August Goal Review

As I sit here on the first day of September, anxiously waiting for the start of college football, I suppose I can update you on how my goals went last month.

As a reminder, each week I wanted to complete a  general Goal, a piece of Jewelry, an altered Card, at least one Blog post, and a Journal page. I'm covering weeks 31-34. Also, please note that I'm still behind on these goals and tasks so much of this will be showing how I caught up.

Week 31 (July 31-Aug. 6)

Goal

This week's goal was to learn to cut with a jewelry saw. However, I just didn't get to this.

Jewelry

I was completely inspired by the assemblage keys I made last month. It took very little time to knock out this necklace. 

Week 28 - This mixed metal, mixed media piece features antiqued copper beads and clasp and antiqued silver tone findings. 

Blog

I was able to get up a July Goal Review during this week. 

Week 32 (Aug 7-15)

Goal

I had hoped to learn a little more about using YouTube (as a creator), but that just didn't come to fruition.

Jewelry

Again, I worked with one of the upcycled keys.

Week 29 - This one is a little longer than the previous one and a bit more feminine with the champagne-colored crystals and dainty chain. 

Card

I was able to knock out three cards this week!

Week 28 - I believe the background is some Tim Holtz distress stain with black paint circles overlapped on it. The flower and text are stamps that I colored with watercolor pencils.

Week 29 - The background for this card was a lot of play with paint, stamps, stencils, and doodling. The face is stamp on cardstock colored in with watercolor pencils and outlined with a black stabilo. 

Week 30 - Again, the background was just some play with paint and a small gelli plate. The words were clipped from a magazine (and found on my desk randomly). The flower is a sticker.

Blog

Three Posts!! I did three blog post this week. Yay. I showed you my process to cover a mannequin in paper, I shared some more altered playing cards, and I wrote about my recent thrift store finds. 

Journal

Another three pages were completed in my art journal. 

Week 27 - This page had me stopped in my tracks for far too long. I started with some paint topped with molding paste applied through a crackle stencil. From there, I was stumped. Finally, some circles were added in black with white bursts, a few yellow dots, and the word play. I left it at that. It's not pretty, but it's done.

Week 28 - This is just a peek at this page (as my other picture was blurry). The background was made with a gelli print and more paint to blend it. The girl is a face I drew on book paper. The rest of her body is collaged from magazine pages. I also wrote some words below her in paint.

Week 29 - I did this while away from home, using only the few supplies I had with me. The background was made with some goopy acrylic paint, collage papers, washi tape, and some light stamping. I used a magazine picture and created a frame around it with a charcoal pencil. The words were written with a Sharpie water-based paint pen. 

Week 33 (Aug 14-20)

Goal

I set out the goal to finish the wood block painting I started while on the Art Retreat. However, that just didn't happen. However, I was able to work my way through the photography and camera tutorials to knock off the goal of learning to use my camera better. Here are the links I used to work on this goal.

• This article on the 96 tips most photographers had wished they learned sooner was mostly focused at professional photographers, but there are a few tips that would apply for a novice camera user.
• The Photo Course from It's Overflowing took me several days to work through all the parts, but I think it had a lot of good information in layman's terms. 
• I looked at the first of these 100 tutotials from Click It Up a Notch, and it ran through ISO, aperture, and shutter speed a little faster than the previous one but had the same general gist. However, this has a LONG list of tutorials on how to use the camera, compose pictures, select lenses, edit photos, and just about anything else. It's a great reference, but there was no way for me to work through them all. 
• This "I have a dslr camera now what?" is less of a tutorial and more of a few tips about what to do after you get a camera like insuring it and getting special filters and whatnot. I'm far past that stage, but it is great for those just now getting one.  
• Here's another great, quick guide to understanding your digital slr camera. It covers ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. I REALLY liked that this one showed images of both a canon and a nikon camera. That totally helped me.
• This Digital Photography course is a 10-15 hour free course put out by Harvard. My head was already swimming from the above information so I decided to keep this as a reference once I get some f the other things I had learned into action and cemented in my head. 

Jewelry

I knocked out a few pieces this week.

Week 30 - Again, I turned to one of my altered keys as a focal. Faceted glass in shades of green made up the chain with some gold-tone wire. 

Week 31 - This necklace was made for a friend. She gave me a few specifications of what she wanted: box focal, neutral palette, etc. This is what came together.

Week 32 - Last week I shared this bracelet I had made as part of Wonder and Whimsy's August challenge with beads from Fire Mountain Gems.

Card

While I'm still not caught up, these two cards helped make a dent in my list.

Week 31 - I shared the process I used to make this card in my Dollar Tree Altered Playing Card post. 

Week 32 - This was just some paint and doodles. I was feeling a little stressed out and needed to keep my head above water. 

Blog

I was able to put out not one but two posts this week. I shared some of the Summery jewelry in the CraftyHope Etsy Shop a well as that Dollar Tree Altered Playing Card. 

Journal

Two pages were also created this week. For some reason, both of these pictures came out a little blurry. Sorry about that!

Week 30 - I just had to get something on the page. I played with my mini gelli plate to get color on the page and then doodled the black stalks with paint, adding white accents with a white signo pen.

Week 31 - I JUST realized that these two pages have similar palettes. Oh well. I was just playing with supplies and techniques on this page. 

Week 34 (Aug 21-27)

Goal

Cutting shapes with my BigKick die cutter was the goal but instead I worked on Week 31's goal of cutting metal with a jewelry saw.

I didn't have much success with this goal. It's definitely something I need to continue to work on learning and trying. 

Blog

I was able to share an update on our house a year after we moved in. As well, I showed off the jewelry I made for the August Challenge at Wonder and Whimsy. 

Journal

All week long, I worked on this page. 

Week 32 - It's composed almost entirely of stenciled paint. The face was created using a stencil bump technique. The words are simply stamped on thin white paper. 

It's now almost an hour until kickoff so I need to figure out what our plan for the evening is. I hope you are reaching and meeting your goals. . . and that you're doing it better than I am!