I can hardly believe we are nearly at the end of February - where does the time go? I thought I would show you another art journal page I worked on last week.
This time I tried a double spread. It is a painted back ground with scraps stuck on and then some stamping.
The words really express how I am feeling about being a parent at the moment - don't worry no major issues - just the general feeling that sometimes I am jogging through mud!! Although my girls bring me the greatest joy, they also challenge my parenting skills. No-one told me it could sometimes be this hard and that at times your heart could break. There is no handbook to give you the answers and you just hope you are doing the right thing. I'm sure every parent has felt like this. I just keep reminding myself that "this too will pass" and sometimes you have to go through the dark to appreciate the light.
I am enjoying creating these pages - learning to let go, experiment and just see what happens - which is something I'm not prone to doing on a regular basis!
Why? Because it is 9.30am and I have the house to myself - not for a few hours but the whole day! The girls went off at 7.30am on a Brownie/Guide thinking day event in Bristol - they won't be back until 7.00pm tonight. The hubby is on an all day training course with church. Me - I'm getting my craft on - (in between the loads of washing). Whilst I do love having my family around me, it is nice once in a while to have the place to yourself and only please yourself! I've already started one layout - just waiting for some paint to dry. I wonder how many layouts I could complete in a day?
In my recent blogging absence - caused in the main by half term, followed by the youngest being ill - I have managed to squeeze a little crafting in. You may recall in January that I blogged about my goal of being more organised with my Cards - you can read about it here. In that post I had managed to make cards for all friends and family up until March. So the other Sunday I decided to get a few more months done and dusted.
I have now managed to do all female cards up to the end of the year.
And yes your eyes to not deceive you - that is a Christmas card in the middle! I thought that each time I was making cards, I would try out a Christmas one to try and find one I like!
Now do excuse me, I must away to my desk and make the most of my unusual Saturday. Enjoy yours whatever you arde doing.
Over at Notes on Paper, Julie is bringing you a month of Sunrays - all things yelllow to brighten up your February. When she introduced the theme I thought what a great idea - however I vary rarely use the colour yellow in my crafting and you simply won't ever catch me wearing the colour yellow. However funny thing was the only the night before I had picked out a photo of my eldest to scrap, who just happened to be wearing a yellow t-shirt so I did indeed pick out some yellow PP to use. My orginal intention was to make it more pink than yellow but after seeing Julies post I thought why not go for it in yellow!
This is my layout in the second lesson of Miss Smiths "Just one Sketch". She said take your sketch for a spin, so I rotated my 90 degrees clockwise.
Although I used the sketch, I needed to move the journaling as it did not work in the top corner and I still pefer to have my titles on the horizontal!
Although yellow is not a natural choice for me, I think I rather like this page and it certained brightens up a cold and rather grey day!
Do pop over to Julies to take a look "a month of sunrays" - the printer tray here is stunning. Also check out her pinterest board dedicated to all things yellow.
Over on UK Scrappers, they are running a weekly class to encourage you to try art journaling. Whilst in the past I have admired those that express themselves in this way, I have not really felt the urge to try myself. The thing is my crafting time is limited and so when I finally sit at my desk, I want to get on and get some stories down and layouts completed. Taking time to play and get messy is not on my agenda. However since the class began in January, I have been dipping in and out of the forum, seeing what everyone is up to and it has encouraged me to give it a go.
On my first page, I decided to use my favourite colour - blue. It is a combination of scraps of paper, stamping and inking with distress inks.
On my second page, I got the paints out and used two colours I woudn't normal pick - red and orange. The words are stamped and then embossed with gold embossing powder.
Do you know I really enjoyed this. I'm definately going to keep going. The trick is not to overthink it - just grab what comes to hand and stick in on the page. I did both pages in under an hour - it took longer to tidy up the mess!
So if you are thinking of dipping your toes into the art journal world, I say go for it! You never know where it might take you.
When my girls are asked "where do your Granny and Grandad live?", they are quite likely to reply " in a shed at the bottom of the garden". Now before you start phoning social services, the photo shows that it is a mighty fine shed.
A log cabin to be precise. Inside you will find a small living area with kitchenette, a tiny office come craft room and a bedroom with en suite facilities. Mum and Dad also have a two bed-roomed apartment in Spain - 10 minutes from Alicante airport. They divide their time between here and Spain. They moved to be with us in 2007. It was my other halfs idea as they either seemed to be in Spain or with us, so their seemed little sense in keeping a property here that they hardly used. I can't say it is always easy but in the advantages far outweigh the dis-advantages. My girls absolutely love it and they help out with the holidays when I'm working. One of the nicest things is that in the evening we all eat together, sharing our stories from the day. Slowly overtime they have built up a life here, making new friends and its hard to imagine a time when they were not with us. It is also good to know that as they get older, they are near and hopefully will be able to stay independant for as long as they want.
This story was bought to you as part of Sians story telling Sunday. Do pop over to her blog to read her story and read the other stories being told today. A great way to spend a chilly and snowy Sunday.
So like many of you I signed up for Miss Smiths Class "Just One Sketch". I thought it would be great inspiration in what is normally a quiet month. Well January has not been as quiet as I would have liked and I have stuggled to find anytime to find time play.
But last weekend I made a start. Firstly I looked through my layouts to find any comman thread and discovered that I seem to have a style developing! In no particluar order my pages usually include;
- one photo - usually 6x4
- plain cardstock base
- layers of PP underneath my photo.
- clusters of embleishments around the corners of the photo
- use of ribbons/buttons to add texture
- title horizontally above photo.
So based on my findings, I drew my own sketch. When I scrap I use sketches alot as they get me going but I've never considered drawing my own before.
And heres the resulting page.
As you can seen I followed the sketch in the main.
Next on the agenda is taking the sketch for a spin!
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