Flap Flap

This week's prompt for Documented Life (you can read more about DL HERE) was "Add a flap to your flap."  I made my own DL journal out of a SmashBook I had lying around since forever and I actually had to add a flap to this page so I could add a flap to that flap.  My original flap (with the monthly calendar) is on the next page.  So flap flap flap. Flap.  (hehe)

This spread was inspired by Mindy Lacefield's work.  You can check her out at her site, TIM'S SALLY.  In my Pinterest adventures, I have seen her work before, but for whatever reason, it has been catching my eye a lot lately.  I think it's her use of color and the childlike quality present in her pieces.  I like that her faces can be sweet and haunting (or slightly sinister looking...at least to me) at the same time.  So here's what I did inspired by her:

I think it's the black eyes that make them appear a little menacing to me...menacing in a good way...if that's possible...

Can I just tell you, despite all my efforts in the past to make realistic looking drawings, that I LOVE this girl! In fact, I love this spread...love, love, LOVE IT!!!

Part of my love for this spread comes from that teal on the page...Liquitex Heavy Body Cobalt Teal, to be exact.  Never in my life, did I think I would be the proud owner of a $20 tube of paint...but here I am...thanks to my lovely and generous mom!  (Thank you, Mom!!!  Smooch!  Smooch!  Smooch!!!)  Oh, hubba hubba!  Isn't it just dreamy?  And the blue on the page (Ultramarine Blue, in case you were wondering) is from my very first bottle of Golden Fluid acrylics!  Can I just say, I feel like a true artist, because I actually used my fancy paints?  Instead of waiting for the 'perfect' time to use them, I made this time be the first time!  I am a little proud/patting myself on the back over the whole thing!  

I have my two fancy bottles of paint sitting next to me on the desk, and every three minutes or so, I look over at them with dreamy eyes and whisper "I love you" to them...

In the background, the card with the flower on it was something my older sister, Marian, made using UTEE (which is ultra thick embossing powder) and an image from the interwebs, I do believe...  In real life, this has a very thick, glossy coat of goodness over it that the camera just won't pick up...but trust me, pure GORGEOUSNESS!  And then, of course is my flap with flap...yay!

I think the childlike quality of this spread lends itself well to my theme...

"We've all had a piece of heaven, but how many of us knew when we had it in our hands?"
I wanted to paint a stylized version of the fancy flower/UTEE piece that my sister had made to kind of tie it in to the page, because they really didn't 'go' together.  I love how the leaf to the right looks especially.

...I guess in my head, my theme is kind of childish in itself.  Basically it's talking about wanting something you know you'll never have.  Hoping beyond hope for something that won't come to be....wishing on a star.  I think it's why I wanted those flowers on the page as well, because even though they're beautiful, they look a little melancholy too.  

Flaps completely flapped out, with some personal journaling on the back.  Also, check out those neat black 'doodles'!  Such a cool technique...it's actually writing that I mirrored.  If you turned it on the side, and covered up half, you should be able to read what I wrote (if you are so inclined)...it's a cool way to have secret words in your pages (although mine's not so secret anymore, I guess!).  All you do is take tracing paper (or any paper thin enough to see through), fold it in half and write whatever it is you want right along the fold.  Then flip the paper over and copy what you wrote (it will be backwards now).  Then open up your paper and you will have a mirror image of your writing.  You can leave all the spaces open or color all or some of them in, and it will give you different looks.  Fun stuff, right!?!

I wonder why we do things like that...why we want what we can't have?  Why do we have to want what doesn't want us back?  And even if we did get what we wanted, it would never be like the picture in our head anyway, so why do we keep dreaming?  All these feelings...they sure are a hassle...just saying...

The adult part of me knows all that.  I know that what I want to happen is not 'good' or 'right'.  I know that it would never be like I imagine.  I know that even wanting the things that I do...'letting' myself want them...is foolish.

But the kid in me...oh, the kid...

I spent most of my life being a tiny adult.  I did what I was told: what was 'good' and what was 'right'.  I was mature and responsible and stable and steady and all those other grown-up words.  All those little kid things ways got locked up inside of me...probably right next to wherever my emotions were hidden...and they never saw the sun.

But now that my emotions are loose in the world, it seems like my secret kid parts have escaped and are rampaging like wild rhinos.  

I, Sweets, the adult, know that it's wrong and stupid and dangerous to want what I want.  But my bull-headed inner child is yelling to the top of her lungs that she doesn't care.  She wants what she wants and she refuses to understand that she can't have it.  She doesn't care that it will only end up hurting.  She doesn't care that it's just a day dream and that it's not possible in this world.  She just wants it and she refuses to be suppressed until she gets what she wants.  No matter how many times I tell her that it's not going to happen, she screams back at me that there's hope.  There's always hope.  And no matter how much the adult in me knows that hope, for the most part, is a terrible lie, she will not accept that.  She just keeps hoping...

...and she just keeps standing there with her arms wide open, waiting for the things she wants to fall into them.