Visit to Az and Art

I flew back to AZ for 5 days last week to help April sort, clean, and store the supplies in her craft room so that they can get the room set up for their baby due next March. It was a lot of work, but I think we did a good job. Most of the give-away supplies went to my friends, Karen and Miranda. I'm sure they will make good use of them. Lots of stuff is winging its way here for either me or my friends Cheri and Mary Ann. Since most of it was mine to begin with, it has come full circle!
Before leaving I began several projects, one of which I am calling my Rag Journal. The original cover for these pages was a gutted hardcover book with a painted canvas spine, buuuuut......I should know better than to make a cover prior to the pages! The pages didn't fit (there were too many, not the wrong size) so the result is Plan B. I used latch hook canvas and used LOTS of scraps:

I made nearly a bazillion pages trying out different techniques. One day I painted, the next I sewed, another I got out tape and stamps, etc. Very random, but I'm liking the color schemes. I just match up what I want to go on the page, for instance I found a red ticket which went perfectly with the page below. The dress stamp is an image I practiced tangling on as seen in a book April got for me, "Zentangles 3" by Suzanne McNeill. Very cool book and I am loving practicing the new tangles!

I plan to make more, smaller sized Rag Journals for my Etsy shop, but want to focus the pages so I am trying 2 or 3 techniques in a limited color palette. I paint scraped on the reverse of some scrapbook paper with terra cotta, sage green, and blue (the muted colors on the patterned side).

I joined "Art a Day Month" (there should be a button over on the side if I can get it there!) so the pages above are what I created yesterday as well as the third lesson of a mystery quilt over at Thistledown & Co. blog. I'm thinking it won't be much of a stretch to create something every day since that's all I do! Now it will force me to record my projects and keep my blog up to date!
So over at April's zoo, I mean house, she has a new puppy (90 lbs. of boxer), Jackson who is a sweetie-pie and strong enough to pull me and the futon across the floor in a rousing game of tug-0f-war! He thinks he's a lap dog and who am I to argue?

Last (but certainly not least!) April got her gender ultrasound, originally scheduled for mid-November, rescheduled for last Friday while I was visiting! Got to see many, many parts of the baby in utero. Sucking HIS left thumb, waving arms, etc. Pretty cool. It was VERY apparent that it is a boy so I made a journal page in my new Moleskine: