MdngtRain

I caved and purchased a Wreck This Journal for both my wife and I.  I had originally thought it was stupid because I happened to flip to a few "boring" pages of prompts.  But last week, I started seeing pages of it pop up in my instagram feed.  I liked what I was seeing.  My creative juices started churning.  While I know I can figure out prompts for myself in an effort to spark ideas, I think it's more of a challenge to do what someone else has set out for you.  

Anyway, they arrived on Thursday (gotta love Amazon Prime before it got so outrageously expensive).  Lisa started hers immediately.  I don't remember what I had been doing, but I didn't pick mine up for a good 30 minutes after it arrived.  By then, Lisa had a good half dozen pages started.  So far, I am liking most of what I am trying.  I am working on accepting whaever comes from it.  I'm trying to stash my perfectionism behind other things, and I'm having fun.  Every now and then I look online for ideas.  I'm trying to take my time with each one to come up with something unique.  It's tough, but some thing are working.  I'm also taking this opportunity to try out some of the kids' crafts/ideas I have seen online.  So far, so good.  

I don't have any really decent pics of what I have done to this point, but I will try to upload some as they come into being.  In the mean time, here are some low-quality phone pics of a handful of my pages.  I don't have a pic of the page I spent the last 5 hours designing and implementing, but that will come tomorrow or Monday.  

I did a piece for my therapist for Sexual Assault Awareness month.  They want to keep the piece for "further use" and display in the office.  I didn't know what to say.  I told her I was really flattered, but asked if I could get back to her because the piece meant a lot to me... I think I have settled on being ok with them keeping it, but I will change my consent to allow the use of my name.  I will also ask what the extent of "further use" would entail... I really am flattered.  No one has asked for my work before.  It's a non-profit organization. I'm ok donating my work to them with no stipulation other than I be given credit for it.  I'm just surprised it's something they liked.
I don;t have a pic of the final piece up yet, but I will try to get a good one when I see her on Friday.  If not, then I will have to make do with the crappy-lighting phone pic I took hastily before I handed it in.  

Just wondering what the criteria is for a Daily Deviation... There are a few I have seen pop up multiple times in the past year... I thought it was supposed to recognize exceptional works that we may or may not otherwise have seen. They are supposed to inspire correct?  I understand some things are stellar (seriously, some of them are really amazing), but there are ones that I question and they show up multiple times.  I'm sure there are enough amazing artists (and multiple pieces in their galleries) to prevent picking the same piece more than once...  

I had every intention of making a card for the exchange, but I got side-tracked.  Instead, here's some from the collection.  Hope you all know you are loved, no matter what.  

I have been meaning to do more work on the challenges, but life kinda got in the way.  I had to change the rear brakes on my mom's car (took all day since I needed to learn how to do it), and I finally set up the free fish tank I got... I like the way the fish tank came out, and the brakes gave me a nice sense of accomplishment (she now has a nice set of high performance rotors and pads for her "high performance" driving... I swear my mom is the only senior in FL driving like she was practicing for NASCAR!).  There's still work to be done on both, but the majority of both projects are finished.