Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you ever have times when you're talking to someone and BAM!!! a word escapes you?  You know the word.  If you've said the word once, you've said it a bajillion times!  Am I right?  But not this time.  You can almost hear it...almost see it...feel it dancing around in your mouth dodging your tongue, but it just won't come out!  That was my problem.  I knew the word I wanted to use for my one "word" for the year...but it just wouldn't come out...and no matter what word I tried, they weren't working for me.  Hell, I even pulled out the kids' thesaurus, hoping for some help from there, but NOPE!  So I settled for a word and let it go. Sort of.

As usually happens (for me, at least), once I let it go for a while, when I come back to worrying at it, it pops up...and so here I was last night, doing some journaling, writing about my "goals" and how I refuse to call them resolutions.  See, to me, a resolution is an unswerving promise...a steadfast guarantee to do something.  The problem with that is, we're human!  And because we're human, we are perfectly imperfect.  So, for me, a resolution is like setting myself up to fail!!  I mean, I've been making resolutions for a long time, and I have YET to make any of them actually stick!  But goals?  Damn!  I accomplish goals all the time!  So I'm thinking about my goals for this year, wondering if I'm overthinking them, and how I want to strive to accomplish these goals that I'm considering for myself.  Then it hits me!  Like a damn ton of bricks!!!  STRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am going to STRIVE to reach the goals I've set for myself.  And I knew, right then, that I'd FINALLY found my word for the year.

Of course, because I'd already "settled" on the other word, I did my spread and had it all ready to go.  Didn't matter!  Now that I had my word, a word that excited me...that made my whole body resonate with "rightness", I knew I had to do a new spread.  It didn't all fall into place like some of my past ones have, but I had my goals and my WORD and I knew that my word would help me figure out the rest!

And so, being the over-achiever I sometimes can be, I'd been watching videos while writing, and so I started pulling shit out of everywhere...pages from books, glue, paint...Oh, yeah...I went nuts!  The only problem is...I forgot to photograph my process...so I will tell y'all what I did, and save the pictures for the end of the post...heheheheheheh.

Supplies I used...

Book pages, music, ledger sheets, old invoices

Glue stick,

Paint!  (magenta, Caribbean blue - craft acrylics)

Green Gold and Quinacridone/nickel azo gold fluid acrylics

white gesso

Liquitex Basics acrylics in Titanium white

card stock,

some plastic canvas, 

Uni-ball white Signo, Unibal black signo 207

some quotes I found on Pinterest,

a journaling card from a private swap on AMG

some washi tape

and acrylic inks in Pearlescent black, pearl white, and snowfall magenta

So!  I started by tearing my papers into pieces and gluing them down all over the paper to create the base for my 2 page spread.

Once I had them down, and most of the pages covered, I pulled out some gesso and slapped that shit down over all the papers I'd just glued down.  NOT TOO MUCH!!!!  I didn't want to hide too much of all the text and other fun stuff I'd glued down...but I wanted to make sure that my paint wouldn't just soak into some of those papers!

Next I grabbed the craft acrylics and the greengold fluid acrylic and went to town...I watered it down and started smearing color all over the page...and when it was almost dry, I grabbed the gold and made little splotches and marks using my finger!

Once everything was dry, I grabbed the white and watered it down and did a sort of wash, all over the top of those awesome, bright colors...I didn't want them to be completely faded, but I didn't want them to be the only thing you saw, either.  Then, still using the white, but NOT watered down, I smeared some here and there, just willy-nilly, no rhyme or reason to it...I guess that you'd say I was working "intuitively"  

Once all that was dry, I glued down my image from Pinterest, , and taped in my journaling card using the washi tape.

Then, using the plastic canvas, I grabbed a black ink pad and stamped here and there all over, then drew some little different things here and there all over as well.

While that was drying, I pulled out my pen and my cardstock and did the letters for my word....then glued them in.

My goals are actually on the BACK of my journaling card...sorry, but they're mine and I'm not sharing...then I went back and did some more lettering and doodling.

Then I threw down some acrylic inks, flicking them at the pages before I went back to pinterest for some of my most favorite quotes....

A few more marks here and there...again, there was really no rhyme or reason to how I was going at it, I just kept going until it was "finished"!!!

Which is how we come to this!

A full shot of the entire spread open and complete.

This is the left page of the spread...as you can see, I did "KINDA" share some of my goals...just not the really personal ones.

And this is the right side of the spread...LOVE that journaling card, and my goals are on the backside, hidden from view unless you lift/open it.

I'm sorry I don't have pics of the process, but I was in such a creative frenzy I honestly didn't even THINK about pictures until I picked up my phone to snap a few....that was when I remembered I hadn't taken any.  Please forgive me, but I'm still not quite used to the idea that somebody might actually look to me to help them learn something about this stuff!  For me, it's as necessary as breathing, but others don't see what the big deal is.

So there you have it!  My word for the year is STRIVE and the spread is complete albeit without progressive photos...I hope you found this post helpful and informative, and I hope your New Year is filled with love, kindness and a windfall of your favorite art supplies!

Later, y'all!!!!