Smile Art Journal Page

This art journal page I made last week.  It's about some things that make me smile.  There is an M&M and a Skittle with arrows pointing toward each other.  The story about the M&M and Skittle is my husband invaded the kids candy from Easter.  They mixed M&M's, Skittles, and jelly beans all together in a baggie.  My husband didn't know and ate an M&M and Skittle at the same time.  His reaction keeps me giggling!  :)  There is a paint brush for obvious reasons.  I drew my cell phone with a couple texts from my husband when I was having a rough night ... they made me smile.  I drew a foot with arrows pointing to a big toe.  It's a game my boys and I learned.  The object of the game is to ask a question and the person you ask has to answer "grandma's big fat toe" without laughing.  For instance, I would ask my kids what they brush their teeth with and they have to answer "grandma's big fat toe" and they can't laugh.  It's gets fun!  I was upset one time ... I was crying.  My son said "mommy, I know what would make you feel better".  I asked "what?"  He said "Grandma's big fat toe."  He was right ... it did make me feel better.  :)

Roaring Bear Art Journal Pages

Three weeks ago I was feeling very grumpy.  I tried to take a nap, but I couldn't sleep.  I finally went down to my studio and decided to work in my art journal.  I picked up some bright colors of paint, that I thought wouldn't make a pretty page...my mood wasn't pretty.  After I applied all the crazy paint colors with an old credit card, I found a picture of a bear in a magazine.  I added him to one of the pages.  I felt like a grumpy bear.  I took some foam stamp letters and spelled out roar.  I felt like I was roaring at others.  I painted more details to the word.  Next I took a cloud stamp I picked up the day before, and filled it in with some paint.  I added others stamps too.  While doing all this I kept praying, asking why I was in this mood.  My answer came while expressing all my emotions on the pages.  Grumpiness has other causes....anger does.  There is always a different emotion causing the anger.  There was an underlying issue that I was able to answer before art journaling.  I was upset.  I want to teach art journaling.  I have dreams of helping others through art.  I had negative feelings of my dream never coming true.  After I finished art journal pages, I felt so much better.  I had so much fun figuring out why I was upset.  The photo above is that day's art journaling.  I hope you give it a try the next time you feel like you are in a funk.