…and it is Friday.

A few days ago a nice girl at the Unravelling message board posted something called: Manifesto for Growth by Bruce Mau. It is fascinating. I think I may look closer to what this guy is saying and how that affect me.

The big question is: Do I want to change? Do I want to grow?  While pondering about that I will do the dishes.

…what more is there to say when you are looking at 23 days without work?

My uniforms are hanging in the back of the closet and I will do my best to forget about work in the next three weeks. I am confident that the girls will do just fine without me. It is a little strange to think  about that I should have been in a plane on my way to Majorca, but I am fine with no plans at all. On some level it`s even better. I have spent the last two days at the dentist and even if she is a nice girl to visit I am grateful to be done visiting.

May Flaum`s Recipe class at Big Picture Scrapbooking launched the week two handout yesterday so I have been working on that this evening. It is all about the creative process. A little fun that Shimelle`s prompt yesterday was about the same theme; The creative process.

After one day without scrapbooking I feel a little lost and I feel that I messed up the first one. But, they don`t have to be perfect, do they?

I knew I messed it up when I did the title. And the stamping was one more step on the way. To top it all I messed up the choice of colour when I did the journaling. But…she is a cute girl – nothing can mess that up!

…week two, and finally it`s time for the fun part. Using Twitter and Facebook is okay, but I was hit in the head with a block once Cathy Zielske`s class started. Suddenly I felt that what I wrote should make sense or be the wittiest thing in the world. That will hardly happen – like ever. Cathy`s teaching is excellent as always and she got me producing pages in no time. I did some test prints to get the feeling of how it would turn out. Still don`t have a good plan for how I want to use this concept, but I do have a few ideas.

Once I got started I couldn`t stop. Since we are expecting a new baby boy in the family – in a few days, I bought a 6×6 powder blue album from WRMK. This would be a good format for a baby album – covering  birth, family, homecoming, siblings, grandparents, the home….maybe as a gift for the christening. The downside – the page protectorswas at least 6,5×6,5. That means a lot of wast of paper. The good thing – the AC protectors do fit. Another thing: We are only half way through the class and I`m sure Cathy got something else up her sleeves so maybe it would be a good thing to stop producing pages…

Day 21 -Load May 09

The blue one and the pink one left for Trondheim with their dad early this morning. We have a red day in the calender today so they are visiting mom, who is ready to give birth tomorrow. That is the plan but we just have to wait and see. We have had a beautiful day here. I still can`t get shoes on my feet and I like to have a good excuse for staying inside:)

Instead of doing what I should do, I have been messing with my paint and doing just the things I enjoy. Hopefully I will get the rest of the supplies I need to finish Claudine Helmut`s class. In the meantime I have fun making art journals.

…on my desk this morning: To do> Clean your room ! Did I do that? No. I kept messing it up. One thing though, I did not toss the note so I can leave it on my desk again tonight. Once again I did a quick page for the Load challenge today. I still have room left in my Christmas journal album and a lot of photos from December. I have them all in my storage albums, but I don`t plan to scrapbook any of them. Some will be used to fill up the Christmas album, some will be filed under different categories in my drawers and the rest will be put in cold storage. ( When the time is right).

I spent most of the day browsing for blogs with art journaling. I found this amazing Norwegian blog:http://blomstrendehverdager.blogspot.com/ . I really loved her work and it was nice to see that she had found inspiration with another girl I have admired for a long time:http://www.kellyraeroberts.blogspot.com/.

Me – I have no idea what I am doing, but it`s sure fun to play along.

These two are more than ready to see their mother tomorrow ..

Linda left for Trondheim more than a week ago and I guess it has been a long week for mum to be without the kids. Hopefully there will be a birth before the week is over. A little bird did say something about pushing a little…

…I am taking a class with Claudine Helmuth called : Home Is Where the Art Is at SiSTv. It looked like a fun thing to do when you have vacation with no plans. I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I discovered that the first 6 mixed media techniques already had been thought to me by Big Picture Scrapbooking last summer. But that is okay, it`s still fun.

I am ready to go. Sometimes I love to get messy.

Congratulations to Ansgar and Karen with their third great grandchild.

Early this morning this little girl gave birth to a baby girl at ST.Olav.

 Here she is with her uncle and aunt the day after their wedding in 1978.

Congrats to the new grandma!

Ansgar and Karen will have a busy summer because with any luck “our baby”, their fourth great grandchild, will be born at the same hospital in a few days. We are waiting and waiting…In the meantime I will mess around with some paint.

I enjoyed making art journals after taking a three days tutorial with Rhian.  Even without the Gesso. Of course I had to buy a bucket of Gesso. It has been standing in a corner for two weeks now. This evening I found it, and I just had to try again. I probebly need to get back to Rhians files and see how to use this stuff, but for a little while I had fun.

Translated it reads something like this; Good girls goes to heaven, bad girls go as far as they want…

At Scrapping.no it has been a show and tell about gardens and outdoor space this last days.  I am not posting a photo of my space. But in this intimate setting I am showing, just this once…

At 52 card pick up the class is dismissed for the weekend. But i knocked the top of my egg number 10 at ; a bakers dozen. The layout is showing baby Kristian and his grandfater last May.

My mojo was at home so I did egg number 11 while I was at it. This one was supposed to be a two page spread, but I could not get myself to put 11 strips of paper across two pages so I converted it to one page. That worked as well.

This is baby Elin last summer, blowing bubbles. Her grandfather makes sure she got a LOT of water and soap……….

“Spell your secrets out, and cover them over in masking tape and paint.

Whisper your fears onto a piece of paper and lock them away in an envelope.

Paint around your insecurities and make them seem pretty and manageable.

These pages are places that will keep your heart safe from the critics. Nobody has to see these pages but you. But I bet you will feel better for writing something. “

Rhian Cooksey Quinton.

I like this girl. And I like this idea; to put your thoughts on paper and lock them in with paper and paint. I took one piece of paper and wrote down my hurt feelings and another one and wrote all and nothing.  And I covered them, putting them away forever…

Well, that was the last pages for now. I have enjoyed myself and now I know where to get the Gesso. I will need that because I loved to make these pages. Next, I will be diving in to the bargain bins looking for cheap fabric.

Last nights tutorial was about using fabric for pages when making art journals. It looked fun, but I decided this was nothing for my taste. And, no way was I going to cut into any fabric of mine. Something made me change my mind. I had a really bad morning today. I had a reminder; although everyone wants to play, they don’t play nice. That is kind of hard to face.

I finished work today and went straight home and cut into an old shirt. It is over with and I just have to deal.

While waiting to play some more with Rhian I will pick up some clutter in my living room. All I have left to do now is to put away all my photos stored all over the place. And it is 4 digits in the number so it might take some time to do. I am not putting them in any kind of order, just moving them out of my living room. The storing comes much later.

Ali Edwards gave us a good link the other day. It leads to Leo`s Handbook for life; Tips for Happiness + Productivity. You can find a lot of good tips there so go and see the advice he is giving.

…but, I do enjoy myself.  With or without Gesso. My old paint will have to do for now. I don`t quit grasp the concept of this art journal thing, but I am clinging to what Rhian said about everything being allowed. I just finished one page that suppose to  show….Well, I am not telling….You decide what you want to see.

While waiting for next lesson I will be cleaning my windows…I think…

So, now I will make art journals? I am not so sure about this…I was never able to draw or paint when growing up. I was one of those ; just sitting still, waiting for the class to end. Now I find my self joining a class at SisTv to learn how to make art journals. But, one of the goals I have set for my self through Kolette Halls class at BPS, is to challenge my self.

I bet BM is remembering the Easter 2004 when we spent a fortune on paint and stuff. We were going to start a new hobby. Good thing we did, because now we can use the paint. I have to admit mine was a little dry. And we did not know that we would be needing something called Gesso. What is that anyway? I did not have time to listen to the whole lesson, so I made a jumpstart and made this.;

OK. I will give you a little help here. It is supposed to tell how I feel today. Well, I am feeling good. Just waiting for the summer to arrive, and in two weeks; I start two weeks of vacation. ……