Jen Worden is one of my bloggy art friends that likes to challenge herself and others… she is offering up a new weekly Challenge and I felt like giving it a try this week.

So the challenge is “Grab one of your DIY books or magazines. Flip open to a random page and create the project. The FIRST. No flipping through to find something you WANT to do. This is an exercise in expanding your horizons coupled with making the project yours.”

This is MUCH harder than you might think… I started with an Expressions issue July/August 2005. I flipped to a random page, got an advertisement, flipped again and got a polymer clay project that requires supplies that I don’t have. I am on a supply diet, so I needed another idea. I ended up flipping through almost every project and not a one had supplies that matched my current stock. I thought, “Why the heck do I even have this magazine?” I promptly decided I need to purge my magazine and book collection to match my current focus!

So I looked in Cloth Paper Scissors fall 2005 and got some colorful pages on handmade books which reminded me of the funky signatures that are in Collage Unleashed that Eliza just finished doing. So I just decided to do that. It is actually a project that has been simmering in my mind for a while anyways. I have some much little scrappy stuff I thought I would make a bunch of little books to use as trades at artfest this year, and in the process try to purge and clean up my paper supplies. Mostly I just ended up with a ton of paper junk all over my floor! But I did locate a bunch of old tip-ins from a swap that I should get put into an altered book and more magazines that I am truely befuddled as to why they are in my studio.

So did I do some art? yes… kinda. Did I meet the challenge? me thinks not. I guess I will try again later this week after I do some more cleaning!