September Goal Review

Yet another month has passed. I can't believe it's already time to do my monthly review. But here we are and here it is.

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 35-38. I'm still behind on these goals and tasks so some of this is just me catching up.

Week 35 (Aug, 28-Sep. 3)

Goal

The goal I set for this week was to create a blog header that reflected my current interests and blog topics. However, I didn't get to that one. Instead, I was able to tackle Week 33's goal to finish my wood block painting that I had started at the Art at the Beach 2016 retreat. 

I'm not positive this painting is done. Once I looked at it through the lens of Photoshop, I realized that some shading would really enhance it. I suppose it will be a work in progress for a while. 

Card

This one counted for Week 33. It's a super simple altered card with just some paint, a quick stamp, and a couple of collaged pieces. The word imagine is accented with a stabilo all pencil. 

Blog

I wrote my August Goal Review this week. 

Week 36 (Sep. 4-10)

Goal

I was able to clean and organize the craft room as I had planned. As well, I completed week 35's goal of creating a new blog header. 

Here's a peek in case you're in a feed reader.

Jewelry

I finished up the garnet bead and key necklace from the Wonder and Whimsy August challenge.

This counts for week 33's jewelry. Still catching up!

Blog

Two blog posts were completed: Looking Inward for Inspiration and Re-Organizing the Craft Room. 

Journal

This was also for Week 33. It consists of some collage, some paint smearing, a little stenciling, and some doodling. The image was stamped on deli paper and glued in with matte medium. I painted and smeared around the edges to work it in. There's also some Stardust gelli roll pen on the page to add some sparkle to this magical page. 

Week 37 (Sep. 11-17)

Goal

I set out to brainstorm ideas for my future website. Once again, that didn't happen. However, I was able to cut a variety of paper shapes with my Vintaj BigKick as I had set out to do in Week 34.

I know this isn't a super-impressive or big deal of a goal. But, it gave me a chance to learn the machine a little more and familiarize myself with some of the different dies I have. 

Jewelry

I do have to admit that I kicked some butt this week in the jewelry-making department.

Week 34's earrings started out as something completely different. I'm so very happy with how these came together.

Week 35's earrings include beads from StudioJuls along with some tarnished and patina-ed once silver-tone hearts. 

Weeks 36 and 37 are two different button bracelets for which I'm making some tutorials (You'll hear more about that in a few weeks). However, these two caught me up in the jewelry-making goal. Yay!!

Card

This was for Week 34. The background is just a gelli print on a piece of music. I added some doodles and marks with pen, pencil, and paint. The image is an old photograph. I cut the words from a calendar. 

Blog

Cheesy Bacon Avocado Dip was the topic for this week. I urge you to try it. So good!

Journal

Two pages were completed this week!

As you can probably tell, I've been working on lettering. 

For week 34, I used some gelli prints that both included raindrops (the same stencil) as the background. I blended them together with a little gesso before sketching clouds. The clouds were filled in with more gesso and outlined/accented with a combo of Neocolor iis and Derwent Inktense pencils. A Uni-Ball Air pen was used to write the words. 

The week 35 page was made with various ephemera and collage papers glued around the edges. They were softened with gesso. Die cuts of a gelli print were used to make the flower petals and leaves. The petals are stuck together with a lime green brad. A green gel pen made the stem. Charcoal was added around the page and under the flower and leaves for shadow. Again, I used the uni-ball air pen to write the words. 

Week 38 (Sep. 18-24)

Goal

For the last full week of the month, I had hoped to research e-mail newsletter options. While I did do some minimal research, a decision wasn't made. Therefore, I can't count this goal as done yet.

Jewelry

Since I caught up on my jewelry-making goal the week before, all jewelry made this week either met the goal or exceeded it. 

The black and white earrings were made using old clip-on earrings that were smashed and cleaned up. The black lines are stamped, embossed, and sealed on there. I showed a lot of the process for these in my Instagram story.  You won't find it there now, but you should totally follow me!

The other pair of earrings and the necklace also incorporate upcycled aspects and are also part of the tutorial project I'm working on.

Card

While I didn't quite catch up on the altered playing card making, I did get a few done.

Week 35's started with some spray inks that were dabbed around and dried. Red acrylic paint was applied through a stencil. The flower was painted on with gesso before being outlined and colored with the Derwent Inktense pencils and NeoColor iis (can you tell I LOVE these two products!?)

Week 36's card was actually started weeks ago when I glued a gelli print to the card. After outlining some of the raindrops, I was stuck and put the card aside. While staying with my grandmother, I picked it back up and added a few marks before gluing down the balloon stamp. I outlined the stamp and left the card at that. 

For Week 37, I was simply playing with the lovely Neocolor iis and the Inktense pencils - showing my niece how beautifully they melt and blend. When the card had dried and I looked at it again, I saw a face; the eye in particular. With that, I drew it out and colored it in more prominently. I used a white water-based Sharpie poster paint marker to add a couple of highlights.

Blog

The What's on My Desk (WOYWW) post was the only one I got written that week. 

Journal

I finished up another two pages.

You may have seen the beginning of Week 36's page in my WOYWW blog post. I used up some black paint by just drawing squiggly lines all over the page. Later, I played with Gelatos and Colorix crayons to color in the pages (smearing them with water). The words were written with a black Sharpie poster pen and outlined with a white one.  

The Week 37 page began as a magazine page that had been previously painted with acrylic paints. It was a little small for the journal so I filled in similar colors around it. I stenciled some shapes and stamped some textures onto the page before picking out some magazine cutouts and a printed quote. These were simply glued down and outlined with a stabilo all pencil in black. I also outlined the whole page with a black pen.

So, that was September in a creative nutshell. I caught up on a few tasks, but still have a ways to go with others. I'm learning to try to create in spare moments and that not everything has to be perfect on the first try. The simple act of creating makes you more creative. I hope you take that to heart. Shoot, I hope I do too!

Have a wonderfully creative October!