notplainbabyjane: Making it through winter...

What a winter we have had here in the normally moderate North Carolina climate! We have had many really cold days and nights and a few snowfalls. It has been beautiful to watch, but many days have been spent inside staying toasty warm, eating steamy bowls of soup, sipping coffee and watching Mother Nature's winter wonder through the windows.

Art has been on the front burner with more indoor time to spend and play away. My daily planner for the new year made some changes early on. The first planner I bought had such thin pages, it just didn't work for me and my style of slathering all kinds of water media on the pages. So I went with a great system I got at my local Staples store... the ARC planner... just love the concept of how it goes together. The paper is much stronger and takes to the water and most of my pens and markers quite nicely. After the changeover, I now have a book I love, entitled... "It's a Wonderful Life".

I'm adding watercolored pages to the daily calendar ones, so my art table is quite a "painty mess" these days... but I love it...

I have a "thing" for vintage metal watercolor boxes... I found a couple of really cute ones on ETSY. I then filled the larger one with my own paint palette... with all my favorite tube watercolors. I mainly have Daniel Smith colors, with a few from M. Graham. I have splurged on a few really nice brushes and they have made SUCH A DIFFERENCE. Good paper, paint and brushes are the key to watercolor success.

I'm adding some elements and pages with the ever-popular washi tape. Gina Rossi Armfield has been a huge inspiration in my art lately. Her NO MORE EXCUSES ART site is filled with great ideas on journaling every day in a non-threathening, easy way. LOVE her book, chock-full of ideas for documenting days in a delightful way. On her blog, a few months back, she shared a photo of a darling tackle box she found and filled with her washi tape collection. I LOVED that idea and went on the hunt for one, too. I found the perfect crusty old box at a local antique shop and began filling it with my own ever-growing collection!!!

Silly sketches, watercolor and pan pastel backgrounds... little photos, momentos of the day... easy-peasy documentation of days...

I'm also finishing up a book I put together as a sweet memory from an event I attended last year with some dear friends... It's so fat, in "baby jane" style... that I can't keep it closed without a ribbon!!!