I'm Back .....................................

Oh my goodness it took me a while to dust this down and clear out the cobwebs.  Its been a long time.

I felt encouraged to perhaps give blogging a go again after reading about Julie Kirk from Notes on Paper  and her mission to leave 300 comments in 30 days on blogs.  It made me realise that I have missed my fix of blog reading which I always think is a great way to have a nosy into like minded folks lives.

I seem to have got a bit lost in recent times as there have been a lot of changes at work and in my Dads health.  Her has actually been in hospital following a bad fall for the last 4 months and we are just trying to get him into a Nursing Home at the moment.  He fell whilst out for a walk one evening and suffered a small bleed on his brain which has really affected the speed at which his vascular Dementia has accelerated.  He doesn't even really know who we all are these days.

I'm still crafting away although much less on the scrapping side and more on the art journaling and arty side.

I do intend to take scrapbooking up again as my son Fraser has been to Indonesia this year on a Queens Scout trip and wants an album of his trip so that's something to keep me busy over the winter months I guess.

Much less arting has been going on due to the amount of hospital visiting and I'm way behind on the year long arty course "Lifebook" which I have been taking this year.  Plenty of time to catch up soon though as I'm off for a much needed 10 day crafty break at Lochhouse with the girls.  I absolutely cannot wait.

In the meantime I will leave you with some pages from my Inspiration Wednesday journal.  I'm loving this class by Donna Downey which is once a fortnight so easy to keep up with.  She's fearless and just encourages you to go for it and enjoy the process and not to worry about the outcome.  Some of the pages I like much better than others but these ones are a few of my favourites.

First up is the cover of the book which was made by my lovely friend Dee from Donna's tutorial.  I totally love it.  I've treated myself to a sewing machine and Im hoping to get started with it soon but I haven't been brave enough as yet

Some of the pages so far

Hopefully I will be back again with you soon and meantime I'm off to do a bit of blog reading and commenting.

Finally ........ a bit of scrapping

I must admit my scrapping has been put a bit on the back burner recently as I seem to be all consumed by the inky painty side of crafting.

However, that is now creeping into my scrapping and I'm finding it hard to do a layout without adding some inky painty element to it

I did this one at my recent retreat as my entry for my Scrap a sketch group I'm part of

The main piece of "patterned paper" on this is actually a setion from the mop up paper on my desk,.  Its amazing what you get when you lift your work up and I got several fabulously painty and inky sections during my week away.  I sprayed some dylusions through a plastic canvas circle, I use this a lot as I love the effect it gives.  The stamps I used on the edges were from Kate Crane's latest set and make fab borders.

The photo is of Lisa and I, well our painty hands mainly.  We were getting down and dirty with the paints one evening whilst enjoying a glass (or maybe two) of wine.  Wine oils the wheels of creativity don't you know!!

I just realised after I had taken the picture one of the letter stickers in the title had fallen off - I have now rectified this before putting away in my album.

This one is my entry for the weekly challenge on UK Scrappers set by the Bijoux Belles.  Photo of is my daughters kitten Maisie Lou or as she is mostly known by us as Maisie Moo!!! and a right little moo she can be at times. Fi was trying to get Maisie to pout while she took a selfie of them both - silly girl!!  I used a fab new set of stamps I got from Angela at Angel Crafts, Simple Stories DIY - I thought they would be great in my planner but used them at the crop on two layouts so I think they are going to be well used.

Finally I managed to do the house challenge on UKS for the first time in ages.

Photo is me on my first beach walk of the season at Beadnell in March - boy it was cold but so good to be walking along the waters edge again. 

I used a stencil with some blue paint, some texture paste through another stencil and some stamping for this one

I'm hoping my scrapping mojo has re surfaced as I really haven't had the notion to do much scrapping in the last year.

The Documented Life Project - March catch up

I am still loving this fab year long project and managing to keep up to date with it hasn't proved a problem at all so far.  Any week where I have less time than usual my pages are just kept to very basic and on a week where I find myself with a bit more time and energy I spend more time making my pages a bit more detailed.

Here's a wee round up of my March pages

The prompt was "What makes you, you"  Im not great at journaling about myself but I gave it ago this week with a tip in page double sided and with two little flaps underneath.  I made the little person using a scanned piece of a Katre Crane tag which came with some of her stamps as the body and used a stampotique stamp for the head and legs and a Kate Crane Leaf stamp for the wings.

The background this week was made using a technique demonstrated by Terri Kahrs on a You Tube video gessoing your page first and then using inktense pencils and a baby wipe.  I love the depth of colour it gives.




Prompt was to draw a bird.  No I am not good at drawing at all but I had real fun with this week.

I used the Terra Kahr's inktense background again and then made my tip in from a gelli printed background which I gave a wash with watered down gesso to knock back the colour a little.  I built up my quirky little bird using gelli prints for the body, wings, eye and crown and drew in the stripey legs.  On the planner side of my page I took inspiration from Roben-Maries Smith's take on a Jodie Ohl collaged bird.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     What a great technique and one I will be trying again.  The whole page is collaged, then the outline of the bird drawn in pencil then outside the bird the collage is painted over so that the bird itself is made up of the original collage.  Very effective and not difficult at all.

This was the week we were on retreat at Lochhouse.  A grungy background with layers of paint being brayered on to form the background.  Lots of photos of us and incorporating some of my mop up paper into the background.

The prompt this week was to cut something out of a magazine and I found this fab image in an old issue of Somerset studio, I added some torn pieces of mop up paper, a bit of stamping and I thought the quote suited her perfectly

Background I have posted about previously from a Limor Webber video.

Prompt was to have someone draw on your page and finish it and my tip in was the result of a round the table timed collaboration with Dee and Donna.  At the end of that week I attended one of Kate Crane's workshops with Dee and Lesley so I added a couple of photos from that to it.

Spring Break - Lochhouse

Well as I might have mentioned in a previous post I was lucky enough to spend a whole week in March at Lochhouse Farm near Moffat in Scotland with my crafty besties.  Now before you think a whole week retreat is a bit of an expensive luxury its not.  We hire two wee cottages which includes the use of a room for scrapping in and cater for ourselves.  Its cheap and cheerful and we always have an absolute whale of a time. We are there for seven nights and there are five of us so each of us makes the dinner one night, Saturday night is the fish and chips night and on Sunday we actually have to drag ourselves out of our pj's to go to the carvery for Sunday lunch.

 Once lunch is over though its back into pj's to partake of our Lochhouse tradition of double pud Sunday, we are always too full after our visit to the carvery so we buy some puds in the co-op and eat them for our Sunday tea

All five of us are taking part in the Documented Life Planner project this year and it was fab to look in each others planner and see all the fab artwork, each of the planners is so different even though we are working to the same prompts.

The prompt for the week we were away for the tip in page was to have someone else draw on your page and then finish it so Dee, Donna and I decided on a round the table collaboration which was great fun, if a teeny bit stressful.  We set a timer and each had seven minutes to work on a page before it had to move round to the next person.

This is how mine turned out.  I love it

I even managed to convert Lisa to a dirty girl with inky hands during the week, teach her to sit next to me!

Wine o'clock on a Friday  is much more fun in company and with inky messy play involved, its sheer bliss. You know you really are a dirty girl when your wine glass can be picked out of five identical ones with the words "Oh this one with the gesso on must be Suzy's!!

I loved painting these quirky wee birds even though it took me nearly all day to get them done.

The week flew past in a blink of an eye so its just as well we have another one booked for October this year. Let the countdown commence.

Junk Key Round Robin

Hello there, right I resolve this moth not to neglect my blog as much as last month so today we have my Junk key for a round robin swap organised by Lou on UK Scrappers.  There's five of us in each group and the keys will travel round and each person will add something to them in the theme requested by the owner.  Well I bought myself a rusty key from ebay.  Lets just say it was larger than expected when it arrived but I love it so I'm using it!  It looks like a giant among some of the more delicate ones in the swap

No surprise that my theme is anything coastal.  First of all I thought Id jazz up the key itself and I wondered if some frantage would work on it.  Yes it did but oh my how hot does the actual key get while melting the embossing powder!  I used some shabby teal.  Next up I wrapped a piece of vintage book paper round the key and attached with some rusty wire.  I then added a tiny bottle with sand from the beach at my beloved Beadnell (yes I do have a glass vase of the sand along with some sea glass from Beadnell on display in my downstairs loo) and a seahorse charm with some turquoise beads which came from an old earring which was broken.  Its off in the post now to Karen and I cant wait to see what everyone adds to it as it goes off on its rounds

I have received Lou's key in the post and her theme is vintage sewing room.  Thinking caps on as to what I might add to this one.

See It, Pin It, Do It (March)

My goodness me.  I have been neglecting my little blog a bit of late.

Its been a busy old time to be honest between my Dads health increasingly failing, a lot of changes at work and two crafty retreats away- yes two I am a lucky girl I know.

So first up in my blogging catch up is joining in with Fiona's See it, pin it do it feature on her blog which is here.

Its a great way to ensure you actually do some of the lovely projects you pin on pinterest rather than just gaining boards full of pins

When I saw the link to this You Tube video by Limor Webber I knew instantly I wanted to have a go at it.


I didn't have the gelatos she used so improvised with acrylic paints.  I think the gelatos look easier to blend but I am trying to make do with things I have at present so with a bit more work I got the acrylic paints to do the job quite nicely.

This formed the base for my diary pages for the Documented Life Project for the final week in March.  The week we came home from Lochhouse but also the week I was meeting up with Lesley and Dee again to attend Kate Cranes workshop in Middlesbrough arranged by Jean.  More of that in a separate post.

I love the way my pages turned out and the little circles are filled with a mx of stamping and rub ons.  Its a bold page and quite different to the rest of the pages in my planner but I love it and its a style I will try again maybe in a more muted colour scheme

See it, Pin it, Do It

When I saw that Fiona was running this new feature on her lovely blog here.  I knew I wanted to join in.

I am taking part in The Documented Life Project (see my earlier posts for details) and I have been pinning things like a fiend for inspiration for my weekly tip ins.

I loved this pin here when I saw it and knew I wanted to do my own version of it for one of my tip ins

Here is my version.  the background is layers and layers of collaged bits, inks and paints, I just kept piling on the layers until I was happy with it.  I drew out the bird shapes and wings on papers I had made using my gelli plate and stuck them on and outlined the edges.  I loved the words which I stamped with one of my tiny alphabet sets and then tipped it into my journal using the bird and bird cage washi tape.

Hop over to Fionas and have a look at this new feature of hers.

The Documented Life Project - Week 3

Week three of the new year already.  On the up side that means the dreary month of January is almost over and Spring  is edging just that teensy bit closer. Can you tell I am not a winter girl at all.  Give me the Spring and Summer any day.

Continuing with The Documented Life Project the prompt for this project this week was to use something that had come in the mail.  My mail is not very exciting in the main so I just used a plain window envelope and cut it down to form my tip in page and sealed the open side to form a pocket.  I decorated the front with scraps of scrapbooking paper which I painted and stamped on and added some flowers made from a die cut which I coloured and doodled on.  I stapled on a wee die cut tag I had and finished off with some washi tape strips.  On the reverse side I painted then sprayed inks through one of my home made hot glue stencils.  I think I might do some stamping or doodling just to finish this side off. 

I had received a gorgeous piece of mail art recently from my lovely friend Dee so I popped that in the pocket so that it was peeping out.

I used the diary side of my page to documents the weeks happenings having firstly scribbled two colours of inense pencils over the background and swiping over them with a baby wipe.  I finished off with some doodling.

On the right hand side of the page under the tip in I coloured some wavy lines with neocolours and washed over again with a baby wipe. I have drawn a couple of long egged quirky birds and some more journaling on this page.  The planner is proving useful for practising techniques in and I am determined to learn to doodle some simple things this year.  The birds aren't perfect but they are a start lol.

The prompt for Week four is to right a secret message then paint over all but one word.  Hmmmmm will need to have a good think about how I am going to tackle that one.

If you want to see a bit more about this project have a look on the Art from the 5th blog here.  The project is being run by some seriously talented ladies.

The Documented Life Project Week 2

Hello there.  I am just loving joining in with The Documented Life Project so far.  Here is the link to their blog Art from the 5th if you want to have a look.

The prompt for last week was to take a "selfie" Oh how I hate that word lol and my daughter says I am too old to be using it lol.  Stangely I had just used a selfie I took for my layout for my teams challenge on UKS so I printed it out smaller painted up the background for my tip in page incorporating some pages from the A to Z with where I live and some washi tape,  a border and some doodling, rub-ons and journalling and it was done.

For the other side of the tip in page  I layered up the same paint colours, stencilled through some punchinella and put on an image of some rocks balanced on each other.  I am using this one for the One Little Word I have chosen for this year which is "balance".  After a tumultuous few years I have decided to have some peace in my life I need to achieve some balance so that is my aim for this year.

I have temporarily misplaced my neocolours but when I find them I will be using them to give a wash of colour to the plain cream diary and planner pages which I haven't shown in these pictures

The prompt for Week 3 is to incorporate an envelope from your mail as your tip in- this should be interesting so I will need to have a think about that one

The Documented Life Project

I have decided to join in with this fab year long project along with Donna, Dee and Lesley. I think our new UKS teamie Virginia is going to join us as well.  For more information follow this link to the amazing blog Art to the 5th, set up by the five very talented organisers of this project.

It's a year long project combining a diary, year planner and art journal.

The girls on the group are using moleskines but as I'm desperately trying to stick to a budget am using this Letts Noteletts diary and planner which Donna got me from Tesco for £6.50. I like the slightly bigger size better and also the paper is very slightly thicker than in the moleskins.

I started with a review of 2013 which had more downs than ups.  for this one I glued two pages together as the start of the diary has loads of pages I wont need for this particular project. I based my page on one the very talented Rosie did but mine is no where near as good as hers.

I have the base layers down for my introduction to 2014 page but it still needs a bit of tweaking before it will be ready so I will show that in my next post.

Here's my pages for week one.  I didn't want the diary pages to be boring cream so I scribbled over them lightly with some neocolours and then rubbed over lightly with a baby wipe to blend.  The right hand page is being used for journaling on days when I have more to say, quotes and goals for the year.  Its not quite finished yet. The tip in page which was a jumbo tag was following Prompt 1 on "doors" which was attached with washi tape.

 

 

I'm hoping we all keep each other going through this project as I'd love to see all our finished books at the end of the year.

I'm well under way with my prompts for Week 2 and will blog them shortly

Mixed Media Canvas

Hi there.  I've neglected my blog a bit this month as not much creativity has been going on.

I did do a multi media canvas for Fionas room as part of her Christmas thoughwith a photo of her and her best friend Jade on it

I tore some strips from scrapbooking paper and adhered with gel medium.  I added some texture paste through a stencil in a couple of areas, added a painted and sprayed chipboard flourish postioned my photo adhered some lace and trim which I then gessoed over. I covered the photo while I sprayed with some Dylusions and shimmerz inks.

I gessoed over some flowers which were not the right colour before again giving them a good spray so that they matched.

It took me the whole day at my crop to do but it was so worth it to see her face when she opened it on Christmas morning.

I have a whole load of canvases in my craft room waiting to be decorated so i think you will be seeing more of them on my blog soon.

UK Scrappers Christmas Blog Hop

Good morning and welcome to my wee contribution for the month long Christmas projects Blog Hop being organised by UK Scrappers.  I hope you have been following as there has been some fabulous projects and there are more to come right up till 24 December.

For my project I have a Christmas card with a painty background and a fab stampotique stamp

I started out with a square of watercolour card just slightly smaller than my card blank.  I sponged on some blue paint (sky blue paper artsy fresco paint) and some of their nougat colour,

 I then sponged some more of the nougat
through both a circular stencil and a stencil made from a snowflake punch.  I then sewed round the edges of the square with black thread as a contrast.

Then I stamped the stampotique image (global warming) and coloured it in with my derwent coloursoft pencils (ooh I love these pencils, so soft and creamy and easy to blend).  I added some glossy accents to his buttons, stuck him to the background with some gel matte medium and finished him off with some snow made from various frantage embossing enamels and glitter.  The final touch was computer generated text et voila here he is.

I hope you like my wee project and remember there is a new project on the home page of UK Scrappers each day thorughout December.

Ten Minute Tuesday

Hello there.  It's Tuesday again so its time to show what you have been spending your little ten minute bursts of creativity on this week. Pop over to Vicki's to see what she has been up to this week.

I really am having a bit of a creative slump at the moment.  Between working all week and the dark gloomy nights I haven't really been in the mood for creating much.

When I was away at Lochhouse with the girls last month we were following a tutorial by Roben Marie Smith (oh how I love her work) and as pert of the process she used a gelli plate.  Now none of us are fortunate enough to own one (yet!!) so we improvised.  I had seen people using all sorts of other things to experiment with and as I had bought a couple of non stick oven liners from the Poundshop to use as craft sheets we cut those in half so we could all have a  go.  We actually got some not bad results. These ones are not entirely smooth but I quite like the texture the surface gave the prints.  Of course I only remembered to take the only photo!!

I think I will experiment a bit more with these but not bad for 50p though.

Why don't you join in and share what you have been up to this week.

Tryiptych Canvas Swap

Hello there.  Some time ago (yes quite a long time ago!!) I signed up to take part in a triptych canvas swap with the Secret Swappers group on UK Scrappers.

I got Lou as my swap partner and her brief was pink/cream, feminine, shabby chic, distressed, tatty, butterflies and angel wings.

I used a wee set of 4 by 4 canvases.

I sponged on some cream and pink paint, collaged some tissue paper and music paper and stamped a script stamp on the front and sides.  On the middle canvas I used a digital image and on the other two I stamped the butterflies and the sentiment onto tissue paper and adhered with gel medium.

I finished off with some wee flowers and some ivory frantage to give a more distressed feel.

Lou has now received these so its safe to post them on here.

Ten Minute Tuesday - 26 November

Hello and welcome to another Ten Minute Tuesday.  Hop over to Vicki's to see what this is all about.  Its about taking wee ten minute bursts of creativity when you don't have a huge slice of time and seeing what you come up with

This week I have this wee art journal background.  I got a glue gun recently as I have been dying to try out a technique I saw demonstrated by Contadina K on Your Tube.  My first attempt isn't as good as hers but I'm quite pleased with it.

Basically you make trails of glue over your paper and allow to dry, sponge over some gesso and then
 spray some inks on to your background.  I just love the texture you get.  I have no idea what I will use this page for yet but it was fun practising.

 

I also made this flower shape out of the glue gun.  Its basic but it was my first attempt.  I'm going to use this as a stencil to put on my page and then mist some inks around it to see what effect I get.

An Attitude of Gratitude - Week 2 Catch Up

Hi there.  Brrr! it's been a horrible dull, damp and freezing week here in my corner of Scotland and that has meant my energy levels have been severely sapped and Im taking to my nice cosy bed with a hot water bottle and a dvd or book early doors most evenings.  I hate the dark cold winter months with a passion and it seems the older I get the worse I feel about them.  This has meant that I am lagging more and more behind with my Attitude of Gratitude journal pages.  I am determined to plod along and catch up but I guess it will be well into December before I complete this month long challenge.

If you want to know what this challenge is about then hop over to Bernice's blog here and have a look.  The prompts are fab and I'm really enjoying myself challenging myself to attempt as many of the techniques as I can without having to actually buy any new stash.  Its amazing what you can do with what you already own!!


So here's my pages for Days 8 to 14

Day 8 - Fun.  I scraped some modelling paste through a stencil (thank you Donna for the loan of this one - I love it) then when it was dry sprayed with Dylusions inks, stamped a Kate Crane stamp and doodled and journalled round the page

Day 9 - Generosity.  For this one I spread on gesso quite thickly all over the page tehn drew some swirls with the end of a paintbrush.  Once dry, I sprayed with Dylusions inks (I love how the gesso gives them a softer look) and  I cut out and stuck down a border and an image from Crowabout Studio B and did my journaling around the swirls.

Day 10 - Ideas.  I scraped modelling paste through a tando cogs mask in two of the corners and again sprayed on Dylusions Ink.  I thought the wee guy called Hunk from Stampotique was perfect to finish off the page as his rather large head looks like it is full of ideas lol.  I cut out some text paper and doodled the places I go to for ideas on and did some journaling around the sides.

Day 11 - Home.  I covered the page in gesso again and heated it with a heat gun till it bubbled up, then sprayed with the inks again.  I doodled the houses on text paper, added roofs from corrugated card and finished if off with stamping the word home and finishing the phrase with chit chat words and a corrugated heart.  I journalled around the houses and finished the page off with a doodled border.

Day 12 - Joy.  I tried the Vaseline resist technique for this page by scraping some Vaseline through a stencil then carefully painting over the top with acrylic paint.  Let the paint dry naturally then wipe away the paint from where the Vaseline was to reveal the card underneath. Th hot air balloon stamps is an Indigo Blu one

Day 13 - Knowledge.  For this one I used the glue stick resist technique.  I rubbed a glue stick over my stencil, let it dry a bit then sprayed on inks and wiped off where the glue was. I stamped on an Indigo Blu compass stamp and journalled around it and doodled some flowers.  I dont really like this page but I will stick with it.

and finally for now

Day 14 - Life

I used a wax crayon resist for this one.  I doodled the border and the swirls with a white wax crayon then washed over the page with watercolour paint.  I journalled in the swirls.

So here we are at Day 24 so just the ten days behind now although I do have some backgrounds started which I am working on this afternoon

Will post next weeks lot hopefully next Sunday,

Ten Minute Tuesday

Hi there.  Today I have a work in progress to show you for my Ten Minute Tuesday post.  Hop on over to Vicki's and see what its all about and join in with us.

While I was away for my crafting week with the girls at Lochhouse, Dee was showing us her recycled art journal made from a cereal packet using a tutorial by Jenniebellie.  I instantly wanted to make one so when we popped into the Tesco's in Dumfries I had to purchase a box of cereal.  I can report that as we weren't going to eat the cereal its possible to purchase a suitable box of Tesco own brand cereal for 31p!!! Not bad for a journal cover eh!!  I also got a roll of brown wrapping paper to cover the box with.

I managed to create my covers in various ten minute bursts between doing other projects.

You need to open up the cereal box.  Glue all the flappy bits to the covers for strength and cover the whole thing in pva glue.  Cut your brown paper bigger all round and place on top of the gluey covers and scrunch it up a bit to give some texture.  This then needs to dry for a fairly long time while youa re getting on with something else.  I left mine overnight.

Next step was to paint the covers - I choose dark turquoise.  It took two coats to cover the brown paper.  I then glued two pieces of corrugated card to the inside front and back covers for strength.  We recycled an amazon box from martins recycling pile for this purpose.  I stripped back the card to reveal the corrugated bits before glueing them in.

The final stage was to rub some treasure gold over the raised bits of the painted brown paper which really highlighted it well.

I have all the signatures folded ready to be sewn in but I have ordered some waxed linen thread from Vicki at A Sprinkle of Imagination as I thought that would have been stronger than the embroidery thread I usually use.

Once I have sewn the signatures in I will blog the finished book.  I love it already and can see me making another one in the not too distant future.

I had to take it outside to photograph on the window sill as the light has been so bad recently and look little Maisie Moo just had to get it on the action!!

An Attitude of Gratitude - Week 1

I have been joining in this month with An Attitude of Gratitude over on Bernice's blog here.  Although I am running a little behind I am determined to keep going and will be playing catch up at my crop on Saturday.

Bernice is posting prompts, quotes and bible verses each date on a theme and a new technique to try every couple of days. 

I am using the quotes and the verses as inspiration for the journaling on my page and Im trying to follow the suggested techniques as far as I have the necessary stash to do them with,  I am completing this project using stash I have and am not buying a single new item

Here's a round up of my first weeks pages.  The techniques for Days 1 to 17 was to use distress products and as I only have distress ink pads I had to dig deep but did manage to try seven different techniques.  It just served to remind me how versatile the distress ink pads are.

The one common denominator in all my pages is to stamp the word for each day using the same set of alphabet stamps.

I have backgrounds done for Days 8 to 11 and am hoping to work on these tonight.