Bird Brain

At last - the holidays are here! Not before time either - if we hadn't broken up when we did, I fear for what may have happened - my brain was just a nano-byte away from meltdown...Hence the journal page above. The borders are a mixture of collage sheets I have collected over time from Collage Anonymous and Crowabout and the figure is from Collage Anonymous with the owl head from Tumblefish. The background is made from Sir Tim's new distress inks.

We have just spent a few days in that most tacky and British of seaside resorts - Blackpool. My Grandmother lives there and we went to see her. The kids love the miles and miles of slot machines there and we spent several happy hours shoving 2p coins into the penny fall type machines. These little critters were some of the prizes we won - how cool are they? Before the kids could attach them to anything, I said I had to photograph them so I could use them on a journal page, which is what I am off to do now.....

Loo Blues

When I was a kid, loo bloo was a strange thing that hung over the edge of the toilet bowl and made the water all blue, and I suppose probably did some kind of cleaning job. Now I am a big girl, loo blues is more appropriate! I am now coming down from my huge strop about how much I do at home and just how disgusting a bathroom/kitchen/carpet has to be before anyone will even consider wiping a cloth round/getting the loo cleaner out/hoovering up the dog hair (oops, think I might be on the verge of another tantrum.....1..2..3..calm...). I think all this comes mainly from the fact that I am overtired, probably more stressed than I am admitting and just plain sick of doing everyone's thinking for them (oops, there I go again...).

Anyway, this started out as an ATC for Marsha's blue challenge, but went a bit wrong, so I re-did it as a journal page to perfect the technique. The floorboards are these strange chinese visiting cards that are made of wood, which I painted and distress inked and stuck on. I added the fish for a little humour (I needed it!) not that any self-respecting fish would live in any of the toilets in our house!

busy, busy, busy

Cor, but life is a bit hectic at the moment. It's at times like this that I am glad to have prepped a few journal pages in advance so that I can have a little fun without being distracted from the work I should be doing! Another three weeks and life should go much calmer, or at least I hope so! Until then, I have pupil assessments to finish, college work to get done, a million one school events and activities to keep up with with my own children, and all this with only one car and that doesn't work very well...I did think that having a husband at home all the time would lighten the load, but as you will be able to tell from these journal pages, it is not always the case....Right need to go and finish the dinner before I head off to a meeting this evening. No rest for the wicked!

June done, July ready!

Seems odd to think that I have been doing this for six months now - it doesn't really feel like it, and I am still really enjoying it. I decided to document my mood or the weather on each day as well this month - just as well we have had good weather recently, ha ha!


So, I am ready for July now. This page has layers of dressmaking pattern, distress inks, gesso, acrylic paint, spray paints and stencils and then stamped over the top. I then cut the petals out of white paper and layered them up into the flower design - all this beautiful weather means that even my miserable gardening skills are resulting in flowers all over the place, so why not in my journal...? I am off to see how everyone else is doing now - I wonder if people will keep going next year too....?

Hot stuff!

Yesterday I went to a workshop with Kate on beeswax. I have done some beeswax before, but with varying degees of success. Unsuprisingly, Kate's method worked a dream, and I am particularly taken with the idea that I have to keep buffing up this little fella's behind to maintain the sheen! All the elements are adhered with beeswax, and the background is coloured with distress inks.
This atc is just sealed with beeswax, all the elements are adhered and sealed with gel medium. It was a quickie, so the background isn't as layered as I would like, but I wanted to try the strong colours with the wax, rather than the usual muted, grungy tones. The background is ranger dabbers and the Stampotique figure is coloured with neocolours.
Right, off to provide broom wagon services to my angel of a husband who is hustling three Brownies on a sponsored bike ride - 15 hilly miles in this heat!

I'm back (almost)

 

Seems like ages since I last blogged, and, well it is. But the reason is not that I didn't want to , but that I have been bogged down with work stuff. In fact, last weekend I took myself to a little rural hideaway and worked solidly from Friday lunchtime until Monday lunchtime. I did take art supplies with me, but can you believe that I hardly even unpacked them - I'm such a good girl! In between furiously typing away at my college work though, I did manage to slap a few coats of paint on for some backgrounds, and then I was lusting after some new stamps to use on them. I am so in luurve with the Stampotique stamps, but when you are hours away from the nearest craft shop, what's a girl to do? I decided that I would try and draw some characters myself, which would illustrate the kind of pages I have in my head, and will actually get into my journal when I get a chance. This first page (above) is one I did over half term, and Marcy is who get me started on Stampotique. She first came into my life when the fabulous and inspirational Kate made me a notepad with her on. The next two characters are my creation, the taller 'you did what?' character kind of reminds me a bit of a girl I went to school with and a bit of Dyan at Art from the Heart. It wasn't intentional, she just came out that way - it was the attitude I was looking to achieve.

 

 

Hopefully I will be getting a big chunk of my college course signed off tomorrow so that will mean I am really really nearly finished - and then I can put these two gals into my journal...

May down, June ready

I was all ready to post this yesterday, but I got bitten by the ironing bug and once it has hold, I can't afford to ignore it, else my entire house will be submerged in screwed up clothes.
The background for June is done in the Dina Wakeley style, and I decided to make the blotches of colour into trees and added tree trunks in various animal print styles with marker pen. The character is from Stampotique, the other stamping around the edges of the pages are all Tim Holtz.



Ooh, almost forgot. Kate has very kindly forwarded me an award for a trendy blog.
How cool is that? Now I have to nominate ten people whose blogs I like. I always find that tricky...