Hike I'm Looking Forward To...A LOT

Planning on doing this walk to Makapu'u Point Lighthouse while on my upcoming Hawaii trip. This is on O'ahu.

Hawaii Art Journal in Progress

My art journal about our upcoming trip is coming right along. I am having a blast creating it. This is the first time I've tried doing something like this.

The first page was staring at me intimidatingly with it's whiteness, so I covered it in a watercolor wash.



Then I made a border of the names of all the volcanic craters that will be very close to where we will sleep: Kilauea crater, Pu'u 'O'o vent, Halema'uma'u crater, Kilauea Iki crater (hope to hike down in that one!), Keanakako'i crater and Lua Manu crater.

I'll be able to write on the inside blank part.



For the next spread (still in progress), I decoupaged on yellow tissue paper and a map of the area around Volcanoes National Park and Volcano Village, where we will be staying. The map shows "Escape Road". To get a fire effect, I painted on acrylic paint and then wiped with a baby wipe.



Tonight I stamped on this quote by Mark Twain. He wrote this about this very volcano, in his "Letters from the Sandwich Islands", and refers to the red glow on the faces of his companions when he turned around to look at them.

"The place below looked like the infernal regions and these men like half-cooled devils just come up on a furlough." - Mark Twain



Last night I stumbled upon an online tutorial on how to make origami flap/envelopes, perfect for art journaling and stowing found "ephemera" on my trip. I folded a couple from photocopies of a map of the Big Island.

Having a grand time and looking forward to my trip.

Sewed My Book

Sewed the paper into my art journal last night. See the purple thread along the spine?

Art Journal

I'm taking an online class on how to make art journals. I'm creating one as a souvenir of an upcoming trip to Hawaii.

First step was picking up a book to alter at Goodwill. I chose this Reader's Digest hardback because I like the cover design.



Then, I ripped out the pages. I know, book heresy! But after all, it's a Reader's Digest.



The spine had Reader's Digest stuff on it, so I needed to cover it.



I chose this bright paper for decoupage...after all, the journal will be about a trip to Hawaii. I added black ribbon to pull it all together.




I like journals with ribbon bookmarks so I glued one in.



Tonight I cut out watercolor paper into "signatures" for the book. Tomorrow I will drill holes in the spine so I can sew in the paper.



I cut the edges of the paper into wave shapes. So far, so good!

Dash Rip Rock!

My very favorite band from college in New Orleans played here tonight...Dash Rip Rock. What a show! I can't remember when I had a better time. My camera obviously was not up to the wall of sound that is Dash Rip Rock. And my family members who read this blog probably wouldn't like Dash...but I loooooove them. Took me right back to my mosh pit days. Mitch enjoyed it too.

In this video, Bill Davis plays the guitar with a beer bottle, another guitar, and a steer's skull.

What's Going On Here

Yesterday Mitch came home from work for lunch and then decided to put a coat of paint on the basement room before going back to work. This will be his music room when it's done. We look forward to using the giant fireplace, with it's 1960's mosaic tile installation above. The fireplace is really huge...could roast a pig in there! The boxes piled by the fireplace is flooring he will put down later.




This morning, I signed up for this online art journal class. I hope to make something nice with all the "ephemera" my mom encouraged me to collect while I was in Italy...ticket stubs, maps, receipts, museum brochures and more.

Jonesing for Hawaii

I'm jonesing for Hawaii like I do every winter. So I made this video of some of my favorite vacation photos over the years. The video is less than 5 minutes and has photos from O'ahu and Maui. Can't wait to be on island once again!