Behind the Art with Felecia

Merry Christmas to my friends who celebrate it!  I must confess, there are a number of holidays this time of year I know very little about. Some of you will spend today in the midst of these very holidays. Some of you may not be celebrating a holiday at all today - you are just celebrating that it is "today" and are engaged in living. Whatever the case, I pray this day finds you joyous and content. 

My final layout for the AUTHENTIC Kit is called Up Close - as in I pray I'm not found lacking when people get up close and personal.

Have you ever noticed that something looks amazing from a distance - the beach, a painting, the snow, perhaps your perfectly tweezed eye brows (or maybe that is just me). BUT when you get up close, it may not be so attractive? Maybe the beach sand is hot or the water too cold...or a painting is found to be a print and not the original...or the snow is heavy and wet and not at all romantic...or your eyebrows...well..maybe that IS just me!

When considering authentic, my personal goal is to be found genuine, even under very close scrutiny.

Its not easy.

It has moments of great joy, moments of hilarity, moments of great pain and honestly, moments of such embarrassment that I wish I could just sink into the ground...its not exactly a nice, smooth, straight road.

It often requires examination of things that I really would rather not get into.

But to reach genuine relationship and genuine peace, I must address these places where I may be hiding, or covering, or compensating...

I'm a slave to perfectionism...its hard to unlearn years of not trying things when they won't be perfect. 

To play, to try, to be in the process of learning and growing and changing and becoming...this is where I aspire to be. 

This paper, the "spilled' effect, the silver splotches, the things not totally level and straight...again, I'm attempting to revel in the beauty that is my art in my style in my wonky way. 

Silver polka dots and pink zig zags...these are things that "shouldn't" go together...but they do. Oh, they SO DO!. 

And ONE flower, ONE heart...there are no design triangles - shame on me! - and the only element that repeats are the butterflies...(an appropriate symbol for authentically embracing "becoming") these are my authentic expression of this moment, this project, this layout...and I love how it turned out. It turned out "me." 

As we bring this one to a close, I'm reminded that in this life, to be authentic is to be somewhat adrift. It is to embrace the very things within us that do not go with the flow, do not sign on for the trend, do not attempt to be like all the others...and make that OK. What a glorious thing!

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Felecia

Have you ever done a project that you loved...but not really so much?  This is one of those projects...

I love it. I love the color, the layout, the message...but I don't. 

It doesn't feel like my work - and yet it does. 

does that make sense?

Maybe like an outfit that you adore, that feels like your own skin, that is just your best go-to outfit...but its not that flattering. I'm thinking about my hot pink sweats...HAHA!

Its authentic to be authentic about a project but its not really your favorite, right? Well, that's what I'm going with anyway. 

This shot...honestly, I'm in my pjs. I have no idea what I was trying to accomplish. Its a good picture. But not. it shows all the glorious imperfections of my real, pj-wearing, messy hair, smudged makeup self...the one that sits in front of a movie on Friday nights and decompresses. 

I'm no Kim Kardashian when it comes to taking selfies. Selfies are an art form of their own, I think. Its not my art form. 

And the whole idea of selfie's seems to me to be a "here I am" exercise rather than a "who are you?" exercise. I prefer the latter. I want to engage in conversation and debate and transfer ideas. Frankly, you are just much much much more interesting to me than I am. I want to hear you...hear your point of view. 

I suppose in that way, selfies of OTHER people are good for me. but in a way they are NOT that good for me, because I want to know the REAL you...not the perfect you in that selfie that you spent hours trying to get just right. 

While exploring AUTHENTIC, this whole selfie thing was part of my exploration. Are our selfies authentic? and when they are, do we risk criticism and ridicule? Its an interesting phenomenon to think about. What are we trying to accomplish when we take a selfie?

These wonderful little cameras? I ADORE them. They are the cutest little things! and in terms of "selfie" they are a perfect embellishment. 

And truely the the picture does make me smile - for an abundance of reasons. 

I'm quite interested in how you think about selfies. or even IF you think about them? Some people never take them. Some people live for them? Do you think that selfies contribute or detract from our authenticity? I know I'm likely to take them over and over until I get something I think is flattering...how about you?

I'm also interested in the idea that we put our emotions and ideas out there into projects that maybe are not our favorite things... What do you think? 

Peace, ya'll

Behind the Art with Felecia

Hi, everyone!  

When exploring the monthly words at Inside Out, I make an attempt to consider the antonyms as well as the synonyms. For authentic, that would be the word counterfeit...

This is actually a fear of mine - that I will be examined and found lacking in authenticity. 

I happened to have attended an event where I wore a little mask and had a great picture for a "counterfeit" layout that speaks of not hiding behind masks. 

For fun, I did a little tiny bit of experimenting with paint, creating a spot for the picture...and then drew some additional "masking" on the green dots. 

As with many of my pages, this is a very flat layout...its has visual details without actual dimension. By far, the most important detail on this layout for me is the journaling.

As I said last week, the colors in this kit are so beautiful and amazing to work with. Its been so much fun to dip into these products to explore AUTHENTIC. The supplies have really pushed me to explore in a different way!  LOVE that!

Behind the Art with Felecia

Hey, everyone!

Today I'm sharing my first layout from the amazing December AUTHENTIC kit from Inside Out. 

Let me BE authentic and say...when I first opened up my December kit, I thought, "This thing is gorgeous..and I NEVER use these colors...what am I going to DO with this?" 

See, I scrapbook BOYS in the majority of my layouts...heavy on the blue and orange and red. Its my sweet spot. Maybe not so much because those are the colors I love, but because they make my scrapbooking very very easy with all those boy pictures.

But here...here I have this AMAZING pallet of pink and aqua and yellow and this fantastic green and light gray...and oh, my its so stunning and , oh, my, I was so overwhelmed. 

So, talking to myself, I said, sort of under my breath, "Authentic...what does authentic mean to me?"

And one of those BOYS (the older one who is a smarty pants) says, "Its the REAL DEAL, Mom!" 

The real deal...the real deal...I turned that phrase over and over in my head for a bit...and thought, I have a lot of "the real deal" in my life...and it isn't pink, aqua, yellow, and green...where do I go with that?  

And honestly, the same smarty pants boy told me to him the "real deal" was his good friends. 

Me too. 

I have but a handful of "real deal" friends, though I attempt to surround myself with "real deal" people on a consistent basis...

These two...they just love me and my family for exactly who we are...our authentic selves. 

I unabashedly LOVE those circles! As you have well figured out by now, my art is not fussy. So to fussy cut all those circles..that has to be love right?  

Plus I was watching an episode of NCIS and cutting circles seemed like a great thing to do while I watched my episode.

These beautiful women are always there for me, any day of the week, thick or thin, no matter what I have going on. 

The layers of circles, these represent my life...and those beautiful pink splashes of mist (from the Fireworks mist included in the ENERGY kit) are perfectly messy.

To add to the feeling the title, picture and journaling are all askew...sort of like me!  HAHA!

I love how this kit challenged me to think outside the boxes I've created for myself in my art. It forced me to really think about authenticity and how much I avoid things (like colors) that are not easy for me.

That's some good stuff!!

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Felecia

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!  Felecia here to share a bit about my layout "Kiss"

It seems appropriate on Thanksgiving that I would share a layout about kisses from Heaven...

I'm a fan of modern dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp. I find her aesthetic at once beautiful, quirky, original and mesmerizing. 

I also find her approach to creating and creativity very accessible...its about process and preparation. Like Julia Cameron, she advocates being READY for the spark of creativity and she fully endorses working hard at perfecting your craft, especially when you are not feeling creative.

A few years ago, I bought and immediately devoured Twyla's book 

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

In it I found this quote and it has remained one of my favorites..."Whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss."

I LOVE this...that we are gifted, kissed by heaven...but that we still have to WORK to develop and grow and learn. The kiss itself is not enough. We must hone our skills, try new things experiment, seize opportunities to use our gifts, be open to failure so we can learn to how to appropriately use our gifts. 

When I was thinking about the word "Lucky" this quote immediately came to mind. Most of us "make our own luck", if you will...by working hard and harnessing the power of our heavenly kisses.

I wanted to make the layout ethereal and play with the stars, to reflect the Heavenly aspect of "the kiss"...really this was just one of my experiments that happily turned out well.

I used the star stencil and some golden/yellow ink to make stars...and then just went crazy with mist.

The enamel stars are my favorite element..they just jump right off the page and give the perfect focus to Twyla's words. 

It really needs no more than the stars and the golden mist and the quote. 

Peace, ya'll.

Behind the Art with Felecia

How do you measure "luck"? or for me blessing? 

I mean, if I were to take a look at MANY of the lives around me, I might think THEY were more blessed than me...

And, oh, my goodness, isn't that the easiest thing in the world to do?

I have a confession to make right here...I'm somewhat addicted to celebrity lives and lifestyles. Its a terrible, terrible thing to waste my time on. But I love looking at so-and-so's new house and who's wearing what on the red carpet and who's performance last night on that awards show was the best. 

With an addiction like that, you can see how easy it would be for me in particular to get wrapped up in all the great things happening on somebody else's journey. 

And I won't lie...sometimes I do wish I had just one pair of Christian Louboutin shoes and an Hermes bag...

But at the end of the day, I can only measure my blessings against my own journey. 

I wanted to use every single paper in this kit...the colors just spoke to me...it has SO much LIFE. so, I layered the bright and gorgeous papers over one another...as though perhaps you could see the past eras of my life behind that picture.

Incidentally, that picture was taken by my cell phone in my hotel room and then printed at the local Staples store just hours before it was used on this layout...which, considering that I was reflecting on my own journey was a really cool "and this is NOW" kind of effect.

The background paper is AH-MA-ZING! I rubbed a gray ink over it to bring up the wood grain texture. I was looking for some subtlety as well as a solid, foundational-feeling background. 

My life - so much good stuff...REALLY...No Hermes bag, but upon reflection, my journey has been pretty darn amazing. It seems worthy of a celebratory sprinkle of sequins and some bunting. 

And the statement that THIS is indeed "the good stuff"!

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Felecia

I don't actually believe in luck...

Its probably an odd thing to say, but I believe in the blessing of God and that we are products of our choices. 

I say often that I've walked with God for too long to believe that the fortunes of others or myself are mere chance.

Some would hotly disagree, saying that there is no purpose in some being more fortunate than others...

However, I view personal blessing as an opportunity for me to share with others. I've witnessed the answering of prayers just in time and seen too many things pass that keep me from believing that a roll of the dice controls it all...

When I was planning my layouts, I wanted to put my most prized blessings front and center for this one. 

I absolutely LOVE the variety of papers and journal cards in this kit...I wanted to feature as many of them as possible - much like the variety of beautiful blessings that have filled my own life. 

I especially like this sentiment from one of the journal cards...these are absolutely "the good stuff" of my life. 

So how do you view luck? Is it a fortune you make yourself? Do you believe there is a larger design at work? or do you believe that fate is something that is chance?

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Jen

 It's Autumn and I'm loving the colors around Central New York!  My kids think it's magic to find leaves changing and how they look like someone took a paintbrush to them!  There is such a crisp energy in the air now.  Everything is a little cooler, a little fresher, a little more beautiful.  An evening run is easier because the air is not full of heat and humidity!  I love this time of year.  It is a re-energizing time of back to school, back to schedules, back to enjoying weekends because the week is crazy!

 I couldn't help but use the wood paper as a background for this page.  A bit of watered down Gesso and I was good to go with my layering.  Those vellum feathers were perfect for a touch of fall!

 I tend to move slower in the summer... it's hot!  But the Autumn has a crisp energy that livens my step!

 The colors give such a POP to the page as do the leaves on the ground!  I loved grouping all of these papers and embellishments together here in the upper corner of the paper.

 Is Autumn your favorite season?  What makes you energized?

Behind the Art with Felecia

I often get the comment from people that they don't know how I do all that I do. Lets face it, I don't probably know how to adequately relax...

On the other hand, I tend to be a process person...hyper-aware list maker...

And driven to do some things the exact same way each and every time I do them...

It just works for me. 

One of those things, the thing that pumps me up for the day and gets me really juiced up is my morning routine...its always the same...

The fact that its the same every day is both energy saving (process!) and energy boosting...my morning routine is filled with things that will keep me moving through the day.

I get up at 5...(sometimes before that, but usually 5)...then I have yogurt and ancient grain granola and a read a little scripture. Then, after a shower, I have coffee - really good, really strong, really amazing coffee (thanks to my sweet husband).

My morning is a very orderly thing...but how does one convey both order and energy on a layout?

I chose to do it with some layering...some mist, some cut outs, some inked edges, a transparency...but its all very neat and orderly at the same time...

One not-so-secret secret is that I often choose visual dimensions over actual dimensional embellishments on my layouts. I prefer flatter layouts...So, in this case, there are layers of may different sizes and materials, and while they are all flat, they create visual dimension for my project. 

I discovered long ago that some things happen very naturally for me - like getting up early and liking to eat breakfast.

If I just go with those things and put them together in a very organized way, the process becomes a springboard feeling energetic and alive the rest of the day...

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Felecia

I've been a headache sufferer for years...over 20.

I've always thought that they were my fault - the product of mis-managed stress, too little exercise, bad food. I was diagnosed years ago with severe stress headache...and I owned that diagnosis. 

But I made a promise to my husband this year to see a neurologist about my headaches...and she informed me that they were migraine. For some reason, this diagnosis was like a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.

And in a world where much of my time is spent serving others - admittedly to very stressful levels - I felt like I finally didn't have to carve out more time (stress!) to figure out it all out (stress!) and schedule more things into my busy schedule to deal with it (stress!)

The blessing is mixed...it has meant a whole new set of medications that I've had to get used to and keeping daily track of where I'm at health wise...plus they are not all the way gone.

I was on the way "down" from a headache when I finished this project. It wasn't hard to make it look like I felt... 

Like I was surviving. Like things were very bright, but dark. Like some words seemed like YELLING and that my focus was off a bit.

I wanted very badly to give hi-light to the words of HOPE, the words that I feel like I speak out of my mouth all the time about migraines. You see, when you can't even see straight from the pain of a headache all you want is survival...You want to get THROUGH and move on without pain. THRIVING isn't even an option in this condition.

It seemed right that this thing that currently consumes me in the area of my health should be something I can put into a project. Its negative and painful and the polar opposite of thriving.

Ultimately, this will be something that I learn to manage, that I learn to prevent, that I conquer. Its an awesome feeling to have hope that at some point this will be a part of my past and will no longer stand in the way of my life. 

Peace, ya'll!

Behind the Art with Jen

 Hi everyone!  I have another of my pages to share.  This one is a journal page about not sweating the small stuff and not fearing mistakes.

 All my life, I have struggled to control things that are not mine to control... Once I let go of that control and try to just go with the flow.  Turning something disappointing into a positive is a skill that I have had to practice.  It's hard to not feel terrible when something goes wrong but dwelling on it is not productive.  I hate wasting time on things I can't control now.  So, this page is about being yourself and letting things roll off your back when you feel like obsessing.

  Dwelling makes you unhappy and I hate being unhappy.  I want to live in today and not worry about tomorrow!

Okay, so how did I make this page?   I used the floral paper as the background.  The leaf mask was used with Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Gesso. I did trace the leaf onto scrap paper and used it as a solid stencil.  Once dry, I drew on top of the areas with pen. 

 Watered down paint dripped down the page added some more color.  I also used Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Whipped Spackle through a dotted stencil for more texture.

What do you do to stay happy and not obsess about wrongs or bad things?   I think what we "feed" ourselves will be what thrives.

Behind the Art with Felecia.

THRIVE is a word they use all the time when assessing the health of children. 

I have two of them and they were born later in my life, so they are pretty much the lions-share of my life. 

I waited a long time to have kids, making certain for me that the things I wanted to do with life that couldn't easily accommodate kids were done.

But I discovered after having them that my years of discovering, experimenting, trying new things only began anew when they became part of our family. As I watched them learn to walk, talk, throw a baseball, write letters, try new foods - pretty much everything - it was as if I was learning these things for the first time too...

I'm totally in touch with the fact that I'm living some of my life vicariously through these two...that I get just as excited about a new movie or a cart-wheel accomplished as they do. 

So..as they TRIVE, so do I...

As with most of my layouts, I felt like the journaling was the most important part. But the colors in this kit are so amazing!!!  

\

The idea of thriving through my very rambunctious boys is somewhat busy and full of color and life...so I tried to give my project movement and color, a sense of the chaotic business of boys without detracting from my story. 

Its no joke that I really do love the photo this points to...its one of my favorites. we were playing on the floor in the front hall of our home...just hanging out and being together...my husband snapped the picture at just the right moment, because I was tickling those kids...and it came out to be just the right thing at just the right time.

I don't know if thriving in and of itself is something we can set out to accomplish purposefully or if its more like taking small steps to appropriately care for something  or some one. Its about love and attention...or food and water and shelter and clothing...or practice, practice, practice...the small things add up to thriving. 

Whatever it is, for these little humans in my life, when they thrive, I do also, in the most amazing, vicarious way.

Behind the Art with Jen

Hi artsy friends!  I am finally back to share a page from my Thrive kit!  I LOVED working with this theme and the papers from the kit are amazing!  I chose to create this particular page around an accomplishment.  I ran my 3rd 5K but this one was an obstacle race.  It was challenging, scary, and fun!  I didn't think I could do it all but I did!  I have trained for 7 months and keep surprising myself. My running is thriving with friends.  I love to run with a group because it doesn't seem so hard or scary when you are with others. 

 

 The name of the race was "Vino and the Beasts" as it was run in a local vineyard.  We ran along the road, through the vines and even around the outside of the property.  It was so fun!  Some of the obstacles were to climb over high ramps or crawl through mud.  I never thought I'd do that!  At the end we were rewarded with free wine tastings!  That was one of the best parts... the reward!

 For this page, I used some of the distress paints that we have gotten in previous kits to add more color.  The Crafter's Workshop mask was so cute!  I used it in two ways... with paint over it and as a stamp.

 Embellishing with the stickers and tags were perfect.  I added those inspirational quotes and words to bring my experience together.  Lots of laughs and celebrations!

 I already registered and formed my team for next year's race!  I know it won't seem so scary or intimidating then.  I have come a long way!

What have you done that you never thought you could do?  Is there something you have grown from that has changed how you think of yourself in a good way?