I think I am finally migrating my love of mixed media and art-life journaling into my digital just the way I want it to look.  It’s taken me a long time to hone in my particular style into the digi world.  No, as most know, I am NOT a traditional scrapper.  No, I’m not a traditional art journaler either…. I’m a breed all my own and fall somewhere between. Kind of how I lead my life. LOL There are times I like to scrap photos, and there are even more times I just love getting messy and want to express feelings from within or create pages for deep expressions of the soul that no photo may exist or can even really do.  It’s a release for me.  I do it for purely selfish reasons.  I do it to remember, to let it out, to journal something and be done with it, or to journal affirmations to better myself and my life.  I call it Life Journaling.  These are visual chronicles usually in a combination of color, art and journaling and even the photos some times too.

Most of the time I create as 2 page spreads.  One page has all the artsy goodness and maybe photos, and the other is usually deeply felt journaling about the 1st page and the art bleeds onto the second page, but is not the focal point.  And yes, I do publish them in books. LOL  I call them Chapters as that’s what they are, chapters of my life.  And times when I look back, read about a struggle I was going thru, I can usually see just how far I’ve come.  It helps me remember that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to and overcome the little stumbling blocks along the way.  It motivates me to push forward.

Then of course there are those memory pages.  The ones I create to remember the good times with good friends and family.  The ones that I attach photos to that most think is scrap pages.  These visual chronicles are treasured.  Each has deep meaning that maybe only I know, but that’s who I do these for… ME!  That’s how this page started…. and that’s how my newest art kit was born too.  I find that when I create this way, it just flows.

It has taken me some time to be ok about the loss of a close friend last fall.  I needed to remind myself of all the good times, the laughs, the shared moments and memories.  We were lifers.  ’Friends for life’.  The colors are from our patch we share on our vests from our Riding Club so it seemed logical for my page to be those colors.  And they also remind me of his warm and usually dry and dirty sense of humor.  He was all boy!  And a light hearted playful boy at that.  ok… maybe not so light at times, but extremely playful. LOL  He was the first and ONLY person to drop my motorcycle while helping push it home one night.  He was one of the ones to make me learn the lesson of learning to stop and ‘PLAY’ and let work go for a Sunday ride and enjoy the company of good friends and take time for me.  All my brothers did this of course, but Spanky always brought a smile to my face and brought back that sense of loving life again after I had gone thru some rough years before that.  He, along with Notorious, MegaWatt, Bartman, K-Square and Taz, saved me in more ways than simple words can express!  So this is for you boys!  I love you all!  I will add this page to the chapter of my life with OFO.

 And if you read this far, Kudos! LOL  I also wanted to mention that I have a little ‘gift’ in our SAS Forum exclusively for members only.  So come on in and take a look around, but make sure you are logged in to see our Gifts From Our Designers area.