DLP Week 18

Not only is it May, but May is almost over!  One of the things I started doing in my Documented Life journal after the first couple of months is to make my own calendar for each month. 

The theme for May is Touchy Feely (Texture).  The challenge for the first week was Fabric.  So I decided to make a fabric calendar for May.

One of my goals at the first of the year was to use things that I've been saving (sounds better than hoarding!)  I used a piece of fabric that I painted years ago in a workshop with Sherrill Kahn.  I sometimes get those fabrics out and enjoy them, thinking I'll make a book from them.  But since I haven't done that, this is a good place to use some of this fabric!.

I sewed the fabric to lightweight cardstock so it would be easier to glue to the page.  I messed up stamping the numbers, but my attitude lately is just keep moving, go forward, don't look back!

I picked a fabric that did not have a lot of busy elements on it, so the numbers of the month wouldn't get lost.

Since I was behind on May's assignments, I already knew the challenge for the next week was Stitching.  So I took another piece of painted fabric, wrapped it around the edge of the page, and sewed it in place.  Note:  I have sewn on book pages before.  It's a challenge to be sure.  But this large hard back journal fought me all the way!  Hence the haphazard all-over-the-place stitching!  Move on, don't look back...

At that point, I had not decided what else I was going to put on the page on the right, but knew I wanted to letter on fabric.  When I decided how to bring all that into play, I kind of wished I had not sewn that fabric to the right side of the page, makes it pretty busy overall. 

First, I took a piece of lightweight cardstock and wrote on it sideways with two watercolor pencils.  It was random, stream of consciousness writing, about the fabric of my life, my life in general, where it might be going, etc.  Then I brushed the writing with water to blend the watercolor.  When that was dry, I sewed strips of batik fabric along with my lettered and stamped fabrics, plus a girl from a napkin. 

The last thing I did was lift up the fabric of the calendar page and jot some notes about my technique for the page.  Done and done.  Move on... I like the texture theme this month.  Lots of ideas in my head!

Cry Me a River

I'm still here.  I have been so stuck on these owls!  And stuck in my DLP journal for week 15.  But the Journal Prompt for week 15 was "cry me a river"... so that worked into my frustration at how things didn't go as planned for my page!  Moving on, turning the page (literally!!). 

I still have weeks 16 and 17 to do with the April theme of inks and paints, but I need to feel like I'm making progress.  I am already playing with ideas for May, texture, fabrics, stitching.....