Welcome to my new blog
Random Notes
with Jane Powell

It took me a while to get around to doing this but I finally decided that it was time to let you all see the "behind the scenes" part of Random Arts in Saluda, NC. The photo here on the right is one that was taken of me in April when the photographer from Mountain Traditions Magazine came here to do a shoot for their recent article on our shop. Hurrah for us! We were "published" and it was... wonderful.

Where We've Been

Anyway, that was in April and this is September. Jen and I just got back from Blowing Rock, NC where we went to be a vendor and sell our "assorted goods for creative mindfulness" to the participants at the "Believe in Yourself" retreat with Kristi Steiner and Susan Edmonson. It was an amazing retreat where 50 like-minded creative spirts ( the muses and the sprites) learned some altered forms of free motion quilting, coloring fabrics and trims, stamping on fabrics and the much discussed issue of " How do I break through my creative stumbling blocks?"

What to do now?

Kristi will be here on October 28th for an altered book workshop entitled "My Heart's Desire" or if you like, you can call it " My Soul Revealed". Not only does Kristi share her nurturing and sharing talents but she is going to "nudge" you into a creative space of journalling and tapping into your creativity... one step at a time. We still have room so email us to get in on Kristi's workshop. My personal thoughts on this is that we should have her here while we can because now that she teaches at Art and Fiber Fest, she may be out of our reach.... I hope not.

Time for Me

In this past week of time off for me, I found time to do a few creative things of my own. For the past year I have wanted to paint one wall in the master bedroom a deep rich brown. Maybe I was a little frightened at such a dark color but after thinking about it for a year ( and having already purchased the gallon of paint) I decided to PAINT THE WALL on a rainy Wednesday.
It is spectacular and it is the perfect color! I was so excited and it turned out just like I had hoped. Yes!

While browsing through a recent issue Bound & Lettered ,by John Neal Booksellers, I saw a project for a simple little flag book so I decided right then and there to create my own little flag book. Well, one thing led to another and after several hours of watercoloring the little pages, collaging them with magazine photos and words, and using the greatest wax pastels ever... NEO II by Carand'ache, I crafted my very own little flag book. And... it's awesome.

Speaking of the NEO II wax pastels, I used these in some journal pages that I did while I was in Blowing Rock. What fun! After watercoloring a plain white page in my journal, I added collage items, drew lines and added color with the NEO II wax pastels, then used the Glaze pens for journalling. These added punch! They are rich, vivid and dimensional. A must for all your creative journalling.

I just started doing some journal pages and that is HUGE for me but I successfully launched into this after following a suggestion from Kristi Steiner. She told me to go to Teesha Moore's web site and look at her ideas on journalling. Her suggestions were to start with water color, add collage then use the carandache wax pastels. Another big help for me was listening Meg Fowler when she told me to use quotes on my page if I didn't want to "really" journal. That jump started me to the pages I am displaying on my blog. Loved it! Had fun! What a blast! and... I will do it again and again and again.