My First Blog Hop

Hello there and welcome to my new look blog.  Do come in and make yourself comfortable and have a look around.

As I was following the recent Push Up Bra approach to Blogging series by the very lovely Julie Kirk I realised that one of the many reasons why I wasnt blogging enough was that I hated the look of my blog.  The blue background and old fashioned header were looking very tired and I was utterly bored with it.  Then my fabulous friend the very talented Dee, who you will.meet as you hop along, said she could give me a much needed makeover, well the blog that is, not me, not that I couldnt do with a makeover you understand, but from her position by the sea in Donegal it might have been too big an ask for that!

I felt that my lovely new blog look needed a bit of a party to celebrate and so the idea of my very own blog hop was born.

There are ten blogs altogther in the hop, everyone involved is a friend of mine in one way or another either through real life or the cyber world.  There are some fab projects along the way and a couple of prizes to boot

I will be offering up a wee prize for one lucky person who comments on all the posts and you may just find a couple more prizes lurking along the way.

Heres my wee project

I saw that my friend Angela of Angel Crafts had these lovely Tando mini house printer trays in stock and instantly I thought beach hut.   I spent a very happy and messy day at the crop yesterday getting to grips with the painting and making a start on this and carried on to the finish on Saturday night

Firstly I cut out a piece of paper to cover the back and sloshed on some paint which I dried and then did some stencilling and stamping to build up the background.

I painted the frame in white and once dry painted over in turquoise,  I sanded it back to give a weathered look and dry brushed a wee bit more white paint on top in areas.

I have been saving up some seaside bits and bobs for a while so raided them to add to some of the sections.  How cute is the seagull pin which I pushed into the cork from a mini glass vial (Ive been saving him for a while from a Quirky Kit)

I scattered some of my tiny bits of sea glass in another section covered with a piece of netting from a bag of limes donated by Donna, I filled a glass vial with sand - all collected from the beach at Beadnell.

I have a glass vase half filled with sand and topped up with my sea glass from the beaches in Northumberland and thats where the blog name came from
I finished it off with a couple of seaside  charms and two teeny pieces of driftwood.

The bunting is made from washi tape and I borrowed this idea from a gorgeous piece on Efemeras blog



I don't quite think it's finished yet as I see little gaps I could potentially fill with more seaside treasuresand I may well tinker on with it for a wee while to come

Hop on over now to Julies fab blog Notes on Paper to see her fabulous art journal page

Winners of the prizes will be announced on Friday 24 May so don't forget to come back and check then,.  Please note though that to be in with a chance of winning any of the prizes along the hop you do need to comment on all of the blog posts.

Edited to add that when you get to Jens blog the correct link to get to Suzies blog is Suzies.blog

Ten Minute Tuesday

I must admit I'm really liking this idea of Vicki's to grab ten minutes of creative play time and I find I have been doing a bit more that I usually would.  Its so much easier to sneak in a quick ten minutes or so into your schedule and even if you are only laying down the foundations of a project or putting on the finishing touches to one, its a great aid to actually getting things done and I find I am sneaking in quite a few of these 10 minutes sessions during the week. 

I am off to the caravan at Beadnell for the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of the month but as my parents will be there, there just wont be the space to take my usual bag stuffed full of crafting stuff so I am trying to prepare as many background pages in my various journals as I can in the hope that I can take them with me along with a limited amount of supplies - preferably non messy ones lol - and maybe manage to do a wee bit of work in them while I'm having some chill out time.  I have visions of me sitting outside in the sunshine,glass of chilled rose by my side and journalling away soaking up the lovely weather when in reality looking at the way the weather is just now I will be sitting inside freezing in front of the fire while the rain pours down round about me lol.  What on earth has happened to Spring this year.

Any hints actually as to what would make a good "on the go travel kit" for art journalling would be much appreciated then I can maybe have a wee kit all ready to grab whenever I am away from my main supplies.

Hop on over to Vicki's blog The Biskit Barrel  To see what she did with her ten minute playtime this week  (Edited to add that Vicki hasnt posted her Ten Minute Tuesday post as yet but do have a look at her lovely blog anyway as there is loads of lovely inspiration on there )

Here's what I got up to I made a double spread background in my dinky wee A6 journal.  I scribbled with necolours and wiped over them with a baby wipe and left to dry.  I scribbled some circles again with neocolours and outlined them with my new inktense pencils (which I am still trying to get the hang of) and then went over them delicately with a waterbrush.  I then thought Id see if I could get the inktense pencils to drip down the page when wet by scribbling at the top adding water and tipping the book up.  Didnt work too well so I think I will finish off the drips with some ink spray.

What will you achieve with your ten minutes this week

Lucky Snapping in 2013 - May

Im late posting my pic again which was actually taken during the first week in May. I did manage to snap my view on a fairly sunny day and its nice to see a blue sky appearing.  Roll on the summer I say, because I have had enough of winter weather thank you very much.  Today we had sleety showers on the way into work.  Sleety showers in May!!! What on earth is going on.  It brightened up as the day went on but its still blooming freezing outside.

I also managed to do my simple layout using my photo for my wee accordian book so that it is up to date as well, Im really quite pleased with the way the book is  shaping up so far and once I get June's done I will display it on my fireplace I think.  Im just hoping the Studio Calico Snippets papers Im using for this book last but I am beginning to think I might need to invest in a couple more sheets just in case!

Rik Rak Ravers Circle Journal (April)

Running late with this one as my previous attempts just wouldnt go right for some reason.  This month I had pages to do for Lesley's gorgeous journal which is very pretty and vintage in style. Her theme is Quotes which could be used in scrapbooking.

She was adamant that she wanted a painty inky page but everything I did would just have stuck out like a sore thumb so I tried to do it a bit painty but with a kind of vintage vibe.  I think it worked out okay in the end but I just hope she likes it.

 I painted on the background then used a variety of stencils to sponge some more paint through, I used a vintage ledger one, a harlequin and a leaf one.  I moved some of the templates slightly then overstamped with some white paint to soften the effect. I love the burlap everyone is using just now but had none so cut a couple of bits of hessisn from an old ASDA shopping bag and ripped some corrugated card and painted it for texture.  I inked a small doily and added it to soften the effect.

I love this quote and stamped it on a plain page of a charity shop vintage book find in brown stayzon ink.  I did likewise with the image stamp,which I just love,and is by crafty individuals.  I finished off  some over stamping with paint and a bottle lid,  a doily inked slightly and some words from the Tim Holtz chit chat range.

Its winging its way to Lesley now and I just hope she likes it okay.

For my May one  I have Julieanns to do on the theme of "Change" so my thinking cap is on as I'm determined to come in on time with this one.

Ten Minute Tuesday

I'm joining in again this week with Vickis Ten Minute Tuesday challenge.  Hop over to her blog The Biskit Barrel and take a look

I was in the mood for a bit of a painty play so had a session of making another page in my wee A6 seaside journal.  I'm loving this small size as it makes it easier to complete a page when you are short in time.  I already had a base layer of of paint on the pages so I  started with a circle template and a tile one adding some white paint in the corners.

 I stamped  a couple of background stamps with stazon ink , then stamped three white painty circles with a bottle lid and outlined them in black paint.  I then painted on the heart using a home made mask.  I wanted a thick layer of paint so that I could heat with a heat gun so it by bubbled up and gave some texture to the page. I added a few wee lines made with the edge of a credit card and then I stamped  and cut out the words "I live in East Kilbride but "then I journalled around the heart with the rest of the phrase which reads "my heart lies in Beadnell.down by the harbour overlooking the bay"

I'm pleased with the way it turned out.  What will you do with your ten minutes this week?

Art Journal Calendar Challenge - May

Here's my finished April pages.  Blimey it was a vibrant month colour wise with this page, almost needed my sunglasses when I was filling in my info.  I'm going to try to draw/doodle a bit more going forward as my pages are looking a touch boring with just the writing and a lot of them have the same old, same old another day at work type of thing.  Maybe I need a more interesting life lol.

It did make my friend Dee laugh though when she read out my entry for one of the Friday's where after a long week at work I wrote "Oh Friday how Ive missed you!"


Remarkably I'm on time this month with my May pages,   When I was away at Lochhouse in April with my friends for our weekend retreat I made sure to have time to do my May pages.  I really like the way they turned out but unfortunately once I put on the date squares most of the detail was covered over which is a pity. I do think they need a bit more tweaking or doodling in the visible areas but maybe I will just add wee bits in here and there  as Im filling out the squares each day.

I seem to be going all pink at the moment which isn't like me at all! I drew the houses following watching how Kate did it on her dvd.  I love them and can see them making an appearance on quite a few of my art journally bits.  I used text paper taken from a vintage charity shop find.  I figure it's ok to rip up books once they have been well read and if the proceeds are going to help a worthwhile cause then so much the better!

I am really enjoying joining in with Kate's challenge so far, hop over to her blog The Kathryn Wheel to see what its all about and join in - you will soon be hooked!
I used stripey thickers for the title this month instead of stamping the month for a wee change as I thought they went with my page.
This is a great challenge to be part of and Im really enjoying joining in with it.

Month in Numbers - April

Ooh here we are folks with my second time of joining in with Julie Kirk's month in numbers and this month Julie is directly responsible for two of the numbers on my list thanks to her excellent Push up Bra approach to blogging series (if you havent seen it yet hope over to Julies fab blog and take a look and maybe you could help by giving a donation to her very worthwhile cause of  Save the Children.

Okay to the numbers for the month.  First up is the two I can give Julie and her push up bra the credit for .   13 (yikes is that unlucky)  the number of blog posts this month, the most I have ever posted in a month since I started my wee blog!  That might not seem like a lot to you regular bloggers but the total of my blog postings for the whole of last year was only 33 lol.  Then 1 blog hog I joined in with on UK scrappers and 75 (wow!) the number of lovely comments left by UK Scrapper folks  on my blog hop post.  Join in with things Julie said, I did, and I enjoyed the whole experience, once the initial technical traumas were overcome, which was a long story of having no working computer, a smartphone which isnt so smart and an aged laptop owned by my Parents,  and I will not be so shy about joining in something like that again.

6, the number of fab crafting friends who got together for 1 fab, 3 night weekend crafting at Lochhouse Farm in Moffat, leading to 1 friend (Dee)being converted to art journalling while we were there

Here are five of us beavering away

I piece of extremely good news a special friend had after getting the all clear following a major operation.

24 - the number of Derwent Inktense pencils purchased from ebay following a recommendation that they were excellent for art journalling ( I will report back on that once I have had a wee play with them)

3 - the number of hours spent raking through my garage hunting for an elusive tent for my son to use on a camping weekend next weekend - only to find it had been hiding in the back of a cupboard in the spare bedroom all along *sigh*

That's me for this month.  Hop on over to Julie's place Notes on Paper to see what it's all about