Life Had Other Plans for My Year

So...last you heard from me I was picking myself up after losing my mom and looking forward to new challenges.  The next challenge for me ended up being the death of my dad, just 5 months after we lost Mom.  Truthfully, we didnt expect for him to stay here without her that long but it was another difficult loss.  I spent the next 2 months organizing and clearing out my parent's house.  When I came home I had to make room in my little apartment for all the things that came back with me.  The girls came home for the summer with all of their stuff and the piles just got higher.  Finally in July the girls moved into their own apartment closer to school and Phil and I officially became empty nesters.  I was able to move the pieces that I brought back from Mom and Dad's for my art room into the girls' old room and I finally had my very own studio.

Here is a video I took of the 99.5% finished room.

Nearly completed art room

It feels like Mom and Dad are at the very heart of my art space and that in itself is inspiring.  This room is filled with memories of them and that has me feeling a renewed peace and direction.  I'm finding that I am so much more productive now that I have a space of my own away from the distractions of housework and TV, etc. and so I'm participating in several challenges to help me get back into a routine of daily art making and art journaling.

The first of these projects is called the 100 Days Project and it challenges you to choose one creative task and do it every day for 100 days, documenting each day as you go along.  I chose to use this as motivation to art journal every single day.

Here is the link to my project.  100 Days Project

The second is the 29 Faces Project which happens twice a year in February and in September.  I've done this one several times before and it was always a favorite of Mom's so in her honor I will try my best to complete this one as well.

This is my first face for this go around.  It also counts as my art journaling for today.

I've also got Christmas presents to make, bears and pillows to make from my Dad's shirts for my sisters and the grandkids and great grands and Mom's cookbooks to go through and copy for everyone.  There just isnt enough time in the day to do all I want.  I hope to document most of it here but you can see how hit or miss that has been in the past.  Fingers crossed though.  Thanks for stopping by!