Project Catch Up and Little Primitive Girl {Art Journal}

Since our arrival back in Missouri, my days have been happily filled with holiday preparations (Thanksgiving and Christmas), catching up in scrapbooks and Smash journals, and a few other Christmas crafts. I was excited to learn several days ago that Creative Memories, my go-to company for scrapbook albums, is back in business, and that gave new life to that hobby, for me. I was really in a funk with unsuccessfully trying to find a suitable substitute for their albums. With the news from CM, I ordered new albums and completely revised my two 2014 albums. Yep, that’s how I roll.

I spent many hours on an Advent book (altered children’s board book), but because I was not pleased with what I was getting from that study, I completely repurposed the book using a study that I love (Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift). I’m happy with the outcome and now have an Advent book/art journal that is meaningful for me. I sketched and painted a 2x2 inch tile for each of the 25 days, so that was very time-consuming. Here is my book with yesterday and today’s pages.

Incredibly, I am caught up with all those things (still have a few Christmas menus to finalize), including the gift buying and wrapping. So, today it was time for some mixed media fun. I was beginning to feel like I might not know what to do with a blank page in an art journal.

The little primitive girls that I learned to draw, in Mindy Lacefield’s Sunday Mornings class, have really grown on me. At first I felt they weren’t “cute” enough, but it really is fun to create one of these little girls, without worrying about “realistic” features. Besides, it really is more fun to work with acrylic than with watercolor (for me), and with the Primitive Girls, I can use lots and lots of layers of acrylic paint and stamps.

I did have Christmas on my mind as I painted this spread, although the colors that popped out of my head were certainly not Christmas colors.

So now I’m all ready for my siblings and then my children to come home for Christmas. The three trees are up and decorated, complete with all the wrapped packages.

I am so blessed.

God must be crazy about me.

He really is.