Art Junk Girl~

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!, originally uploaded by artjunkgirl.

I made this quiltie a few years back. This is a picture of my mom at her sewing machine at a very young age. She is in Greece right now and I miss her! Happy Mother's Day to all Mother's around the world!
xo Lia

Christmas '07

Christmas '07, originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

Dear Friends...

My taskmaster side, aka Order-lia has emerged & had me workin' on the house cleaning this last week. I have almost officially moved my art junk down to the basement and we are breathing easier on the first floor. My big kids are comin' home, so you know what that means...FOOD FEST. Yes, I need to get to the grocery store as well.... Anyhoo, I've been fitting in artin' and craftin' here and there and I will post more photos soon. I'm working on a set of Christmas Inchies. Hope you all are doing well and I'll be back with more as soon as Orderlia let's up on me a bit...xoxo lia

Happy 4th of July!

"If I had wings like a beautiful dove..."
Originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

xo Lia

Holiday Weekend

Wow, it's been nice having this weekend to relax. Hope you all have a great week. Sit back, relax and enjoy the slideshow, learned to do this while perusing blogs this weekend! I love technology! :) I'll be back soon! xo L.

Happy Easter from Artjunkgirl!

Have a beautiful day Friends! xo Lia (from my art journal)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dear Friends~Hope you are having a good day. We are having an ice storm right now. yikes. I'm suprised that power and everything is all up and running. Speaking of running, I'm going to have kids running all over the house today with schools closed. So, hope you have a great Valentine's Day with your loved ones and be good to yourself too! Oh, I found a cool collage craft on a blog this morning that I want to do for my hubby. Hey, it's not late yet. I'll work on this for him today as well as find some heart crafts for the kids to do. I always find great things here for them and recently found this site with a great heart craft as well. That's it for me for now. Peace out, square on. xo Lia

p.s. ...you may also make some heart-themed squares...

my "un" resolutions....

It's day 4 of the new year and I cannot seem to get back into my groove, routine, whatever you call it. I am one of those people who has to ask "what day is it now?" when the kids are on break because I completely lose my bearings when thrown out of my 'normal' routine. I thought that a good, realistic, motivating list of new years resolutions would get me back on track again. Then, I thought, I'm 40 plus two years old, I've made all these resolutions before, and it's getting kind of old putting them back on the list. So, aside from having a detailed list of my creative aspirations for 2007, I decided to be un-resoluted this year with my previous year's resolutions.

1. I will (not) stop procrastinating. Even though I have no idea how to make a blog banner, I will spend numerous hours avoiding housework so I can learn how to make one that I will, um, change by next week. How could I have ever thought that procrastination was a bad thing. Procrastination is my friend. Procrastination has gotten me a new haircut when I didn't have time. Procrastination has helped me learn new things I have absolutely NO USE for but had a lot of fun learning. Procrastination has given me lots of things to think about, daydream about. Procrastination is actually very inventive and comes up with all kinds of ideas of what you can do. After all, instead of doing the dishes, procrastination has me cleaning all the cabinet surfaces, in heavy detail, because it really needs it right now. I wouldn't know what to do with myself without all of procrastinations great diversions. So, procrastination, you can stay this year. We'll have fun. We'll read really cool blogs together and look at pretty pictures on flickr of what our studio COULD look like, later.

2. I will (not) lose weight. No, I am done paying people to weigh me. I will just use the money to buy something for myself, like a new bubble bath or book (not a new diet book), or a manicure, or my, um, retirement. Goodbye little weigh-in passport, I know how much I weigh, I know I can lose it without waiting in line/paying for right scale and nicer weigher-inner lady that say's: "great! you lost .0000007th of an ounce this week!!!"

3. I will (not) stop buying magazines. I love them. I deserve a little fun. They give me inspiration, joy, and I love to look at pretty colors and neat houses. Magazines give me some"me time", "I don't have a care in the world" kind of escape for me. They are portable and very useful when waiting in traffic or carpool lines.

4. I will (not) get totally organized. I would not have anything to avoid doing then. I would have to stop buying magazines that say "get organized in 5 minutes" and that would violate my 3rd un-resolution.

Ok, so, that's my list. Now off I go to clean up so I can procrastinate some more. I have more to tell you, but I'll do it later...

xxoo Lia

Happy New Year!!!

"Tea Time" by artjunkgrl
Originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

Happy 2007!!!!

Wishing you a happy and healthy year. I hope to catch up with you all during my tea time tomorrow! Woo, it's been a whirlwind! Looking forward to another great year of blogging friends and fun!
xxoo Lia

Merry Christmas from Art Junk~~!!

Dear Friends (All 19, I stand corrected!)--- There are people in my house right now and they are calling me, "MOM". They want food, shelter, clothing and presents. They want to make cookies and I'm out of sprinkles. except the chocolate one's. they told me that doesn't work for christmas. too bad I can't paint the sprinkles. Guess that means I may not be blogging so much for the next few days. you will have a break from listening to me nag you about making squares. but it won't be for long. so unless you unsubscribe and all the people keeping track tell me, I will hunt you down and still bug you about making squares. there is no safe place for you. just kidding. have a great holiday break and I will be checkin' in from time to time to make sure someone is convinced they have to start making squares. Happy square-days. xxoo Lia

"better not pout" ornament

"better not pout" ornament (1" square collage in middle)
Originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

Here's an idea for using those 1" squares. Have I convinced you to try them yet? There are really infinite possibilities! I'm going to make a few more of these and then go finish putting phrases on some of the 1" collage babies I made last nite.
My "studio" is freezing right now as it is next to the garage. I put a space heater in there today because I've been wanting to work on some larger projects and have been avoiding the cold room. I'm such a baby when it comes to being cold. I hate bundling up alot so that doesn't help! It's kinda hard to do art with a long sleeve wooly sweater on....But anyhoo, off I go, I gotta get some house stuff done today and then errands. Wish I could just do art stuff all day but then we have to eat...I haven't figured out a way around that neverending chore.....
xxoo Lia

More Christmas decor...

I took the pine cones from "harvest theme" out of this vase and put in these vintage bulbs. I also have some bells lining the bottom to kinda give them a base. I had some in silver and blue, leftover from last year. My mantel is now decorated, I really liked how this turned out! It was so neat to use these bulbs for something too because they are very old and do not go with my tree this year. It was a fun little project. I also put up pink candle on the mantle sconces to match with the whole cottage christmas theme there. I'm sure I will hear about that from the hubby soon. lol. Now I gotta get these boxes put away!

Christmas Spirit in my little 1" corner of the world....

I am still in love with the 1" square in case anyone is wondering. :) But my enthusiasm with this little square project has spilled over to many other aspects of my life. For one, I'm just so excited about the Christmas Season this year....Decorating my home for the holidays has helped me focus on clearing out the old and bringing in the new. It's given me time to sift through some things, rearrange, rework, renew, and reorganize. My Mom is visiting with my sister right now, and although I miss her, I must say that it's opened up alot of time for me to indulge in the holiday spirit. I say indulge because it is an indulgence. I'm so thankful for all that I have and the time to do things I love. It hasn't always been that way for me, but I will not focus on that, I am looking forward to bringing in the new day! I have been busy these last few days and as usual have a lot of little "works in progress". It's all going to pull itself together soon, bit by bit, just like my little squares. Alot of people often remark that they think I do alot of art. well, it's true I get to make things alot because I love to, because I have to, but also know that it is not done in a day. It's all about that inch...inch by inch, everything's a cinch! I've been working on more squares. I sit and do them at night before going to bed. I collect all my things I want for them in a box and often work at a tray table near the tv or even upstairs in my room. I try to do 6 or so a night. Last night I used 2 of them on some square ornaments I'm making. They are not done yet, but this is the idea I got the idea when I made this bird ornament at the top of this post, to use on a wreath that I'm "re-decorating" with a bird house theme. We do finally have our tree up and decorated, so I am excited about that. Yesterday, I was out for most of the day taking care of errands and other "junk" so today I plan to hunker down before the kids get home and finish decorating, plus work on finishing some of these little wip's. The mantle is next on the list. I may get to that before the wreaths, that is if I don't browse around blogville and look at all the eye candy first....Have a great day all! Oh, and I haven't forgotten the drawing, that's also a "wip", but it will be announced by Friday! Wishing you a creative and beautiful day! xxoo Lia

Happy Thanksgiving from My Home to Yours!

To my Friends and Family~
I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my friends, my family and I'm not gonna lie: great thanksgiving FOOD! I will miss my Daddy tomorrow as he always loved the pie. I made 3 for him one year and I still remember him laughing heartily and saying, "Oh BOY, I can't wait to have some puuuumkin pie!". He was the sweetest man ever!
On another note, I want to share that I found this awesome link for thanksgiving placecard templates and many more crafty links there as well. My kids always love to make name plates so I am printing these out today. I am looking forward to relaxing with family, preparing some good pies and of course, squeezing in some art time!
~Lia