Declaration of Blog Freedom

I've noticed lately that some bloggers have discontinued allowing comments on their blogs, and I like that. I once thought I could never disable comments on my site but I think it's a good thing for me to do. I rely too much on them, or the lack of them. So I'm not allowing comments any longer. Not that many people comment anyway, especially since I changed my URL and lost a slew of followers and links to my site. I've also removed the counter. The hit numbers can't be right when people are using RSS feeds or Google Reader and besides, who cares how many hits I get? Do you? Do you look and say Wow! She has 14,000 hits on her site! Or do you look and say Wow...no one's posted a response to her all week, or all month!

I was reading Dawn Sokol's blog yesterday when I came across her post about this same thing. I don't know for sure, but I think she wrote this just for me....

"I am going to disable comments again. I did this awhile ago in an attempt to blog really just for myself and I think it’s time to do so once more. I don’t understand why the internet has become SO consuming, but for me it has."

"I’ve started to worry too much again about comments, pages views, subscriber counts, etc. I don’t know how long this no-comment period will last. But please know that it makes my blogging better if I’m blogging just for me. If you want to chat or comment on a post, please feel free to email me. The button to do so is in the sidebar. I will respond if time allows. Know that I appreciate your visiting here, but have come to count on it too much again. Thank you!"

She pretty much sums it up for me. I worry too much about comments and I don't want to do that. I want my blog to belong to me, so I'm removing all those little number counting things that consume me and tell me how popular I am, (or not) and I'm just gonna blog. You can always talk to me on Facebook, or send me an email....the addy is down there on the right.

Have a great day!

New Improved Daisy Garden

I was very disappointed with the appearance of this page when I first posted it. I knew it needed a little adjustment.

I went back and outlined the daisy stamps with a black marker, marked over the word love and took another picture, sans flash. The new picture came out clearer and closer to the actual color of the page. Simple outlining is the key to bring things forward. Lesson learned.

Travelogue Page for Sallyanne

This is the last travelogue for the group I'm in at Your Paper Pantry. This book belongs to Sallyanne who wanted to know if there was a painting that made us scratch our heads and wonder "what were they thinking?". For me, it was more than one painting, it was several. All painted by Frida Kahlo.

The pictures I used in this layout are mild in comparison to some of her other work. Although her paintings were beautiful and colorful at first blush, quite often they were dark and disturbing to look at.

Vintage Ladies in my Art Journal

I had so much fun making these backgrounds and wanted to leave them as they were, I thought they were so cool! But(what do I know?) they needed something more and that something turned out to be the vintage ladies from an artists page in one of my Stampington magazines. Love vintage! It all came together from there...it's amazing how that happens.

This is a 4 page fold-out in my Dede Journal. I've been playing with it a lot lately and learning so much just by doing. Have I said that before? Well, it's true.






Backgrounds

Daisy Garden

This is another page from the little journal I got from Inkwell (loving it). I've been playing a lot with backgrounds lately and this one turned out darker than I wanted. I went back and lightened it by using texture...oh, so easy!

It might be a little too light. Now I know why a journal page is never finished.

Oh So Simple Hummingbird

The background was done with watercolor crayons. After playing with a few other backgrounds for a while, I decided to use my Prima script stamp, some bubble wrap and a small punch-out to add texture and contrast to the softness of the page. Then I remembered the Stencil Magic stencil I got at Scarlet Lime and went for it. I love the resulting silhouette.

Circles for Paula

So why does JournalArtista like circles so much? Because they're fun!

She Art Girl #2

She loves to garden