February Journal Pages

Well, it's been a busy month one way or another, but I finally finished all of the journal pages for this month (with one day to spare!).  The idea is to spend around 30 minutes each day working in the journal, but that was never going to happen for me - still, I managed to keep up and get them done so I'm really pleased with myself.  (The number of UFO's - unfinished objects - I've got lying around is quite scary!).

Having made all the backgrounds (pics posted in previous posts), Ali gave us a list of titles which we had to add to whichever background pages we wanted - after that, there were a series of instructions to add images, stamping, words, journalling, until this is what I ended up with for my pages ......... see what you think ......

Enjoy the Journey

I Followed My Dream

The Art of ..........

Life, Etc

Potential

What If?

Time For ......

These were great fun to do and now it's time to start on the four pages for March - the theme for this month is "Dreams".  Will keep you posted with what I do!

Just checking in .....

.... to say I'm still around, not quite hibernating as we've had a few sunny patches and blue skies mixed up with all this cold and windy weather.  My sister Lindsay is at the big Stitches trade show in Birmingham this weekend, demonstrating P.I. products and her new range of stamp designs, so we were again earlier in the week making more samples for her stand.  Here's a few photos of what we got up to:-

Here's Lindsay - in the frame!

Lindsay again, all smiles, painting this frame - ended up as a lovely "steampunk" piece

(check out her blog for a picture of it and other canvases/tags she made)

A messy-ish worktop - you can see some of the canvases I worked on (thankfully, you can't see me)!

Lindsay's "Terrible Two" weren't particularly impressed I'm afraid - here they are, looking rather disdainfully at the camera - wouldn't catch them getting their paws all covered with that yucky paint!

Thomas

Tara

I'm still working on my journal pages for February, but will let you see what I've done with them as soon as they're finished.

 

Getting messy with Backgrounds

Today I've been messing about with backgrounds.  It all started earlier in the week when I was helping my sister Lindsay out creating samples for the "Stitches" trade show in Birmingham later this month, along with our crafty friend Joanne.  I was allocated the task of painting up some canvas backgrounds; being given a free rein with colours, etc, it was a bit daunting at first but I soon warmed to the task.  So I thought that as I had a few free hours today, I'd spend them completing the rest of the (seven) backgrounds I'm meant to have already done for February for my Art Journal 2012.  There were specific instructions for each one and here are the results of my messing around (I showed you the first of them - Blue - in my last post) ......

Background No 2 - Seeing Stars - my background was painted using acrylic paints in grey, periwinkle and blue.  I stencilled some tiny stars on with midnight blue ink, then stamped some larger stars onto old dictionary paper, cut them out and adhered to the page. 

Background No 3 - Splatter, Splodge and Running Paint - I painted and splodged orange and magenta acrylic paint onto my background then watered down some purple paint and dribbled it down and across the page for a runny effect.

Background No 4 - Watercolour wash using shades of green and yellow brushed and blended across the page.

Background No 5 - Used yellow, orange and purple acrylic paints randomly daubed onto the page, then swooshed with an old credit card - very dark and messy looking at the moment, but it will no doubt look quite different when it's finished!

Background No 6 - Dry Brushing Technique - applied a dark shade (wine) of acrylic paint to the background, dried it completely, then dry brushed over it with pale aqua and white.

Background No 7 - Aged Page - for this final page I had to apply brown ink (used Distress Inkpad Vintage Photo) direct to paper, then daubed on Black Soot in several areas, spreading it a little with a damp paper towel.  Stamped a couple of circles in dark brown ink to look like coffee stains, plus a few blotches of  tea dye ink (all I had) here and there.

At the moment they don't look very much, but now I have to follow instructions for the next stage - adding text to each one - we've been given a list of seven phrases/words and have to add one to each of our pages.  Quite intriguing as I didn't read what we had to do next before I made the backgrounds so that I wouldn't be influenced by knowing.  Will show you what the finished pages look like at the end of the month (if I get them done)!

A few journal pages

The time's flown since my last post I'm afraid ..... been dealing with quite a bit of "real life" stuff the past few weeks so haven't been able to do as much crafting as I'd planned.  Well, took Mia back for her checkup - all was fine - but it took her a good hour or so when we got back home again before she'd forgive me for yet another visit to the vets!

I've been running badly behind with the Art Journal 2012 that I planned on being involved with but have finally started to catch up and just completed all four pages for January (that had a sea/beach theme).  They're not very inspired (or inspiring) but at least I've done something and I can look back on them and see what I'd've done differently if I'd had more time, imagination, etc.  I posted a pic previously of the first page I did, these are the other three :-

For Week 2 we had to illustrate the quote about "memories lasting longer than our footprints".  I decided to use a copy of a photograph I took on holiday in Anglesey some years back - it was taken on a wonderful day by the sea where we gathered all sorts of beach treasures.  The paper I used to print out the picture was quite creamy so has given a softer (faded memory) feel to the scene and the shells and glass added to the bottom are some of the "treasures" I collected on that day.

For the third week's page we had to design a beach hut and say where we would like to put it.  I had this daft idea really to make a pink beach hut with wings, my version of a magic carpet, that I could travel around the world in and land anywhere I chose, maybe even travelling back in time to the days of the Victorian bathing beauties too!  Just a bit of fun!

Week 4 - we could create whatever we liked with a sea theme and add a four-line poem to it.  Living by the seaside, I've often stood on the promenade (not naked though *LOL*) and gazed out past the piers towards the sea's horizon, imagining the countries far beyond across the waters and taking in the sights and sounds with all my senses.

For the month of February we are supposed to work on our journals about 30 mins each day - I confess I haven't done this but I have at least made a start.  Firstly, we are creating seven different backgrounds which I think we will then be working on for the rest of the month.  This is just the first of the seven - a BLUE background - nice and simple, just used all my blueish TH Distress Inks sponged onto the page, spritzed with water then heat set.

So .... apart from selling bits and pieces on EBay and going to watch my football team ..... that's what I've been up to since my last posting.  Oh, and trying to keep warm too - we've had some ferociously bitter weather here, but thankfully though the ice has been quite treacherous, we've so far missed out on the snow, one of the advantages to living by the coast being that it often bypasses us on its way across the Atlantic and waits till it reaches higher land. 

Hope you're all keeping warm and safe and I'll try to not leave it so long till my next post.