will occasionally screw up. No one should ever be able to make me feel bad about myself--including myself.

July 13th

This task was more like soccer and soccer never was my sport. Basketball, volleyball, and softball yes. Soccer? No. Journal soccer/golf? Definitely not. 

My 6 tries were made from about 18 inches away.

July 14th

Tape seemed to be the most sensible choice in this situation...

And I braided the tear strips page which would have turned out really cool if I had colored them before tearing them (see post one).

July 15th

This one was a lot of fun. I think that switching colors of pen would have also looked cool.

July 16th

Another fun one that reminded me of elementary school. I even carved the letter "J" out of a potato. This is one of my favorite pages.

July 17th

Tongue painting left my journal page more soggy than painted. At least now I know what a journal tastes like(?).

And that's Week Two of Wreck This Weekend.

What have you been wrecking lately? Journaling? Crafting? Photographing? Spill! :)

Wreck This Weekend: Post One

As you know if you've been reading this blog lately (if not, catch up here), I purchased a copy of Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith at the beginning of July and made a commitment to do at least one page every day.

Well, I'm proud to report that after two weeks with it in my possession, I have stuck to that commitment and now I'd like to share the results with you!

But I don't want this post to just be a random, one time thing. I'm no where near finished with the book and I'd like to be able to keep sharing the pages that I create with you with some sort of regular frequency.

Also, part of the reason why I started this blog was to encourage my friends and family to get back in touch with their creative selves. What better way than to post pictures of what I've done each week from a book that has inspired me?

Motivation, my friends.

You each have your own unique perspective on the book's instructions--don't like what I did with my page? Make one yourself! And you don't go out and buy the book to do it, either. That's the fun thing about being creative. You can do whatever you want!

Let's get a little friendly competition going, too: Who can make the most colorful pages! Who's with me? Post a link to your page (blog page, photobucket/flickr account, wherever it is!)  in the comments section of this blog and we'll come take a look at it!

So with that and without further ado, I bring you a Made in My Free Time mini-series:

Wreck This Weekend

Once each weekend, I will post pictures from my Wreck This Journal entries so you can follow along with me! I encourage you to post comments and share your journals, too. Even if you don't want to compete. I would love to see your creations!

Here are mine from Week One:

 July 3rd

The first thing I do with a new book is crack the spine--blame it on the year I worked at the college bookstore. But don't worry former bookstore coworkers, I only cracked the spines on my own books. :)

 I'm thinking of coloring this page, but for now here's how it stands.

Too easy!!

 This one reminded me of making hand turkeys for Thanksgiving when I was in elementary school.

July 4th

I really wish that I had colored the strips before tearing them...

I numbered the book backwards. :)

Broke out the crayons for this page!

July 5th

 This was fun. I spit, poured, and dripped coffee onto the page to make the design.  I wish that I had used regular coffee, though. I used a latte so the coffee stains aren't very dark. 

I went out hunting for a 4-leaf clover for this page. The rest are from around my house.

July 6th

Scribbling with different colored pens is fun. :)

July 7th

My morning shower has never been so invigorating.

No one said it had to be a solid sheet of newspaper.

July 8th

I flew this airplane before taping it to the journal. It didn't fly very far. Lame.

July 9th

 This was all that was left of the "Fold this page up, put it in your pocket, and run it through the wash" page.

Another page I'd like to color some more later.

July 10th

I sprayed the page with White Shoulders perfume. Now the whole journal smells pretty.

Next weekend I'll get you caught up with this week and so on until the journal is complete.

Keep an eye out for the Wreck This Weekend mini-series next weekend!