Lenten collages

Though I am not actually Catholic in faith, each year as this season rolls around, the discussion pops up at church (Christian)... "are you giving up anything for lent?" And I have given up coffee, shopping, meat, sugars, and other things different years... But as I thought and prayed about what to "give up" this year, I decided to do something different...
Instead of taking something away, I've added something...**instead of heading straight into my sewing room to work on projects that are on my mind, I've committed to spend at least 10 minutes (or more) of my creative time focused on art that has a spiritual nature or basis...
Kind of a way to refocus myself, both creatively and spiritually.

It hasn't been an every day thing so far (my creativity has been cut short by a root canal crisis that's got me laying kind of low down) , but the new resolution has been really fun for me... I've been sketching a lot... I'm no great illustrator, but i've enjoyed the freedom of making art for the sake of simply making art.  Tonight I focused on collage... And played with the idea of "home"...  (something I've wanted to do a series on for a while) ...in my new binder.

Collage gifts

I've spent a vicodin-assisted evening (thanks to a lousy toothache!) sitting still and working on collages.  The design director asked me if I would do a collage for her in her own salvaged scrap binder while she slept...
... Happily, darling....
So I put this stack of presents in the middle of her book.

Re-purposed calendar gift tags

Afternoon sunlight on an afternoon project... Punching out an old 2008 Snow&Graham desk calendar to use for gift tags...

Recycled (actually re-used!) notebooks

I'm having so much fun making these!
I'm taking cardboard boxes, covering them with fabric and binding them to make journals.
The large one is dually re-used, as its internal paper is made of sheets of old drawings that the kids did. I figure I will just write over or around their drawings. This makes me super happy...