Fall is Almost here!

I know you think I had forgotten about you. But I didn't. I have just been avoiding my computer. Please don't take it personally....honestly, it had nothing to do with you. Would I lie to you? :-)

Seriously, after working all day long on a computer, the last thing I want to do in my free time is get on a computer. So, although I have been busy in my art room, my computer took the summer off.

I did get a few pages done in my journal (not a lot though, hey, it was summer and I was out playing!)

My flowers did beautifully this year and I really wanted to feature my gorgeous begonia in a journal page. Did you know that begonias have fairies living in them? I didn't either until I downloaded the photos.

Our garden did incredibly well too! So far this year I have made 5 batches of salsa and canned 10 quarts of tomatoes (and spending tomorrow afternoon canning some more)

I love my salsa! So fresh and tangy. I love it so much I created a page to honor it! lol I painted all the ingredients. I then photographed one of my antique Ball jars and printed it onto transparency film for an overlay.

I am still participating in the online journal Challenge! http://artjournaling.ning.com/group/challenge

I don't always follow the rules (ok, I rarely follow the rules) but it gives me great prompts for journal ideas. This week we were supposed to create in a way similar to Van Gogh or Monet using at least one neon color. Um, yeah. Sorry, neon is not on my shelf! lol And as for Van Gogh or Monet, love them but still, not me. Once we painted, we were to doodle over the top.

So, I painted a swish with short strokes in fall colors (oops, no neon yellows or pinks to be seen) and then stamped the tree on top (StampaRosa). I did doodle the leaves. :-)

I did not waste my entire summer. I spent every weekend searching for treasures at yard sales!

I found this poor desk for $10. It is solid oak but had seen much better days. It had been stripped of it's stain many years ago and then at some point, some sort of oil had been spilled across half of its top. To add insult to injury, the top was also dotted with cigarette burns. Poor desk.

My original plan was to paint it up and put it out in my garden to hold my herb pots (I am tired of bending over to pick herbs lol)

If you notice on the above pic, their are decorations near the top on each side. Well only 1/3 of an ornament on the right side as most has been broken off.

I wanted to keep this detail so I created a mold from the remaining ornament using sculpey. I then filled the mold with paper clay. (the original decoration is in the middle sitting on a tissue because it still has the nails in it and kept sliding around my desk) The little piece on the right is the remaining portion of the broken ornament.

Here is the dry paperclay reproduction beside the original. The detail is not as sharp but since I was going to paint them both, I didn't think it would matter.

Here is the finished desk. I stained the top a rich mahogony and even though you can sort of still see the oil stain and definitely see the burn marks, it has beautiful character.

Once it was done, I couldn't banish it to the garden so now it resides in my office holding my tv. I think it is much happier than when I found it. :-)