Love, Joleen Photography Blog

Art Journal Collaboration

Heather and I always have some scheme or project we're working on. One of our recent projects was a round robin of art journals - we each had a journal we worked in ourselves then sent to one another to work in as well. We did this a few times for this particular journal. (We've since done a Vintage Valentine journal round robin that I will have to share sometime). These pages were all ones I did in her journal and they're my favorites. Some Most All(?) of them can be seen in the last issue of Portals. Click on each image to view larger. Happy Monday! xo

HOME Issue Now Available for PRESALE

"Home" is an informative & inspiring issue featuring the amazing artwork of artist and author Christine Mason Miller. Tutorials and articles from Adair Amodio, Robin Dudley-Howes, Lelainia Lloyd, and Mike Jennings! A gallery full of eye candy, creative writing, exclusive giveaway from Danielle Thompson of Kitschy Digitals and MORE! This is NOT an e-zine, it is as actual issue professionally printed in full color!!

*Includes shipping in the continental US!!
*Scheduled publish date: April 15th!

Now available for PRESALE! :) xo

Super Busy in a Good Way

Yesterday was gorgeous. It hit about 80 here and was sunny and nice. As I drove the 15ish miles to my Jazzercise class the temperature dropped 20 degrees and was super foggy. I still thought it was incredibly beautiful and wanted to share. This morning the fog moved north and now I'm looking at through the window.  It's lovely.

Yesterday I also (finally) made the official announcement of our new website and started the celebration I mentioned last week. Of course I'm going to share it here. This is the letter that went out with the above certificate:

Hello friends,

We are so excited to premiere our new website: www.lovejoleen.com! Please take a look and let us know what you think. To celebrate we're offering $100 of ANY session through June 2009 - all you need to do is include the attached "coupon" with your deposit. Please forward to any friends or family who may interested as the credit is open to everyone. Sessions to take place in Orange County and parts of Los Angeles and San Diego Counties by June 30, 2009. We look forward to hearing from you!

Best,

Joleen Thiessen

Some other happenings keeping me busy, busy:
♥ Issue #7 of Portals Zine. Pre-sales will begin soon- woohoo!
♥ A special, secret project I've started on. I think it's going to be a super fun collaboration and will share more as we get closer. It will be available this June. How's that for a tease? ;)
♥ I am stepping out of my comfort zone by planning and organizing events in my Young Women's meetup group for April. So far I've planned dinner & drinks and possibly a private yoga class. What are some other ideas?

La La La Love

I don't know what happened. I turned my head for a minute and Valentine's Day threw up all over my studio space. ;) That's not even the half of it.. you should see the floor and guest bed. Eesh! I've been *so* productive, though! I have 10 fronts and backs to do for the swap and I've completed 14 so far. I also started a mini art journal.

I started a special card project today. This week when I was in the garage I came across a gift bag with all of our wedding and shower cards and mementos in it. I brought it upstairs and have been brainstorming what to do with everything and today I decided. I have a plan and will be sure to let you know how it goes! :)
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♥ The Portals blog has had a face lift. Go check out all the new stuff we're doing over there.

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♥ Don't forget to tell me your favorite love quote to be entered in the contest! I'll post photos of the lovely prize in the next day or two! :) xo

peeks of the coolest issue of the best zine ever.

seriously.

this issue will knock your socks off.

we used a professional printer and it's 44 pages of goodness!!

go get your copy or ask santa to put it in your stocking. :)

The new issue is up for PRESALE! w00t, w00t! :)

Projects

The eldest little one in my charge is a sweet four year old girl. We are so perfect together because we both love dressing up, dancing around the house, and doing crafts- lots and lots of crafts. For the past several months she's been dictating stories to me that I illustrate for her to color. We decided to create a book of these stories for her to give as holiday gifts. From that idea sprang a monster of an idea. We've been working very diligently to get her stories together and decided to make this book a sort of scrapbook / yearbook. I photographed many of her projects and favorite things and gathered photos (from my own and her parent's) to illustrate the last year. We're up to about 20 pages (did I mention it's been a lot of work?) and I thought I'd share a few with you. I can't show my very favorites since they have pictures of the little ones that I'm not authorized to share.

The first image is a "self portrait" she drew (LOVE!), the second is one of the "scrapbook" pages to showcase some of her work, and the third is a page from one of our stories.

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In other project news, we have been hard at work with the new issue of Portals. Ooooh, and it's SO good if I do say so myself. :) You're gonna love it! Be sure to add the Portals blog to your bookmarks because we're going to be updating it regularly. I'd like to feature interviews with artists, videos, tutorials, favorites, reviews, challenges, swaps, and guest bloggers. Sound fun? I'd love to hear your ideas on what you'd like to see around here or really in the zine itself!

"Issue #6..." Art Journals" is filled with the things we love right now. We have included many inspirational journal pages from some of our favorite art journalers along with tutorials and sparks to help you delve into your journal. In addition we have TWO featured artists and the usual favorites... Q/A, Artist's Challenge, book reviews, and more. PLUS all issues of Portals Zine will come with a free font download created JUST for Portals readers!!"

Interested in advertising in this issue? Go here for specifics.

November

Hello! Most of you are probably in a sugar induced coma right now. ;) We had a very quiet Halloween this year. I'm feeling sick (AGAIN?? I must not even have an immune system) and slept most of the late afternoon/early evening. We had no trick or treaters.. I wasn't sure what to expect since you have to go up a flight of stairs to get to our front door so I only bought a small bag of playdo (sp?). Probably a good thing since I would have had to wrestle the dogs to get to the door. I was bummed we weren't going to dress up this year so I decided to dress up for work and wore the tiara from my wedding to be a "princess". I brought princessy accessories for the girls to wear and they got a kick out of that. We spent the morning dancing around the house. :)
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I cannot (CANNOT) believe it's November. I want time to just go ahead and stand still for a while. I need to make a plan of execution for my holiday gifts and visit with my family as much as possible before they move. Don't you wish weekends were longer? I vote we add Mondays to the weekend. :) Don't forget to change your clocks tonight.. Fall back. ;) Happy weekend, friends! xo
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Oh, and just a reminder, today is the last day to get your art journal pages in for the gallery! This is going to be my favorite issue to date and I hope you'll be a part of it! :) Artwork submission guidelines can be found here.

Goings On

Hello! This week has been so eventful but I haven't much felt like writing. Little things like  attending the Domino Bazaar and walking the CHOC walk 5k to big things like finding out my parents + sisters are moving across country. I'm just feeling a bit like snuggling up in bed and watching episode after episode of Stargate. Oh, wait. I've been doing that too. ;) I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your kind comments and emails regarding my new journal + journey. My life feels so rich and blessed and I am full of hope.

I wanted to post this reminder that we are currently accepting your artwork and article submissions for our 6th issue of Portals Zine: Art Journals. Visit our website for submission guidelines. 

sneaks

here's a peek of some pages i did in heather's journal as part of a project for the upcoming issue of Portals. please consider sending in some of YOUR artwork.