2014 Summary of art - Year in review

I don't think I posted every single picture here that's shown above, since I really didn't get to create much for a couple of months, but here's my 2014 summary of art (based on my Deviantart account) none the less.  :) 

Happy belated 2015! :D

Sketching and doodling

Spent part of my weekend doodling faces while watching Howl's Moving Castle (One of my all time favorite movies that is absolutely brilliant in it's illustration). Great way to spend a weekend, even if I do suck at drawing faces.  ;) 

Welcoming 2015

I always want to create my own printables for calendars, or share a free desktop wallpaper each month, but I never get around to really doing it.  Thankfully there are some awesome people all over the internet who actually have their stuff together and have some great free printable calendars (and other pages) available for us all to enjoy! 

So in today's post, I'm going to share a few of those pages with you guys.  I hope you will also check our their web pages for more awesome things as well.  ;)  Just keep in mind that these are for your personal use only.

Group #1: Mini printable desk/wall calendars

1. Hello, Cuteness! 

Facebook Link
This lovely calendar set is just adorable.  The scenes are so bright and colorful, the characters are all adorable and there is even an added to do list for each month!  The to do list is optional, so if you would prefer the calendar without it, be sure to check for the PDF version available.

Also, be sure to check out the Free Printables pages for more cute pages to download!  





 2. Capturing Joy with Kristen Duke
If you love lettering and typography, you're sure to enjoy these adorable monthly calendars created by Dawn Warnaar / Nicole.  The designs are whimsical and colorful.  The edges are also colored so they give a nice pop to where ever they call home on your desk or workspace.

She also has other free printables available, so be sure to check those out as well!  Even more are also available at Capturing Joy with Kristen Duke.  Both sites have plenty of great DIY projects as well, so be sure to check those out, too!



3. Mein Lila Park
Okay, I got lazy here, as Mein Lila Park isn't actually the one making all of these calendars (I think she does offer two designs of her own), but she's done a ton of legwork and found over 20 free mini printable calendars that all look pretty awesome!  Some are more focused on actually keeping up with a monthly plan and some are just basic desktop calendars. Either way, there is a ton of places to visit to see if any of them are something you would enjoy. 

4. Mockeri
These are going to be released monthly, so it will take a bit of legwork on your part if you want to keep up with the designs for your use, but if you want something simple and sweet, these might just be what you're looking for.  Don't forget to check out the rest of her page for more free printables, too!

5. Design Corral
These simple calendars from Design Corral are for those who prefer simplicity while keeping up with their days.  The lettering is gorgeous on these little calendars and they're sure to add a touch of sophistication to any desk they adorn.  There are more free printables on their site as well, so be sure to check those out!














6. Nalle's House
These are also simple designed calendars that get a bit of enhancement from some sweet pattern designs.  I love the way she mounted them onto a large wooden tag cutout, however they would be just as lovely anywhere they sit.  If the patterns are a little too much for you, you could even add some pictures over them to make them a little bit more personal.  Overall the designs have a very calming feel and are sure to make your desk or wall look very organized. 











Group #2: Printable planner sheets
While I have opted to buy a pre made planner this year (which I will hopefully share more about in some future posts), I thought some people might prefer to print their own, as I am often tempted to do.  Most planners do not meet my needs very well these days so finding one that suits me has been a bit of a hassle.  And with some being so expensive it makes it hard to decide which one to pick, especially if it's just going to end up by the wayside in a couple of months.  So, here are some lovely places where you can find some really cute planner printouts if you're like me and hoping to make 2015 a year of organization. 





7. The Handmade Home
I love it when planner pages are colorful and bright and full of places for me to sort out my life.  This planner looks to offer all of that and more.  I absolutely love the simple design of the pages (which remind me greatly of the beautiful Erin Condren planners I keep seeing everywhere) and the color coordinated color scheme.  I could easily see myself using this just to enjoy the colorful pages! ( I know this is also listed on Mein Lilla Park's list above but I couldn't help adding it in here.) 










8. Gluesticks
Brandy over at Gluesticks also offers a very colorful planner.  While those at the Handmade Home seem somewhat muted and dark, Brandy's are very vibrant and displayed a bit more thickly across the pages.  Each layout is boxed in lovely shades of coordinating colors and she even has beautiful additional pages, for various information, all of which are also steeped in beautiful coordinating colors and designs. 









9. Botanical Paper Works 
 If you're looking for just a basic weekly template to keep up with appointments, you might enjoy these lovely horizontal and vertical designs from Botanical Paper Works.  They're extremely colorful and there's a good bit of room to write in notes each day to help you stay on task.  If you have a pretty simple schedule each week or would like a small visual calendar to go with your phone calendar perhaps, this seems to be the perfect calendar to keep everything synced up. 












10. Misstiina
For my last source on this freebie list, is a site full of beautiful free printables. There are blank planner pages, calendar pages, scrapbook page printables, bookmarks, labels, simply all sorts of beautiful, colorful free printable items.  You can see the planner printables here or all the printabls available here. 

I hope you have enjoyed these links and find some of them useful in your 2015 organization and planning.  Thanks for stopping by!  If you have any of your favorite printables (that you created yourself or someone's you like to use) feel free to leave them in the comments!  I would definitely love to add them here, or do a second post with of your all's favorites!  :)

These posts have not been sponsored by any of these sites, they are just the ones I liked the most that I came across online.  All images and information is copyright to their respective owners.

*I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors.  If you spot any, please let me know about them in the comments.  Thank you! 

Happy belated New Year!

Happy belated new year!  Sorry everything has been so quiet around here the last month or so.  I had so much to do over the Christmas / New year holidays that I just basically went offline for the end of November until this past Monday.  I have barely even had time to create anything during that time either.  :/  I snagged these from one of my other social media feeds so I apologize if anything is a reshare.  And some may not make a whole lot of sense, but more then anything it will give you an idea of what I've been up to really and what may be something I'll share more about in the future.  ;)


One thing I will talk about is a new project I've decided to start this year.  All of last year I kept seeing people post their Project Life or Documented Life pages.  You may remember me mentioning them even.  If you haven't already heard about these, I'll explain them briefly.  Both are mostly just different ways of keeping track of your life and what is going on in it.  Project Life is more like a pre-designed scrapbook with slotted pages for adorable scrapbook page inserts/pictures where as the Documented Life Project is about keeping a sort of planner that combines your artistic talents, whatever they may be.  I've been wanting to do something similar that's a bit more personal.  I started doing a daily post it note project which I still have going on, but it's not quite fulfilling the cravings I have for something to do daily.  So I took one of the K&C Co. Smash books I got for Christmas and have transformed it into a sort of art journal smashbook diary.  If you've seen these around already, you know that they contain tons of awesome pages that let you smash in whatever you want, however you want.  Sadly mine is the older kind with the spiral bound core, although the new ones look to be a 3 ring binder, so that you can easily add, delete, or rearrange pages.  You can honestly even make something like this yourself if you wanted, but I like the pages used in the books so I decided to use it instead this round.  However, as I am documenting my life every day in this book, this one will only get me to March 1st, so I will be able to decide to do something different by then.

The fun thing about this project is that it is letting me be creative everyday while also looking at my life in review and appreciating it while documenting the parts I want to remember.  So far it's been a great daily project.  I started altering the pages the week after Christmas and got pretty far, since I wasn't sure how much time I would have once I started back to work and on other projects, but so far I don't think it would take much to create a daily page from scratch.  I keep my pages pretty simple, hiding anything I don't care for and putting things where and how I like.  Usually I'm just adding space to write on, since some of the pages are filled with large photos or designs, but I have added in some small decorative things where I want to break out the page and just add in some cuteness.

While most of the pages are going to end up as fairly personal, it's probably not likely I will share many of the finished ones.  However I do hope to share some of them before I start journaling on them.  (I simply hand journal on them so far in my scribbly hand writing, sometimes in one big space or some times I will break it up and write sideaways or something.  Either way that's about all I do so far on the pages I have already gotten ready.)

 I will try to post some more pictures and tips/tutorials/etc. on this project later for anyone wishing to do something similar.  

I hope you all had a great holiday and enjoy the silly things I've been up to.  Hopefully I will have more to share with you all again soon!  

Winter is coming...

As much as I hate to admit it, winter is not only coming, but actually here.  :S  I used to love this time of the year, with all of it's snow and gift giving and outpouring of general love and awesomeness, something happened at some point in my life that has turned me against it. 

I'm not even sure why, but now I have such a hard time with the winter months.  My body doesn't seem to like it anymore either.  My hands get very dry and achey, I'm always tired and I pretty much as frozen solid the entire time.

But I keep trying to remember that this is a good time of the year and that I have lots and lots of stuff to be thankful for.  I'm trying to stay inspired and it seems so far that lots of color and painting anything I can get my hands on helps.  ;)  Here's a page from my art journal and a little daily post it doodle to try to stay creative so far. 

And a little digital something since it's been a month that I've shared anything digitally related. :O  Hope you enjoy! :D

Playing catch up

Sorry I've been neglecting my blog for the last few weeks.  I have an easier time sharing things to facebook and instagram because I can just snap a picture on my phone and upload them right away.  I've seen bad reviews for the blogger app but I haven't tried it out yet to easily share stuff here.  However, if anyone knows how well it actually works, I'd love to hear their thoughts.  

Anywho, here's a few things I've been working on.  I finally finished the Jack the Kitten is Very Sleepy pages and sent them off so they can be printed, so that's one project off my list, but I can't really share all those pages with you (I may share some later after I find out which ones are okay to share), and I've been working on another project that I can't share the pictures of for some time, so I have been very busy, just not with anything much I can show you all yet, thus resulting in my long overdue neglect here.  :/

I have been having a lot of fun with my mixed media pages.  I normally jump into them on the weekends, since they end up making a pretty big mess, so I don't often have much to share on those either, but here's a few I've been working on that I really like.   

 

  I also tried my hand at painting another Iphone case.  I don't see that I shared the first one I made here, but you can find it on my DeviantArt page.  The first one was a bit...busy and overpowering.  I like the background but don't care for the lettering I added.  This time I decided to make it a bit more simple and I think it came out much better.  I actually really love it, even though there's a couple of things I don't like about it.  The first is the sealant I used on it is not that great, not for this type of project at least, as it still has a bit of a sticky feel to it?  Just a slight one.  I've used it for a bit though and it's held up nicely regardless, even with the hand made heart sticker I added as well.  The second problem I've had is from the case itself simply being too hard to get off of my phone when I want to switch it out.  I bought it at the dollar tree, so it was well worth it really for that price, but I would still like to find a way to fix both of those issues with it.  Regardless, I really like how it turned out and will definitely keep switching out with it when I feel the need to carry something a bit more colorful.  

     Lastly, I know I'm a bit late in posting this, but here it is nonetheless.   A little Halloween doodle for your viewing pleasure.  ;) 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed the view.  ;)

Some mixed media and shopping.

 

 

 

Took the weekend off to have some fun and ended up creating a ton of mixed media / random stuff.  Better yet, I got to use up some of the supplies I've been hanging on to for ages, unsure of what to do with it.

Additionally, I also got to go out on one of those rare day trips to some of my favorite stores (Michaels, TJMaxx) and found some of the cutest stuff! 

 Like this cute little birthday mustache card accent from Recollections. (At Michaels)

 

 Then I got to have brunch at CrackerBarrel, where I found all these cute little plushies as well as some fun Halloween and Christmas decorations on display. 

 

 I may have to go back for that spider and octopus, but for the time being I ended up splurging on just a few small things at Michaels and TJ Maxx, particularly these awesome Heidi Swapp Color Shine sprays.

Daily Post it Note Doodles Project

  I've been meaning to share this for some time.  But I keep putting it off.  It's a bit of a personal project, but it's one I think might be able to help other people like me, who feel uncreative or simply struggle with the stress and guilt of being unable to be creative every day. 

  On March 31st of this year, I decided to start doing a daily project.  I've been seeing all sorts of people creating something everday, whether it's a photograph or some elaborate drawing, or simply a different type of monster.  People all over have been doing something every day to stay creative and I finally decided it was time for me to try it out for myself.  But the question was, what's the best way for me to be continuously creative every day?  If you know me, you know I'm a bit of a gypsy when it comes to my creativity.  I move from one thing to another, usually day by day or week by week, occasionally month by month.  I have a hard time sticking to one thing and one thing only, and when I do, I get burnt out very quickly.  So I knew that whatever I was going to do every day, it needed to somehow be consistant, but offer me a way to be creative through multiple mediums/themes/etc. 

  One of my very favorite things are post it notes.  I love them, in all their shapes and colors and varieties (in which there are many).  I use them every day, many many times a day.  So, I decided that they would be my means of creativity.  They're the perfect solution to serve as my canvas so that I could create different things on them, depending on my mood. 

  I have also been striving (struggling) to keep a physical planner every day so that I can try to be better organized.  Since my schedule is usually the same with very few actual appointments to keep up with, I have very little reason to keep up with a planner, honestly.  But I really love having it, so I'm still working on how to fit it better into my life to keep certain aspects more organized.  Regardless of that, it has served as a great reminder to keep up with my daily doodle.  I started adding a small note with a little box at the top of each day that I will check once I have done my daily doodle.  In the beginning, this was a great help to remind me to keep up with it, but now I've made it into a pretty good habit and usually remember to do one everyday on my own.  However I do also keep post it notes in my planner on days that I may accidentally forget. 

   You can see below that most of my doodles so far have been on traditional sized, 3x3 post it notes in various colors.  I have better daily access to those and they're the perfect size for whatever it is I want to do for that day.  And they're usually pretty inexpensive, which is always a plus when it comes to knowing you're going to need about 365 of them. 

  My ideas and inspiration usually vary and are a great reflection of what I'm currently working on in my spare time, which has been doodled lettering for awhile.   Some have more abstract doodles or designs, and yet I've found that more often then not, my doodles contain mere sentences, much like a diary or a journal.  (Which I have not shared here because they are usually pretty personal, obviously.)

   Overall it has been a great daily project that's easiest enough for me to keep up with and yet fulfilling enough for me to feel a little creative (or thoughtful) every day.  I keep them in a graph composition book, just because I had an extra one on hand.  I can usually fit six 3x3 post it notes on each page so that each layout is about two weeks worth of post its.  

 

  If you're thinking about taking on a daily project and some are just too daunting, even though you love them (such as the documented life project), then it might be a good idea to do something small like post it notes instead.  Or the daily paper / index card project that I just learned about.  (I prefer post it notes because I can stick them anywhere I want and the pages don't get too bulky.)  Unlike some projects online, I usually just go with whatever ideas are in my head or whatever things I feel inclined to do rather then following a list set up to use.  I'm hoping this will help spark my own imagination as I keep going as I tend to struggle with coming up with ideas on my own at times. 

  The best thing I've found about doing this though isn't that I've gotten any great ideas (so far) or that it's improved my skills, it's the fact that I feel better about myself.  Even if what I make is terrible, I have a tangible creation that I can look back on when I'm feeling uncreative and uninspired.  I know that I can make something, even if it's ugly.  Even if it's terrible.  No one has to see it.  No one even has to know I made it or what any of it means.  It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to look pretty, it doesn't have to do anything.  And it's one of the perfect ways I've found to stay creative and to just be more free with my art. 

   I know there are tons of other daily post it note projects and that my idea to use them isn't the first, nor will it be the last, but it has been a perfect solution for me so far.  Also, you'll probably notice some dates jump around and seem to be missing.  I have decided I only want to do this during the week, Monday through Friday, so weekends are for me to actually be more hands on with my creativity.  If you decide to take on a project like this, remember to make it work best for you.  Don't let yourself feel guilty for making the project your own. 

  Feel free to post your links and ideas in the comment section below on how you stay creative, everyday or just in general.  I'd love to hear them!

(Disclaimer: This project was not sponsored by any post it note companies.  I used several types, both name brands and generic.)