Happy New Year 2013!!

Mercy me, this has been a sadly neglected little blog lately!!  But it's a NEW YEAR, right?  All KINDS of reasons to feel hopeful!!  

I've chosen my One Little Word for the year and that too, has me feeling hopeful!!  Here is what I posted today over at Love is in the Details!

Since Ali Edwards made this concept popular a few years ago, many, many people have focused on choosing a single word at the beginning of each year, that can become a touchstone for them through out the rest of the year.  A gentle reminder of something they can do/think/envision for themselves on the road to self realization or personal improvement.  This year, choosing a word was a little harder for me.  There were so many areas of my life that I'd like to focus on, and I couldn't seem to find one word that either stood out or enveloped all the areas.  Until I thought of "use".  I am blessed with so much.  Time, health, energy, experience, and even a little talent too.  But what do I do with it?  I know far too much of my time is wasted and at the end of each day I just shake my head at how little of value I have accomplished.  I have good health and enough strength to do what needs to be done and a bit more.  Too often that is wasted too.  Or spent frivolously on myself.  I want to focus more on the needs of others and be useful to my family and others who can't do as much for themselves.  I'm available,  I can help.   So I want to USE what has been given to me, to become more USEFUL to others.



I thought a canvas on the wall would be a good, constant reminder of this for me.
So I hauled out the gesso, and the modeling paste, and the ModPodge and the brushes, and all manner of bits and bobbles I could find!  I didn't really have a final result envisioned and that's good because I'm pretty sure what I ended up with wouldn't have looked anything like what I'd pictured.  

These photos are sort of a step by step of the process.  You really just build layers.  I didn't want a lot of color, so I made it all about texture.  As I got closer to the end, I decided it needed more color after all, so I pulled out the stamps to layer on top of the textures.
Then I used some stencils, including the leftover negative from a chipboard shape for the bottom left flourish, to build up a layer of modeling paste.  While that was drying, I added my One Little Word letters with ModPodge to adhere and seal over top.
Once all that was dry, I began layering on other mediums: mesh ribbon, beads, metals, transparency images.  ModPodge again came into play as an adhesive.  After that was dry, I used more gesso, thinned with water to mute all the color by painting over it with a sponge brush.



Have you chosen a word for yourself for this year?  I'd love for you to share it here and I'm going to choose one comment to receive a little something in the mail from me!!

Comments

  1. Hi Norine, Happy New Year to you and yours. Love your canvas and choice of One Little Word. Thanks for sharing how you went about creating your canvas - I'm sure you will not only have a constant reminder of that word but it will look lovely displayed in your room. Elizabeth xx

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  2. Norine, your canvas is breathtaking. Love all the layering. Great word for 2013. I haven't really thought of a word. Reading a post on facebook made me think of ENJOY. I plan to enjoy each and every moment and end each day reflecting on what happened that day to bring me JOY. That reflection will carry the JOY on to my next day. Jim and I have started a "JOY" jar. At the end of each day we write a good thing that happened each day. Come New YEar's Eve 2013, we will read about each moment and smile.

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  3. Great word and fabulous canvas, Norine!

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