Rebecca Sower

long live love

I was looking back through some of my old lettering files (and by files I mean the ones in a drawer in a manilla folder, those kind of files) from way back when I designed products for scrapbooking.  And found these rub-ons circa 2005 maybe?

From all those pages of hand-drawn alphas, I put together a little love note for you.  Click on the image below for a full-size version that you can print and make a project with me...

Decide what paper you want to print on.  I wanted old ledger paper so I glue-sticked some onto printer paper and fed it through my printer like so...

Next you can machine-stitch around it...

Add a little color with colored pencils...

Add any stickers, stamps, little photos, etc. that you'd like to embellish...

Cut around perimeter where you see fit and adhere to some kind of hard backing.  I used lowly cardboard...

Punch holes and tie a ribbon.  Then I dressed it up a little more with a scrap of fabric and a couple of stitched felt hearts.  You do as you like of course...

Step back and say 'ta da!'.

Long live love!

 

my 2013 planner

Now that we're toward the end of January, I finally finished my 2013 day planner.  If you're one who loves keeping track of yourself on your phone/ipad/computer you won't be very interested in this post.  I wish I could do that.  I've bought at least three apps, downloaded programs, etc.  And gave up.  So maybe I'm just so very old-school handmade everything that I have to keep track of myself with something like this planner.  Anyway, here's a little more info on how it all came together...

I sewed the cover pretty much the same as I do for my art quilt journals, using the free-motion stitching on my machine for the title...

On the inside front and back covers I stitched little pockets to hold my cards and pens and such...

I laminated a copy of the 2013 year calendar and put that in the front.  On the back are a listing of the 2013 holidays...

For the dividers, I cut some pretty scrapbooking papers, strengthened the hole side with fancy clear tape and stitched on some month tabs that I printed out on the computer...

Next (and I'm really liking this) I made a sort of bookmark where I will keep a master to-do list in pencil.  I'll move it through the calendar as the days go by, erasing and adding to it as time goes...

For the actual weeks I created a page for each week of the year on the computer.  This is where I'll keep track of specific things needing to be done on certain days, appointments, the usual calender stuff, with some random notes and such.  On the top, I've left blanks where I'll plan out my blog posts, keep notes, sketch ideas, whatever...

That's about it!  Here are a some details and couple more photos...

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The goal is to spend a few minutes each morning with my day planner, updating, filling in, dressing up...just playing around and tweaking it, with the overall dream of taking better care of my time.

 

 

oh where have all the good men gone?

designs from a decade ago...

You know I love textiles and stitching.  Always will.  For those of you who may not know, however, my love for all things paper and journaling and scrapbooking used to be huge.  I have stacks and stacks of page layouts from back in the day (it all started here I think).  Haven't even looked at them in many a moon.

Hanging out with Pam last week and seeing her art journals again ignited a desire in me to get back to journaling and creating with paper and paint.  And something in our conversations and introspections made me want to come home and dust off those old albums for another look...

And you know how these things go...I spent most of the morning flipping through all my old scrapbooks, laughing, remembering, cringing.  But I also found myself saying 'hey i kinda like that!'.  Then realized I want to give it another go maybe.  Not to scrapbook like this, but to feel the feeling that playing with paper and scissors brings.  To write sappy things to my children even though they're long past little.

I don't know how this will all come together.  Don't even know if I'll be bold and transparent enough to show you here.  But I need a diversion.  Now's a good time (there's my word!).

art & craft & beauty & friendships

Coming home feels like everything that is familiar and good.  I sink back into where I am most loved and comfortable.

But boy-oh-boy was my experience at French General rewarding and full of art and precious people. 

The store itself was the visual masterpiece I always knew would come from Kaari's hands.  Texture and layers and colors and beauty abound.

The students?  Not students at all, but artists and friends.  The kind you want to gather around your table and talk and craft with.  And that's pretty much what we did.  Love you girls, each one.  I was the lucky one who got to walk around and peek over shoulders, where I saw work like this...

Lovely right?

Not surprisingly, I came home inspired and creatively full.  Just the way I like it.

Love to each of you.  Take a moment to notice beauty where you missed it before.

2013: the year of Time

At the beginning of each year, I think long about a word (a concept?) to focus and give attention to.  For 2013, my word is ‘Time’.

I think what I’d like to make happen is a shift in my attitude toward this gift we call Time…

• Time is an investment, not something to be conquered or even caught up with.
• My time is not more valuable than any other person’s, so my focus on others’ time is important.
• Although becoming more efficient isn’t a bad goal, it’s not my main one.  Checking off more tasks on my to-do list isn’t my goal.  Likely I’ll spend a little time deciding which items can be erased from that list.  Be more effective and less productive might be a good way to say it?
• The rushed-ness of life stresses me out.  I end up a frazzled and ineffective mess when I’m doing nothing more than putting out the fire that’s right in front of me.  In that way I do need to practice more ‘time management’ skills.  Note to self…most things can wait!
• So on the days that I am less stressed, my creativity kicks in and I am more artistically effective (isn’t it fun how that works?)
• Which leads me to another focus for this year…create.  I’m getting too old to keep telling myself that I’ll do everything else first and do my art with the leftover scraps of the day.
• If I allow myself to be the creative soul God meant me to be, I can give a better version of myself to my family and to others.
• I could keep going, but enough already...

And so Time is the key…being aware of it, wrapping it warm around me and savoring it, giving it away (almost always a good idea), and protecting it when I need to.

(and hopefully spending a little more time updating my blog friends, right? :)

May each moment of your 2013 be everything it is meant to be for you and yours.