Bookmarks

Apologies for not posting so regularly recently, there's been a lot going on, but hopefully I may have a little more time now to "blog" and "art".  Anyway, I'm sure everyone must have received their bookmarks by now so I thought it was time I put up photos of them all - a lot of these book titles were new to me so will be added to my reading list.

Bobbie Eccles - Front and Back 

Chris Bedford - Front and Back 

Joanne Parkin - Front and Back 

Sheila King - Front and Back

Sonia Jones - Front and Back 

Sue Jenneys - Front and Back 

Sue Horsley - Front and Back 

Hope you enjoyed browsing through them - and for those who took part in the swap, hope you enjoyed the challenge of creating something a little different from my usual ATC ones.

A Journal Page

Whoo, I've just had a marathon session printing off lots of old family photos from the computer, so before I packed up for the day, just thought I'd show you a picture of the last journal page I did (courtesy of Ali's prompts).  This was created a few weeks ago and the theme of the page was "LOVE".  I chose to use one of my favourite pieces of poetry (a Shakespeare sonnet) as the focus of mine.

My feet have hardly touched the ground for the past few weeks, so much has been going on (family wise), but things may calm down again shortly so I'm hoping to be able to concentrate a bit more time on my art journalling before too long. 

Anyway, just a short post today ....... catch up with you all again soon!

Look at these Beauties ......

,,,,, that landed on my doorstep yesterday morning.  I was involved in a Journal Envelope Round Robin on the Vintage ATCs UK Yahoo Group - we each coloured the backs of four envelopes any way we liked, I used acrylic paint dabbers, and sent them on to the next person in the RR, along with a tag and couple of images for each envelope.  Each person added to the envelopes with stamps, the chosen images plus any extras, embellishments, collaging, etc, and finally they were returned home to us.

Mine are just absolutely gorgeous, I love them ...... the idea is to add them into our journals, write on them if we want as well as having the insides as pockets for secret messages or photos, or anything else we fancy.  Right now, though, I just can't imagine "spoiling" them with my scruffy handrwriting ! 

(Pic of same envie below, with tag on top)

My envelopes were decorated by three American artists (Jeannie, Marita and Gina) ..... they did a fabulous job, didn't they?  Everyone loved creating these journal envies and we're planning on doing it again before too long. 

(The Bookmark Swap is now closed, all sets arrived safely and they're all now ready for posting out tomorrow - so watch your letterboxes, ladies, for something nice dropping in.  Thank you all for taking part).

A little bit of background journalling .....

I haven't done any journalling this past week or so I'm afraid, though I've got several ideas floating around in my head (just haven't had enough free time).  I did create a couple of background pages in my journal a little while back - Ali (click to link up to her online group) posted some instructions about some backgrounds she was creating and suggested we play along too.  The pages involved paints, paper strips, stamping, masking, clingfilm and stencilling ...... a whole lot of fun and I loved the way my pages turned out.  Now they're all ready to add some journalling!

I was going to show you a picture of the last journal page I created too, but just realised I haven't taken a photo of it yet - oops!!! - so it'll have to wait till another time.  Also haven't forgotten that I promised to post pics of the steampunk atcs I made so I'll add them some time soon as well.

The Bookmark Swap is now officially closed (yesterday) - the bookmarks received are fab, but I'm just waiting on one set coming in ...... I know it's on its way, just think the post office are playing slow at delivery.  So once the last bookmarks come in, I'll be swapping them all out - it's been fascinating to see which books have been chosen and there's a fair few I'll be adding to my own "must read" list I think!

Finally - it's the 1st August today, which means Dawn has posted her next challenge on her Journals Journey blog so hop on over to see what it is ..... you'll like it, I know I'll be joining in.

My Lovely Chunky Book ..... with thanks

Sorry not to have posted sooner, but life is very hectic here at the moment, with little time for any crafting, journalling or blogging.  However, last week I received a lovely and unexpected surprise, from Sheila and hand-delivered to me by my sister Lindsay.  Last year Sheila decided to host a chunky book swap, having previously joined in the one that I ran - I signed up but unfortunately had to drop out when I realised, primarily for health reasons, that I wouldn't be able to complete the number of pages required.  So you can imagine how surprised and delighted I was to receive a book after all ...... everyone had kindly created an extra page for me so that I wouldn't miss out!

The theme I chose for my book was "Heavenly Bodies" and these are the pages in my book ........

Sheila's page

(Sheila also did a wonderful silvery textured front page and a back page for the book)

Gez's page

Lindsay, my sister's page

Elaine's page

Hilda's page

Cheryl's page

Joanne's page

Zoe's page

Sonia's page

Karen's page

Thanks, girls, you all did wonderful work - I love my book !

A Bit of Art Journalling

As promised, I thought today that it was time I posted up some of the art journalling pages that I've created over the past few weeks.  I've been using prompts posted weekly by Ali Brandist on one of my Yahoo art groups (I'm playing about six months' catch-up!) and find them a really useful starting point for my pages.  So here are some that I've made - as you can see, they're mostly quite messy and collagey, quite different from my sister, Lindsay's, journal pages, which are far more artistic.

Ali used her pack of Angel Cards to select a message for each of us - this was mine, appropriately to do with new ideas and inspiration, something I was most definitely lacking in at the start of the year.  The background was distress inks over gesso, dabbed over with a scrunched up paper towel containing mopped up copper Krylon ink.  I'm a big Klimt fan so I couldn't resist using this image from one of his paintings for my angel, with the addition of a stamped wing.  (The hand is my own). 

For this page the prompt was "Word Inspiration" and I took mine from an old fiction book - both the cut out words and the written words.  I threw everything at this background - gesso, inks, blended oil pastels, stencilled punchinella, stamps, H2O paints, then collaged with a gyspy image, wings, butterflies and finished with Stickles and Beadazzles.

The next two pages are a double spread - "Silence Your Inner Critic/Develop an Inner Enthusiast" ..........

For the "critic" page I chose acrylic paints and inks for the background in dark brown colours, with a dictionary definition of criticism and stencilled cogwheels.  The Victorian lady reminded me of a very stern, bossy great aunt from my childhood and Queen Victoria provided another disapproving figure.  I used Dymotape for some of the words, handwrote others.

By contrast, I wanted my "enthusiast" page to be full of colour and liveliness, so I used a colour palette of orange, deep blue and purple for the background; lots of images of people dancing and leaping for joy, and again, a dictionary definition for "enthusiasm" and Dymotape, stamped and handwritten words.  I rubbed Distress Stickles over the harlequin stamp and other areas of the page.

All of these pages were great fun to create - the hardest part is always making the first marks on a page, but once you get going, you just don't know where you'll end up.

Well, that took me a lot longer to type than I expected.  I've been playing a game of Tag with Mia downstairs whilst I was brewing a cup of tea.  It's one of her favourite games, she creeps up behind me and tags me on the legs, then runs away, so I've been chasing her around the house as well - she loves it, it's kind of scarey and exciting for her, but safe too.  She likes to hunker down and leap out at me or run round the sides of a room, hunting me while my back's turned.  So when I came upstairs to use the computer, the game continued with paper ball throwing - over the bed, down the stairs, then behind the computer, under my chair ....... till she's tired herself out (or got bored) ....... and I can finally concentrate on finishing this post!

Pink and Orange

I came across a new journal challenge blog the other day and as I want to do more journalling I thought I'd give this one a go.  Check out Dawn's Journal Journeys blog to find out more.  Dawn has begun the challenges this month and will post a new one the first of each following month.  For July the challenge is to create a page using the colours PINK and ORANGE, not a combination one would normally associate together.

I've already started one journalling book using prompts posted in one of my online groups, but decided to start a new journal for this challenge.  Well, I have a blank book of handmade papers which I picked up in Paperchase in Manchester last year and was waiting for the right moment to use it ...... the paper is made from recycled cotton rag and suitable for ink, watercolour, paint, etc, has torn edges and a lovely feel to it ..... the book itself is 6" x 6", a comfortable size to work with.

This is the page I created ............

I used a mixture of Distress Inks (Spun Sugar, Wild Honey, Dried Marigold and Spiced Marmalade) to create the background.  I drew some cloud shapes on paper scraps, cut them out and used them to mask off parts of the sky, before stamping the Sun image in Spiced Marmalade.  I then bleached out the background colour from the clouds and tinted them with Weathered Wood ink.  I swooshed the same colour along the bottom edge, sketched in some dark pen lines and sponged some areas with Fuschia Pink Stazon ink.  I drew the silhouette of the girl onto black paper, cut her out and collaged her onto the page along with some rock images.  I added three bird shapes to the top right-hand corner for balance.  I found the quote in a book of meditations that I have and it absolutely expressed the feeling I had from creating this page.

Really enjoyed having a go at this challenge - thanks, Dawn - and look forward to seeing what the next one is in August!

I've been asked if I can show some of the journal pages I've created (not many to date, due to lack of time recently) and have finally gotten around to finishing some and photographing them, so I'll be posting pics of them in the next few days. 

Don't forget my bookmark swap (details in the sidebar) which is running until the end of July.  I've already received two sets of bookmarks and I can tell you, they look great, so if anyone fancies joining in with this one, there's still plenty of time to do so.