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January 31, 2010

52 in 10 Week 4

I know, I know, it's week 5 already, but I only finished week 4 last night.  The prompt was what songs of pieces of music move you and why.  I started to collage album covers and images from my favorite artists and ran out of space, even over two A4 pages! LOL
 
 I added in a few scraps of sheet music to the collaged images and used my new Stampotique music tag stamp as a base for the CDs.  I journaled onto a couple of old software CDs and stuck those on to the page then used my Dymo to add the names of some more artists that I like.  I journaled a few of the most profound pieces of music, but there are so many more!  Like the journaling says: I don't have a theme tune, I have a sound track.... one that spreads over several boxed sets!  I keep thinking of more tracks and more artists and punching out their names on the Dymo, so this may not be entirely finished for some time!
 

January 28, 2010

Little Balls

The little balls of wool showing on my desk yesterday seem to have sparked some interest so I thought I would explain.  Basically, I bought a couple of skeins of a silky wool in the sale last year with the intention of making some little crocheted flowers to use on LOs.  I made one flower (which I now seem to have misplaced) then put the wool to one side.  Unfortunately the demon cat found it.  It's taken me months to untangle the mess and I've had to cut some of the knots to untie them properly which is why I've ended up with little balls.

In the meantime, I got bored with the idea of the flowers and decided to use some of the odds and sods of wool I have all over the place to make squares for an afghan.  I've made two so far.... it might be a while until I've got enough to make a whole afghan!  I am, however, guarding the wool from the nutty cat.
 

 

January 27, 2010

WOYWW

Better late than never!  My desk is digusting, truly!  My excuse is I was working on my journal pages and had them drying, then I had to pack ready to head off to Birmingham on Monday.  I didn't get home until quite late last night and have had to work late tonight.  I've literally just got in and taken the pic.... drumroll please.....


I'm now going to hide in shame!
 

January 24, 2010

Very Busy Week

This week has been rather hectic with the result that I have been left with very little time (or energy).  I had an emergency site meeting in Yeovil, my six-monthly oncology follow-up (all clear thankfully, still waiting for the mammogram results though), had to pull a 12 hour day to catch up on urgent stuff at work.... phew!


All I have managed to do creatively is start preparing some backgrounds for an online art journaling course I am taking.  I had been playing around with the idea for a while, and enjoyed the Soul Journaling stuff, so decided to just go for it.  I signed up for Visual Journalism 101 with Pam Carricker details here.  So far I have only managed to watch the video and read the download for week 1 and start my backgrounds.  I have managed to slap a layer of paint on, then leave it to dry, then do another layer the next day.  This first pic shows one with 3 layers of paint so far.

This one is a bit further along with some "imperfect" stamping (a very good technique for me as I find perfect stamping a bit of a challenge!) and some textures added.  There is some clear gesso stamping you can't see which is going to be used as a resist once it dries thoroughly, then I get to add some "fly poo" ROFL.  I used a Paperartsy mini text stamp for this one, and I have done another one with the same colours but using a music stamp for variety.
 
I haven't completed my 52 in 10 prompt 3 this week.  The prompt was to think about what advice you would give your younger self.  I know what I want to say, but I'm not sure how to say it, so I'm procrastinating.  I've decided I am going to move on to prompt 4 which is up today and come back to prompt 3.  I am preparing one of these background for it though once I am ready to journal my thoughts.
I'm also waiting to see what Document 2010 is all about.  The first prompt goes live tomorrow, when I will be on route to Birmingham for a two day visit to a furniture trade show, so I won't get to find out properly until Tuesday night!  Looks like another busy week ahead :(
 

January 13, 2010

WOYWW

and what is on my desk is..... a mess!  I have cropped out the worse bits and left in my half done journal page, a piece of cut 'n' dry foam, a tin of varnish, some wooden flowers and butterflies from some hangy thing I have been gradually dismantling, a pritt stick, more cut 'n' dry foam, an acrylic block, pliers, gold metallic pen and a green sharpie.  Those are the identifiable bits anyway.


It snowed.  Again.  Got half way to the office and couldn't get any further so am now at home.  Got a project at work that is going critical and a tender to get finished so I'm really POed about not making it in.  Flippin snow, stupid trains!  Ah well, at least I got to post my WOYWW.

January 10, 2010

A Huge Thank You

to all the lovely people who made such supportive comments on my last post.  I really do appreciate your kind thoughts and words and it has made me feel all soppy and mushy.  Thank you sincerely, I am truly touched.
I have been meaning to get into this art journal lark for a while now, and finally decided to actually do something about it.  I followed various links and trails and discovered Sarah Whitmire's Soul Journaling prompts here which have the advantage of being free so I thought I would give them a try before taking the plunge and paying for an online course.  I have now built my "soul armor" and here it is:
I seem to have made it more of a soul barrier with a bit of armor hiding behind it, but I guess that says a lot about me.                                                                                                  I'm not sure how much further I will go with Soul Journaling as I feel I want to explore a different direction from the one that the prompts are taking me.  I have enjoyed making this page though, and I am feeling like taking a paid course could be worth it.  First I have to read through the digi version of the first Somerset Studio Art Journaling magazine and see where I end up after that.
I've also done this weeks prompt for Scrapdolly's 52 in 10 project, so after a week of doing nothing very much creative I seem to have got my mojo back, YAY!!!
The prompt was to list your resolutions for this year.  This year I am trying the One Little Word concept and my word is TIME, so this paper fit perfectly.  It's a Tim Holtz paper, apparently, but I have no idea where or how I got it! The challenge was to add some stitching.... no way! So I cheated and used ribbon with stitching already on it for the tag, and stamped some faux stitching underneath the opening for the tag pocket.  The reason for the introduction of the shades of orange was, I was merrily working away in green and ecru when I discovered I didn't have any green dymo tape, or even any black!  Bummer! So I settled on orange and incorporated an orange flower and edged the tag with some spiced marmalade distress ink.




January 09, 2010

Pondering mortality

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted!  I haven't done anything creative or crafty, or anything at all really!  
Now that I am 50 I get to experience the joy of the mammogram and had my first one on Friday.  All week I have been feeling restless, unsettled and generally wierd.  I finally realised it was fear of the mammogram or rather of the results.  Having been through cervical cancer and the treatment a couple of years ago I really don't want to have to go through it all again.  Thing is, my mother had breast cancer and I took the pill for quite a while, both of which put me at increased risk of breast cancer myself.  Add to that the previous cancer treatment which can, of course, cause cancer.  
I'm just being morbid really, and I should just pull myself together and get over it.  I just wish it was two weeks from now and I had my results and could forget the whole thing!
Anyway, I will leave you with a picture of a squirrel.  He and I got into a bit of a disagreement a while ago because he wanted me to get away from his tree and I just wanted to take more pictures of him.  Here he is telling me off:

 

January 03, 2010

First week for 52 in 10

I mentioned in my last post that I had signed up for Scrapdolly's 52 in 10 project.  Basically, Scrapdolly is turning 50 this year and wanted to mark the year with a project about her with prompts each week for the whole year (hence 52 in 10).  As I am 50 and a half (my birthday is in June) and as I haven't really done anything about marking the half century other than think about it, I decided to join in. 
I decided (or at least, I intend, although my 
intentions tend to change quite a lot) to make this a sort of art journal type thing, although I have never done an art journal before so this is more my interpretation of what I think an art journal is.  Anyway, I made a front and back cover from some heavy duty black chipboard cut to just over A4 size, and am using A4 card as the pages.  For the front cover I slapped on some gesso, stuck on some book pages with gel medium then added some distress inks in Old Paper, Antique Linen, Peeled Paint and Tattered Rose over a Timeworks mask, then used printed images and stamps that seemed appropriate.  The tiny picture of me as a baby (next to the 50 on the image of the LO) is an image transfer.  I'm quite proud of how it turned out!


On the inside of the cover I used some text paper and just did a bit of an intro on some inked card, plus stuck Scrapdolly's pretty logo in again.
The first official prompt went live today and was to journal about the last decade from 2000 to 2010.  I also wrote about that in my last post, so I was already thinking about this anyway.  As such a lot had happened there wasn't much room for anything but journalling on the page:



I used some more of the text paper from the intro page to edge the cardstock then inked the page with Antique Linen and Old Paper, added some numbers then just wrote.  I added some butterflies from a Paperartsy stamp once I had finished as they seemed appropriate.  Can't wait for next weeks promt!