Love & Glitter

In Which Our Heroine Has A Head Cold

So, I'm sick, and it's been raining for over a week now. Reality bites at the moment. First world problems, right? Right, but when you're down with something kind of flu-like, it's been raining for over a week, and one of your kids is in crisis (oh, by the way? One of our kids is in crisis, but I can't talk about it because her story isn't my story to tell.), well, first world problems can feel pretty problematic. Time for a little gratitude, I think, because what better way to get things into perspective than to count your blessings?

1. It's just a really bad chest/head cold. I'll live.
2. The rain will stop eventually.
3. My new project, Real=Beautiful is bringing a lot of goodness into my life.
4. I'm in this fabulous Blog Tour.
5. Mixed Media and Journal Art Boot Camp opens in 10 days. *FLINGS GLITTER*
6. My Tribe is full of gorgeeeeosity. {Got Tribe? Get some!}
7. My puppies (who are fully grown adult dogs, but will always be my babies) are adorable and very warm to cuddle with when I have chills.
8. Whatever crisis a 15 year old is having usually passes like clouds over the sun. (May it be so)
9. I'm getting laid on a regular basis.
10. Grey's Anatomy is back and the first five episodes made me cry. Yes, every damn one of them.
11. I stand in my truth even when it's hard. Hell, especially when it's hard, and that's something to be very, very proud of.
12. I'm doing a special bonus lesson for Lifebook and I'm all excited about it!
13. I have cinnamon raisin rice pudding and lots of Thermaflu.
14. Lotion suffused Kleenex.
15. Inhaled corticosteriods.
16. Good books.
17. I am loved.
18. Goddess Circle keeps me grounded.
19. Observational Journaling is helping me go deep.

I think that about covers it for the moment. Do you make lists like this when you're feeling a little overwhelmed with craptacularosity? I highly recommend it. :) *Pops more Ibuprophen* xo Effy P.S. PUPPIES!

Digital Adventures

[caption id="attachment_1658" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Forget Me Not ~ Samhain inspired digital journal with components by Tangie Baxter"][/caption] Some of you know that before I started art journaling, I tried my hand at digital scrapbooking. While I loved the ease of it ~ no mess, no space required other than my laptop, minimal cost ~ I didn't love the results. It was too 'clean' for me; too perfect. My frustration with the results led me to Milliande and art journaling and the rest is history. Over the year and a half since I began mucking about with paint and gel medium, I have developed a process of art journaling that is rather complex. I start with papers in colours that appeal to me, and then layer and layer and layer until I get to the point. A spread can take hours, and while I'm lucky enough that I can spend hours on an art journal spread, the development of this process has meant that when I think about sitting down to journal, one of the thoughts that immediately pops into my head is "I don't really have time. I have to {insert shit I have to do here} and if I start now I won't be done for hours and well...fuck it." Not exactly fostering a daily practice, am I? *laughs* This weekend, I checked in with Art Journal Caravan ~ a workshop I bought early in the year. It's a year long digital and hybrid journal adventure that includes all sorts of content ~ inspiring featured blogs, challenges, projects ~ and digital kits at a discount to use in your work. While I have found it crazy inspiring, I felt intimidated. I have Photoshop Elements, but I'm not terribly adept with it. I can make a graphic for a website, but the thought of 'arting' with it scared the bejeezus out of me. Until this weekend. I looked at the disaster area that was my deconstructed studio, had that moment of "I wanna but I don't wanna." and decided to try digi-journaling instead. That image above? My first go at it. It took me all of a half an hour. So, I organized my collection of digital scrapbooking and journal supplies, got a feel for what I had, and then played a little more. [caption id="attachment_1659" align="aligncenter" width="595" caption="All components by Tangie Baxter."][/caption] This will never replace my primary practice, which is to sit with paint and papers and inks and stencils and make hot messes of mixed media glory, but it is immensely satisfying as an extension of my practice. Here's why: Playing in Photoshop means unlimited do overs so I feel braver in my experimentations. I am learning more about composition than I ever thought I could learn. I'm learning about what kinds of images really stoke my creative fire. I get inspired by this practice in a new way. Instead of merely looking at beautiful art (a favourite pastime of mine) I am engaging it, moving it around, deconstructing it and then creating something entirely new. I can bring this inspiration to my paint and paper practice and it will inform my style, expand it, and enhance my experience of it. When I don't feel like tackling the whole shebang that is my mixed media supply collection, I can open a program and art my heart out. It is just another form of self-expression to add to my tool box, and that makes me deliriously happy. My new found love for this form of journaling is pushing me to learn new skills and I am always over the moon excited about that. I want to figure out how to create the components to make these kinds of pages so that eventually I can do digital journals that are entirely of my own making from papers I paint and scan to elements I create either on paper or in Photoshop. In the meantime, though, I have a treasure trove of resources to fall back on, the best of which I've found through the inspiring and talented Tangie Baxter. [caption id="attachment_1660" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="All components by Tangie Baxter."][/caption]

For more information on Digital and Hybrid journals, go here. For digital scrapbooking supplies go here, and especially here.

And now I'm off to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. xo Effy P.S. Register for Life Book through this link, email me to let me know, and get a free spot in Elements: Self-Guided!  

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ATC Starter Backgrounds

  ATC Starter Backgrounds Originally uploaded by EffyWild  

I'm working on a series of videos that show you how to make ATC/ACEO starters out of one sheet of 16 x 14 inch watercolour paper. I've got two videos up already and one in the works. I'm absolutely stoked to discover that you guys love these! They're so much fun to make, and soooo easy! Because I love y'all, I'm offering a digital collage sheet of nine of these beauties in PDF format. If you want a copy, all you have to do is email me at effyswild@gmail.com with the subject "ATC Starter", and I'll send it right off to you! You can do anything you want with the digital collage sheet! Use them as backgrounds on ATCs or ACEOs, rip the sheet to pieces and collage your art journal page, use them in other mixed media pursuits - the only thing I ask is that you not include them in a digital collage collection for sale or offer them as your own work! Here are the videos:   PART II Stay Tuned for Part III!

I Love Myself Best...

There's a prompt up at Wild Precious Studio in which I invite my lovelies to build a page around their feelings about self-love. As I added the video and wrote the blurb for the studio, the prompt whispered to me; softly at first, and then a little louder - Effy? You MUST play with me. You MUST! Out came the glitter and paint and gel medium and off I went. Here's the video: The thing about self love is that even thinking about it can set us up for hard times. We try to be self-loving, and then find ourselves thinking things like - I'll feel really good about myself IF I behave in a certain way or WHEN I achieve a certain goal. This might not even be conscious; it might be a message that some critical part of ourselves whispers at us from the vault of our subconscious mind. I have this voice, and it has a history of saying mean things to me when I contemplate self-love, or when I think about self-care and being kind to myself. "Well, aren't you full of yourself?" It sneers. "Who do you think you are? A saint? A GODDESS?" Blah blah blah. I know this voice is self-protective and that it exists for a reason. I love that my internal cast of characters includes such protective parts. But! They haven't yet learned how to work with me, you know? They still gang up on me in their attempts to keep me safe. The public eye, they tell me, isn't safe. Tooting my own horn isn't safe. Telling the world I love myself isn't safe. Because, they say, it puts me out there. It makes me a target for wounded people who can't stand the thought of anyone thinking highly of themselves. And yes, it's true. The wounded people sometimes arrive on cue, and sometimes they say mean things that get my dragon scales all up in a fiery mess of defensive. It's all right, though. It really is. The more you put yourself out there as a self-loving person, the braver you become. Your strength increases and you find yourself feeling more compassion for the wounded than ever before. You know the mean stuff isn't personal, you stop taking it that way, and you give yourself hugs and glitter-filled art journal pages and ice cream cones regardless of what so and so says about it. I love myself best when I consider that I am mostly four years old just doing my best to live in a complicated and scary world. I love myself best when I make an accounting of my failures with compassion instead of derision. I love myself best when I embrace myself as always in process, impossibly flawed, never close to perfect, and blissed out on life anyway. I love myself best when I remember my humanity.