Soup Weather is Upon Us! Yay!!

My daughter and I are making beef barley soup (more like a stew) as I write this today. I don't usually make my blogs about food but I've got to say the aroma wafting through the house is amazing at the moment and I'm very happy. My kids are both great cooks and I would like to thank my Dad for that. The younger one sat at his side all the time to watch what he did and she duplicated much when she was old enough to cook on her own, while the other decided eating it was much more interesting. Until she got older and became a master at creating homemade soups. Yum. This particular recipe was inspired by our Great Aunt Ella, who made this a favorite for my girls and I when we lived next door to each other. Smelling it cook all day and then enjoying a bowl once ready was a nice family memory for us. Although it doesn't really taste like her soup (we added red wine to ours, something she would never have done), it is absolutely delicious.

 Here it is without the barley in it which got added a little bit after this photo was taken. Mmm-mmm. 😋

Now, onto the art part, something I do best.

I started taking the month-long fodder challenge and the watched the first class. I haven't completed the project and cannot show it until it's finished, so be on the lookout for that. I might actually wait until the end of the month and share all I did. I'm not positive I'll do everything offered but I do love watching and taking notes and getting inspired!

I did do a little embroidery. I love it so far. I think I'm going to play with wildflowers next but that'll take some time. This is a good piece of practice fabric to use. It's an old dust cover for a chair. Those were used in our house because we always had chairs that required them. After I cut out the rips and the wear and tear from a lot of them, I have a good amount of fabric to play with for embroidery practice.

I've been cutting up papers, adding embellishments on them, making them small cards or pieces that can be added to cards at some point. I'm actually making more collage fodder, which is fine by me. I was fussy for a few days until I realized I could draw botanical patterns or use a lot of the flower stencils I have and create some great looking pieces to go in my journals. It's all for me and my art practice, so it doesn't matter how much or little I have; as long as I have what I need to keep being creative, it's all good!

Painting papers leaves some beautiful marks on my paper towels and Sidekick journal. Love these rich looking colors!!

Watercolor and isopropyl alcohol created the below. I've done this technique for years and really love the unpredictable way it all comes out. You never know when you spray or blot alcohol on the paint what you'll get.

I've been cutting out my little doodles as I find them. Actually some of the below in the first photo are fairly new to be added to the small storage container for future use in my flower journal. I've used a lot of the doodles that I made last year, adding them to the flower journal, so I have room now to add more. Yay!

This photo below is of the remnants of a piece of paper I use as a protector for the page or table when I use alcohol ink markers. I usually end up doodling on them at some point, sometimes to see if the pens work or just mindlessly draw something. When it's fairly colorful, I cut some shapes out and use the rest for cards or the layered technique in collage that I like to do, shown in the second photo below.

 

Days 215-220 in the collage a day journal.

 

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

 

Being Creative When You Aren't Feeling It

I've got a cold so I've been feeling "less than" all week. I did a lot of this and that's but nothing real intense. I just didn't have it in me. I'm on the up side of this thing but still have it and so I'm writing notes, printing out things to work with and waiting for the energy to start creating on a daily basis once more.

I added a page to one of my journals using a nifty gnome print and when I put the envelope pocket on it, he disappeared. Oh no! I hadn't really thought it through, obviously. This page could have been left as it was, I suppose but what's the fun in that?!

 

I solved the problem by making a card for one of the pockets using the same print.

When I take the card out and place it just right, I can still see the entire print. Yay! The other side of this card was a vintage soap ad. Not sure I am in love with it but it's there for now until I do something else with it. Which I might.

 

When I made the other card that goes into the second pocket I noticed a few numbers. I looked them up to see what they meant in Angel numbers. And I wrote them on the card, circling the number.

 

The other side of the card has trees and mushrooms on it. Love those!

I took my scrap paper that I glued down to old store receipts and put them through the die cut machine making a nice array of flowers for my journals.

The silhouettes were so pretty I knew I'd have to do something with those as well. What I ended up deciding was gluing them down on a less than favorite painted paper. I think I'll make bookmarkers from these.

 

I also punched out circles and squares before gluing them down, getting a nice array of collage fodder.

More scraps!! Ahhhh! LOL 🤯

I used some stencils on magazine pages that had ads on them and cut them up a little bit. All will be added to the journals and I know am getting a nice selection of things to play with when I'm ready to do some journal pages. That makes me very happy. And I am having fun!
 

 

The second collage a day journal is almost completely finished! Next week I'll be starting the third one.

201-204 in the collage a day art journal. I'm noticing I'm only using the lines for the squares as a basic guideline now but not staying within them if I don't want to. What a rebel I am!

205-208 in the collage a day art journal. 208 has some of the scraps I shared above. I thought it was only fitting to add some of those awesome things to my daily journal.

I had been adding a flower or some kind of design from this little tray in the newest painted handmade journal daily until I got sick. I shared the process of creating this book last week. You can see it here: September 14, 2026. Now it's waiting for me to continue. The best part about these kinds of journals is I just do random placements of these things, then eventually go back and will add marks or paint or stamps and make each page a bit different. I can keep adding and changing each page, sometimes it takes a year. I'm okay with that.

These are the last few pages I played with until I needed a major nap. The top photos are tea and/or coffee stained painted papers. The bottom are roll offs from brushes and the gel plate. I'll probably do some mark making on these and other embellishments. I wasn't really feeling well by the time I got to these and I just grabbed whatever paint I had in front of me and went for it without much thought. This black, grey and yellow one ... what was I thinking?! Definitely going into the pile again to either be repainted or cut up in some way. I don't have a lot of dark papers so I suppose I should see how I can use it without painting over the whole thing again. Time will tell.

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey

 

New Moon Activity or Lack Of ...

During the moon's cycle we humans ebb and flow along with everything else organic. For me, I notice a deep dive into the shallow end of the creativity pool. It always catches me by surprise ... how can I have so much energy to work for hours at a time one day and the next I can hardly pull myself out of bed?! I blame it on the moon.

When a New Moon arrives I find it's a great time to think about what I want to do next. Right now I'm feeling I want to stretch a little and do things not within the comfort zone but I'm not there yet. It's coming and it'll probably be drawing, most likely faces or people because I really struggle with that. My brain likes creating abstract art because I'm not strong at drawing. I'm good with doodles because they're abstract. Mine are, anyway. However, even with all the low energy happening at the moment, I did manage to do some kind of art every day.

While cleaning out a small box, I found this little handmade journal I started in 2022, I believe. And so one night I grabbed it and did a quick bit of art (the right hand side) with Pasca acrylics and Sharpie.

The prompts were: bubbles, an eye, fuchsia, ruffle. Seek, Gather, Create old prompts from a few years ago have made it, finally, onto my desk. The up side of cleaning out a box and thinking "what's in this?". I found the prompts list for 2 years! Every so often I'll grab it, I know, and find something to do from it. I especially liked this because the ruffles looked like bubbles and the bubbles under the eye looked like tears. Perfect for the sentiment: turn your troubles into bubbles.

WIP - the prompts were: bird silhouette (you'd think it would be easy to do but I failed in doing it and so I just glued it down instead), leaves, teal, a grid. Still have things to do on this, probably mark making or a quote or something. But I love the color and the paint plus stencil were done using a baby wipe dipped in paint.

 

193-196 in the collage a day journal

Clouds were the subject for this grid. Using only a few colors in watercolor and a paper towel, I played with the sky.

 

It was time to do a layered collage on a small wood panel. I ended up doing 2 because I love this technique so much. And I still have leftover papers!

 

2 layers down with a paint layer in between. Now ready for sanding, stenciling and a final black glaze.

After sanding. Love the layers peeking through and a bit of the paint in between can be seen.

The stencil faded a lot on this once it dried but I can see it and it's awesome.

Both are 4x4 inch. I painted the sides in black and have them hanging on my walls. I love the grunge!!

Handmade book using junk mail paper, brown packing paper and a few of my painted papers. The front and back cover has paper I made a while ago.

After stenciling and maybe a little mark making on some of these pages, I'll be adding the hand cut doodles I've got in a box. It's overflowing and so it's time to use them.

The one on the left is so pretty. One of my roll-off papers with gold metallic on it. LOVE.

The back cover.

I love how this looks already and it's just been painted so far!

Some stencils will be used in these pages. I don't really need more handmade journals but I really do love making them and using them ... so maybe I actually need MORE!

197-200 in the collage a day journal. Top right looks like a top hat!

A journal page I actually had a dream about. I have a few more things to add here but it's basically finished. These kids are scary ... having said that, it was a photo in the book and I left it and painted, etc around them. When I dreamed about some of the things I wanted to add to this page I got up before dawn, found all the things I was thinking about and then went back to bed. Ah the life of an artist.

Enjoy your week!

Cindy,  EarthMotherMosaics - Mixed Media Art

Instagram: @artbyearthmothermosaics 

Stay Peaceful and Enjoy the Journey