Where did January go?

 

So far I have managed to keep up with my art journal calendar…yay!  I know it’s not quite the end of the month, but I’m sharing them with you now so that I don’t forget.  The whole plan with this is that I’m always ahead of myself, I’m hoping it means I’ll keep it up. 

I’m using an A5 sketch book so each page is a is big enough for a week.  Below is the end of January running into February.  yep – February is all ready to go, and I’m working on March! Told you – determined to keep it up.

Paints & ink sprays: Dylusions from AFTH.

Stamps: Sassafrass Lass, BasicGrey, 7 Gypsies, Paper Artsy

Image in February: Itkupilli

Chilly Beach Days

Last weekend we headed to the beach for a couple of hours. We didn’t realise that this could bring out the premature teenager in Jamie who was fed up after five minutes of being cold.  It seems that zipping his coat up properly wouldn’t have made and difference….until he did zip his coat up properly and lo, he was much happier and able to start a new rock collection. 

Rosie on the other hand was perfectly happy to be outside, climbing over rocks, collecting sea water in her bucket and holding hands.

One word...awesome

Bouncing off around the internet I came across this shot taken by Andrew Smith from Cuba Gallery .

All I have to say is "awesome"

Sketch scrapping

I rarely ever use sketches for scrapping. I just have an aversion to them, even though I have started to create sketch challenges for my local crop, but just recently I they have started to grow on me, and more importantly means quick scrapping when the mood takes me.  Yesterday I spent a couple of hours meandering through blog land and at one point landed on Shimelle’s blog and found her sketch of the week.  I loved the big blocks of patterned paper and promptly printed off an A4 sized photo from our trip to New York in November 2010.  I trimmed it down and then pulled out a couple of virtually untouched GoGo kits and set about chopping them up.

I know it doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, but to print the shot out smaller just felt wrong. I just love the simplicity of this layout and feel inspired to get stash busting.   Just need to get some photo’s printed out now and hopefully I’ll then be able to justify the pile of unused kits currently hiding in my cupboard.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

When you are running late

Getting the kids ready to get out the door in the morning is no mean feat, but it annoys me even more when my chaotic mornings are made worse by the door bell ringing.  It’s not that we have such a huge house it takes an age to get to the door, but it’s the moments standing there whilst they ask me my name, followed by how do I spell that (short term memory problems from looking at my name less than thirty seconds ago – it must be an affliction suffered only by delivery drivers), followed by sign here, are precious moments that I should be using to pull on socks or brush teeth so that I can then bundle the kids out of the door.  Still it gives me yet one more reason in my day to rant about something.  Not least, as was this morning, that fact that I then didn’t have time to open the parcel!  Arrgh.  I hate that.  I have very little patience especially when I know what’s in it.

So what was in it – this little lot to start with… Caran D’ache Neocolor II crayons….dozens of them.

 

Don’t they almost look good enough to eat? 

I have fallen in love with the set of 15 I have, which were then topped up with some flesh colours when doing the Willowing course.  Well now I have almost every colour, admittedly only almost because they were out of stock on some colours, but that’s ok.  Why do I love them so?  They have a creamy texture and blend beautifully with acrylic paints while wet, are vibrant and so damn easy to store.   I know it seems rather excessive to buy so many but they will last me a lifetime.  I consider them an investment, just like my watercolour and inktense pencils.  Any besides, I wanted them! LOL.

I also now have a huge pot of white acrylic paint, some texture paint and a tube of interference paint to play with.  Guess who’s running out of storage space again. 

Ouch!

It's been a little while since I made jewellery and I'd forgotten how much polishing it takes to get silver looking good.  I actually have a friction burn on one of my fingers after working on this double pendant.   The smaller one has children's fingerprints on it, and the larger one is patterned.  I'm really pleased how this one has turned out and hope the recipient likes it too!

It must be time for new challenges

You know, and I know, that I am utterly useless at keeping up annual or monthly challenges. This year I took part in LSNED and didn't finish.  At the start of the year I meant to look at the Document:2010 project on UKS....and forgot.  I haven't even looked at JYC this year.  So, for 2011 I've set myself a challenge of creating a weekly art journal calendar a la Kate Crane. 

So here are the first two weeks all ready to go.  I figured that as I love doing my art journal, then this surely must be an easy to do.  No photo's to take or print out and that means a distinct lack of feeling the need to colour match.  Using up lots of scraps of scrapbook paper to make the daily journalling squares.  Surely it has to tick some boxes as well as making a dent in my stash mountain, albeit a small one. 

I'm doing this in an A5 greyboard sketchbook from paperchase and it feels good to have put it to use. Pages are ready to go not just for the first two weeks, but the first six.  I figure by giving myself a head start I stand a fighting chance of doing this.

My next crafty task is indeed to look back over the Document: 2010 prompts (I have them all downloaded) and maybe make a Document: 2011 album.

So what crafty challenges are you planning to take part in next year then?

Frosty Mornings

You can’t deny it is rather beautiful and worth getting the camera out for.  We’ve had weeks of snow and ice, our footpaths and untreated roads still have inches of ice on them. Poor Rosie almost cried with the cold on her face going to school this morning.  It comes to something when you get up and hope it’s only –4 Celsius as you’ve got used to that and it’s not as bad as it sounds.   It’s certainly not the sort of weather than has you leaping out of bed.  Jamie can’t wait for the school holidays to start so he doesn’t have to (1) get up and (2) go out.  Oh boy – does he have a shock coming to him.

Being a guest

This month I’m a guest, in this case a guest designer for A Trip Down memory Lane.  It was a real privilege to be asked, especially as ATDML was the first store I ever did any scrappy shopping with.  I loved the papers that I was sent to work with and simply put - I ran out of time to use them what with out trip away and all the chaos that comes with coming home again. I’ll be sure to share more layouts with you when I get five minutes to scrap.

The December gallery is now live, so head on over and take a look.  There are, as always, some fabulous creations there, and I’d really like to say Thanks to Mel & Jill for inviting me to join their talented team of designers this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just can't concentrate!

It's driving me nuts that I can't seem to concentrate on a blooming thing at the moment.  Never mind restless legs from running, I have restless everything from being on holiday and am seriously struggling to get back into it, and worse sort myself out for Christmas.  I have half idea's for projects running round in my head, a pile of presents to buy and make, food shopping to do and a house to sort out.  I've even walked past the post box a dozen time with a huge pile of Christmas cards in my bag and forgotten to post them .  I'm panicking and that means I come to a full stop!  Not the best really.

So this very quick and probably dull post, is to apologise for the lack of blogging taking place.  I have crafted for my crop, I have tons of photo from New York along with tales of parades and sparkly rings (twas a very special 40th) and I have created layouts for an upcoming guest DT spot,  I will share these things with you soon.  That is as soon as I have sorted myself out and feel properly back in the grove!  Until then thanks for stopping by.  Normal service will resume in January!  Promise.

Been at it again…

 

Yes, more scrapping.  Think it may have something to do with a pile of “school” photo’s that have been sitting waiting to be scanned in, and that fact that once again my little craft space seems to be shrinking so I must use up my mountain.

This layout is one I created for a class I held at my local crop. Thankfully all the ladies that took part seemed to love it – big phew!

And after all that scrapping, I’ve managed to do a little art journaling as well. How could I not? 

One background ready to work on, all done with acrylic paints.

And a finished pages, stamped and doodled in my mini journal.

That’s probably going to be it from me now until December as Chris & I are off to New York soon for our annual “just us” break that happens to coincide with my 40th, and that means packing up my journaling travel kit to take with me.  I think that is going to be harder than packing clothes!

Thanks for stopping by!

A good bad photo

Rosie is asserting her independence this week in a way that, at times, has been painful.  Painful to me that is. She started out the week making her own sandwiches, or is that butterwich?  The aftermath was, shall we say, interesting and took some cleaning up.

I decided to take some photo’s of her to mark this new found independence. This is the only one that is out of focus, but a perfect moment catching that cheeky little face full of pride showing of her yummy “butterwich”. This is definitely my good bad photo of 2010.  So, what’s yours?

Are you sitting down?

I think I'm still in shock.  Last night I had a sudden urge to scrapbook, and here's the evidence.  

I've used the October Scrapagogo kit, with no inking or distressing, not a doodle in sight.  Totally unheard of for me! I have never scrapped straight from a single kit but I think I used a good chunk of it on this layout.  So, finally, with all the art journalling I've been doing, I've made a dent in the ever growing stash mountain. Hurrah.

Thanks for stopping by!

eeeyuk..

Bugs and diseases have hit our house again and it hasn't made for much fum over half term.  Neither has there been much going on on the crafty painty inky front so a very quick post to share what I have done.

This little lady may well be headed for my mini art journal, but the (cute) couple below are in an altered book I'm working on for the art, heart and healing course over on Willowing.

That's it for now.  Off to light the pumpkin we carved this afternoon!  Happy Halloween !

What's your current favourite?

I love finding new products to play with.  New to me that is, and it's even better buying them when you get service with a smile.   A couple of months ago I treated myself to some Tim Holtz tissue tape but I really wanted to get my hands on some Japanese masking tape, and here is one set I ordered from Papermash. Yep, I did order more than one set.

I just love it.  It's sheer and silky and is slowly appearing in my art journals and scrapbook pages. I received fantastic service from Lynne at Papermash, so if you're looking for some interesting tapes pop over and give her a visit.  There are some new Christmas tapes in store....

Thanks, as always, for stopping by!