Paul is very interested in family history.  He loves the hunt for information and the detail-oriented research.  I find long genealogies and genealogical research to be boring and difficult to concentrate on these days.  I'd rather be doing something else...almost anything else! 

But the other day I was in Michael's for a plate stand and happened upon a book called "Family History Scrapbooking" by Becky Higgins, a Mormon lady.  The book piqued my interest because of the simple effective layouts.  I bought it and brought it home.  I've read it from cover to cover in a couple of days...which tells you how good it is. 

After the first ten or so pages I got thinking this is really doable for me!  I found Paul going through it this morning over breakfast.  I suggested this family history thing might work as a retirement hobby if we each just do the parts we're best at.  He can do the research, and I can present the results in a manner similar to Ms. Higgins.  Paul thought that was a great idea!

The beauty of books like Ms. Higgins' is that they act as a jumping off point to creativity.  After realizing all the options available for family history, it occurred to me I could use a similar organizational structure to create art journals about myself and my interests and achievements.  Who says it has to be a scrapbook per se?  Why not an altered book?  Or a fabric book?  So many people in my extended family think I have no life because I do not work outside the home.  I think doing a piece of artwork like that would be cathartic for me, if nothing else.

And speaking of art journals and altered books...I've been watching some "Quilting Arts" DVDs lately..."Exploring Fabric Collage" and
Retro Rags".  I've really enjoyed the explosion of ideas.  "Exploring Fabric Collage" is just phenomenal!  The lady giving the workshop takes a board book and turns it into a totally different creation.  It's gorgeous!  I'm on the hunt for a free or next to free board book to experiment with!

I have also been working on Meghan's boyfriend's quilt.  It's quite time consuming.  Not much she can do to help at this point.  I just have to sew like mad to get the Celtic cross in place on the center piece. 

And of course Ms. Higgins' book has me working on my sister's family photo albums again.  I'm thinking of a way to scan the 12 x 12" pages onto disc before sending it to her.  Our scanner has only a 9 x 14" bed.

So creatively I'm juiced and ready to go! 

Update: It snowed yesterday afternoon, so I did not make stitch-in.  I did, however, find instructions for putting fabric on a scroll frame (or any other type of frame) at Tanya Berlin's home page.  Tanya sells some fascinating kits I'd like to try some day.  Especially her goldwork kits.  Sigh...

Paul and I had to do an errand run...needed medications...picked up some potting soil, a vinegar and oil cruet set, some Corelle fruit nappies (the plain white stuff is on sale at Walmart folks!), and a Leslie Sansone DVD with her 1, 2 and 3 mile walk on it for $18.  It included the hand weights she uses.  I was pretty excited about them.  Paul was laughing at me.  I came home and did her one mile walk.  It seems so easy now, after doing her "Walk and Kick" workout.

I managed to make muffins.  Didn't do the bread.  Didn't make Public Health for the cookbook.  Decided to wait until I talk to my nutritionist about the proposed menu plan I sent her.  That will be another month.  Right now everyone seems to be enjoying the structure of the 4 week menu plan.  I've been surprised by how well Paul and Meghan have taken to it.  All the recipes for supper in a few pages for them to peruse. 

In thinking over my weight loss since Christmas, I must admit to being mystified.  I am eating just as badly, but I have changed the time of day when I eat my big meals.  I am trying the "eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a commoner, and supper like a beggar" approach.  Though I'm not regular about it, I do try to make my main meal before 1 p.m. in the day.  I am also having a healthy snack about 3-4 p.m.  The thing is, I don't think I'm being particularly regular about my exercise.  I am not complaining at all!  Just a bit mystified that the time of day a person eats could have this kind of effect on their weight.  If it's this easy, I'll keep it up! 

My new smart habit I want to develop is to do something creative every day.  Either spend time every day designing something new, or working on creative projects.  I find this difficult to do with the medication, but I'm beginning to think it may be a combination of things.  Using my Litebook has helped a lot this week.  I am thinking a lot clearer, and that helps.  I am also sleeping better. 

Dropping my calcium pills gives me a better quality sleep and better concentration.  Though my doctor surely doesn't want to hear that!  I'm sure they are interacting with my other medication somehow.  I'm going to try and compensate by switching to fortified rice milk and other means of acquiring calcium naturally.

Another thing that helps is to go to a cafe for tea with my idea journal and a magazine like "Quilting Arts" to stimulate my creative juices.  At the cafe I have no distractions and nothing to do but write down or draw design ideas. 

When I don't want to go to the cafe, I will use my afternoon tea break to design and plan new projects.

The goal is to have books of ideas by the end of the year!...And hopefully lots of finished projects.

This past weekend I had a wonderful time learning something new and playing. I attended a Shiva oil stick workshop. We were shown how to use Shiva sticks on various fabrics. Here are some of my samples.

This has three techniques. First I put masking tape down in a pattern and brushed green Shiva stick on. Then I stenciled on the purple Shiva stick. Then I used a metallic powder to superimpose a spiral pattern overtop. It is very funky looking. The fabric all came pre-dyed by the instructor.  This is a piece of cotton.


This was a blue/purple salt dye job. I resurrected it with snowflake stencils. I incorporated blue, silver and white snowflakes. It didn't come alive until the white was added.  This is a very stiff thick piece of Egyptian muslin.


This is actually a piece that didn't work. I was using a template underneath the fabric and rubbing over the top with Shiva sticks. The pattern didn't show through very well, so I did it again. Once in orange and once in brown. It still didn't work. I was going to toss it, but the instructor had given each of us a sheet of freezer paper to play with. So I ended up creating this oak leaf stencil pattern and ironing the freezer paper to the surface of the fabric. Then I stenciled this. The plain one to the left was my practice piece. I was still unhappy with the piece and was going to toss it, but I showed it to some people in a nearby craft store and they had all kinds of ideas for what I could do with it. So I'm keeping it.  This is poly-cotton...I think.


More playing with different templates underneath the fabric. I am thinking that a group of these could make a neat quilt. Instant quilt blocks!  This is cotton.


I really liked the template concept. Here I was playing with a different type of Shiva stick. It's called ColorSticks and is sold as a child's marker. Trust me ladies when I say, you don't want your kids playing with this stuff. It's oil paint in a tube.  This is cotton.


As a break from working with Shiva sticks, the instructor had us do some encaustic work. This is wax crayon melted on tin foil (wrong side up) heated in an electric fry pan on low. I don't really like this technique because the wax makes the fabric so stiff. I'm hoping when I iron it out between parchment paper later this week, it will take the stiffness away.  This is cotton.


This is what happens when you find all the good stencils gone. You make your own. And when you get curious. You use a different fabric - in this case organza. This was a fascinating piece. The instructor laid it over another leaf print on cotton and it looked just lovely. Really added depth.


And this is what happens when you can't sleep at 2 in the morning, and you have drawers of scrapbooking supplies and shiva sticks! I played with some of the rubber stamps I have. I call it "12 Roses for Christ", but view it as a very preliminary piece. I wanted mostly to see how Shiva handled on a fine silk. It's a bit trickier, but doable.


Then I researched Shiva sticks on-line and have come up with a whole bunch of new ideas. One lady makes linocuts and then uses them as a template to rub over. Sounds like a plan to me! I am really excited about the potential in these little babies. I must admit, I've been partial to oil paints all my life. The nice thing about these is they clean up with water and lemon detergent (aka lemon scented Sunlight detergent).