This page has been on my mind for a while, but for ages I couldn't find a picture of an elephant that I liked. I think I will add more journalling to it, but it might be too personal to share, so this is it for now.
Judging by the amount of blogging that has been going on over the past few days ( I came online to blog hours ago, but have had to catch up with everyone's new posts), a lot of people are suffering the effects of the snow and unseasonally cold weather. We had our first snow fall last week, and it has just kept on coming. Perfect timing as we have no loft insulation at the moment, due to a building project - brrr!

Of course some creatures don't mind the snow, as you can see here:

The downside of working within walking distance of work is that you can always get there, and the head of our village school is determined to keep school open, mindful of the trauma that some parents have been going through to get their children to school and then to work. Admirable of course, but my children are NOT happy, as they are desperate to get the sledge out, and by the time we get home, get togged up and are ready to hit the slopes, it's dark. Still, judging by the forecast, we'll still be sledging at the weekend....
I haven't completed my December page for Kate's calender challenge yet, but it is in progress, so pray for a snow day tomorrow and I might get it finished instead of working all day...

Can't sit still!

Can't settle to anything - have so many ideas and can't quite decide where to start. More of this later. Anyway, first things first - Sandra was asking what pages I produced at journaling at Dyan's the other day. I haven't blogged them yet a)because I really don't like this page, and b)because I haven't been in the house for long enough to take a photo. Having said that, the days have been so dull that I had to resort to scanning this is as the light was so bad. I don't know what it is, but I just don't like purple on the page. I wear purple a lot, so it's not that I don't like it as a colour, but I never like anything I create in purple. Dyan challenged us to make a page with random sentences put together, and this is my result.

Whilst hunting through her enormous stack of magazines, I found the phrase on this next page that I felt had to be put to good use. Like most people, I don't have the luxury of being able to turn a blind eye to household chores, work and animals, so all my journaling and artistic endeavours are tinged with a little guilt, because I know there is always something that I should be doing instead...

So, onto the cause of my ants in the pants...

Some time ago, my lovely friend Nicky suggested that I should introduce myself to the lovely team of people who run a local artists studio and skills workshop called ArtisOn as a potential tutor for art journaling. I did what i am sure most people do at first - mutter, shuffled my feet, did a lot of 'oh noooo, I couldn't possibly, I'm not a proper artist - I just splodge paint about' sort of stuff. When I mentioned it to other people (like my husband, my Mum, Sandra)and they all had the same response: 'why not?', I started to wonder myself. Anyway, long story short, I went, introduced myself, showed them my work and they booked me! Me! So, that's the first stage, it doesn't mean anyone will actually come right? Well, yesterday was the open day at the studio and I went along to demonstrate for a couple of hours. Four and a bit hours later, I came home with a great big grin on my face. I met some lovely people who clearly thought that journaling was as great an idea as I do, and lots of ideas were shared and paint was splodged and inks blended and generally fun was had by all. Some people booked on straight away and lots of people said that they were going to - so fingers crossed that they do! I couldn't sleep last night for all the ideas going round in my head, and today I have managed to achieve practically nothing. It was great to be a part of such a vibrant, creative atmosphere, I'm only sad that I didn't really get a chance to look at all the other artists stuff - I couldn't get away from my table! Check out the ArtisOnwebsite for some of the exciting things they are doing, or their facebook page. Right, back in the real world, my hands are nearly frozen solid - the builders are busy here and that means no loft insulation, a big hole in the ceiling and now they are forecasting snow for this week...

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas...

Christine asked me to do an entry for her round-robin journal when we were at Art Journaling at Art from the Heart on Sunday. Although I said that I wouldn't get around to it for a bit, I sat down to do something else today and this just happened...Procrastination has always been a particular forte of mine, and although this doesn't look like a lesson plan, it was much more fun! I am not feeling remotely Christmassy - in fact I got quite grumpy the other day when all the shops were full of tinsel and Christmas carols - it is only November you know! As if you didn't know, the stamp is Uncle Buck by Stampotique, and the paints are a mixture of Claudine Hellmuth and Dylusions. I have made a smaller version to use as a Christmas card, although I am not sure who I would send it to though! Are you feeling Christmassy yet?

Phew!

What a week! My life is a finely balanced thing - one extra element and the whole pile of cards comes tumbling down. I am in a phase of change - trying to do more of the things I want to do and make them pay, so that I don't have to do the things I don't want to do. I make new year's resolutions twice a year - January, with the new calendar year, and September with the new academic year. My academic year resolution was to accept the things I cannot change, and change the things that I don't like. After all, there is no point moaning about things you have the power to change. Anyway, all this means that I have been taking on more, with a view to taking on less if you see what I mean! This week has been mad, compounded by the fact that I was away for a week with the children last week. We went to Cornwall (in the South West of England) for some chill out time, involving some journalling:


This is my eldest, journalling the most hideous journey ever - eleven hours!
This is also the first time my kids have been surfing, and if you look close enough, you might be able to see how well they took to it:


And here we are - the surf dudes!


We also went to visit the Eden project - what an amazing place. The different biodomes each house a different environment, rainforest, mediterraenean and outdoor. The rainforest was amazing - to see bananas, pineapples and peppercorns growing in the Uk - wow! It was made all the better because there was an African children's choir singing, dancing and drumming too - it gave me goosebumps all over.


In between all this excitement, I did manage to squeeze in a little journalling - here is October finished :


And here is November ready to go:



Can't believe that we have nearly completed the year - who's carrying on next year?
And finally, because my Mum has a beautiful new house, and it's her birthday today, and because a certain person let me down on the present front, I had to create her a gift at short notice. Here it is - she said she loved it, I guess I'll know how much by where she hangs it!

Have a safe and fun Guy Fawkes Night!