rejuvenating my art journal

This square journal has lots of my favourite pages in, but some pages that I didn't like so I decided to give one of the spreads a Stampotique revamp ('cos that's where you'll find me every Friday). This one started off covered with torn text paper over which I'd rolled a marble dipped in paint.  I was trying out different things!!

Not liking it I gessoed over most of it, leaving some of the page with the original paint, and gessoed over it again, and again!  Some splatters of blue ink (because the bottle was a bit clogged up) and some transfer letters and I was beginning to like it!

Now there's a reason why you must never work on an extremely tidy desk (well, that's my excuse anyway!).... I had this bright pink painted paper nearby so stamped up a few 'time square' and added them to my page, along with some hydrangea punched flowers and an apt quote!!

Stampotique stamps used

Time square

row of numbers

Ecclesiastes

a tag and an apron

Being ill just after Christmas is rubbish (I've had some kind of sickness bug) but after a couple of days reading, sleeping, perusing Pinterest and watching i-player (I don't know what I'd do without my i-pad!!!) I was well enough to sit up and play with my inks and stamps.

I used some Tim Holtz stamps from the 'mini muse' and 'purely random' sets, enjoying adding tiny bits of detail to the background of my manilla tag.

I just couldn't resist finishing it off with a scattering of hydrangeas.

Now all the presents are opened I can share some sewing I did just before Christmas for a friend of mine.  She loves 'dottie angel' so I decided to make a dottie-angel inspired apron.  It includes a little up-cycling - I found a denim shirt in my fabric collection and used the button edge to make the ties and the pocket as an extra pocket on the front.

PDCC83 a sweet farewell EDITED

...although a rather sad one!  I've not been able to play along in the Play Date Cafe for a few weeks now, since starting my new job, so the time has come to step down and say goodbye.  

I LoVe this image that Julie chose for my last week.  We've been in this together right from the start so it's not an easy goodbye to say but it's been a ball, and I'm hoping I can call in every now and again and play along!

I was going to do a journal page but when I saw these tiny birdhouses in Dunelm Mill I decided I just had to have one (well, five to be honest!).    As it's colour splash week I chose to use black and white on the birdhouse and use the bird as the splash of colour.

I used my favourite punches to decorate the birdhouse...

...and the tiny bird is made from felt :)

I am honoured to have been part of such a fabulously talented team over at The Play Date Cafe and know that the friendships we've built will continue for a long time to come.

EDIT: Now the girls surprised me with both a blog hop (which ends here so welcome blog hoppers!!!) and their choice of their favourite piece from my time at the PDCC.   What a wonderful, wonderful design team.  You made me cry, but thanks everyone!!  There's no way I could choose a favourite PDCC project, there are so many I LoVe.  The PDCC has challenged me to stretch my creativity in many different directions, and it is one of the many things I love about this challenge - I could make whatever I felt like, even cakes!!!  But Colour Splashes are my very favourite :)

Happy Mothers' Day!

If you're a UK Mum I hope you've had a lovely day.  Last minute as usual I was making Mothers' Day cards this morning - one for my Mum, one for Malc's Mum.  Fortunately they both like fairies so I kept the gorgeous 'Once Upon a Springtime' Graphic 45 paper out for both of them!  Can't wait to get my hands on some more of this collection :)

I couldn't believe how close that date was on the postmark (except for the year of course!).  I don't remember Mothers' Day being so late before - it usually falls between mine and my Mum's birthdays, the 23rd and the 12th of  March.  What I didn't know was that Mothers' Day is always on the fourth Sunday of Lent (I knew it was related to Easter somehow but didn't know the specifics!!).

Whilst I was in card making mood, I made some little cards for the bookstall at church.  

I do love that hydrangea punch! :)

a secret garden

At the Cubby Hole, Carol challenged us to make something this month on the theme 'in a secret garden'.  I shared some of the content last week but managed to finish it last night and today.

I changed my mind about the tin and went for a really simple collage, so the garden was secretly contained within it...

My local library are selling off some books [a bagful for £1] and I was very happy to see a number of large print books in the sale.  Romantic novels are always good for over the top descriptions which work brilliantly in journals of this type.

For the front cover of the book I christened my new Stampendous Hydrangea Stamp and added some stitching to the image.

Now to get my thinking cap on for April's challenge theme :)  Yes, I have inside information and know what it is!!!  Doesn't mean I'll get it done any quicker though lol.

a blissful day spent cutting and sticking and printing

I did a Collagraph printing workshop at The Cubby Hole for my birthday treat.

I've been wanting to take a printing workshop forever but never quite managed it.  We made our printing plates from a variety of tapes so that we didn't need to wait for them to dry before putting them through the printing press.

The image at the top of the post was made from this plate, made entirely from masking tape on card, and using my favourite punches in the whole world [my Martha Stewart Hydrangeas].

We also worked on card shaped the same as our first initial.  I decided to make a few and print a collection.  We did LoaDS of printing :)

I'm going to add some stitching to some of my pieces I think.  It was great to see Carol having the time to join us on this workshop.  I love the pieces she did with textured wallpaper.

We had great fun with the string - it could be 'deconstructed' into very fine threads which printed brilliantly.

little Sue made this fabulously textured flower

whilst Nigel added roots and leaves to his 'N' with it

Wendy made a fantastic print from the leftover card from her 'W' being cut with the Cricut.  

A fabulous, fabulous day :)

time to play

Did you know it's really good for you to take time to play?  To do something just because you enjoy doing it, rather than 'for' someone.  That's what I love about journalling - playing with paint and paper; cutting and sticking, ...

It takes me into a world of my own where I'm focused on colour, texture and shape, but also expands my creativity in the sense that I start using colour combos etc through 'happy accidents' that I never would have tried otherwise.

This envelope became a page in my accordion book - one end is for tucking tags, or maybe a little book inside, the other has been opened out and additional pages added.  I LoVe working with envelopes :) :) :)

Yesterday was going to be a 'lettering in journalling' workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place, but became a more general journalling workshop as most people hadn't done much, if any journalling before.  I love teaching like this, starting with where people are and taking them to or towards where they want to go.  For me, that's real teaching, and one of the reason's I won't be going back into teaching in schools yet, if ever, but let's not get me onto politics lol.  Apologies for not getting photos from people's work yesterday; and I really should have done, there was some great stuff produced!

I took some time working alongside everyone working in my own journal.  This is a small accordion one for Carol's challenge 'The Secret Garden'  

I do so love that Martha Stewart hydrangea punch (well, both of them lol, I have two!).

And there's a bit of Paper Artsy in there too from one of their Hot Picks plates.

If you take time out to just play today or over the next couple of days, let me know, I'd love to hear about it.  Get some paper, put some colour on it with paints, distress inks, spray inks, then stencil over it, stamp over it repeatedly to create pattern, then put a main image over the top - see, it's easy!

PDCC62 time for a bit of journaling :)

I have enjoyed getting my journal out for this week's play date cafe challenge.  It feels ages since I did any journaling!  I got out a small Daler Rowney 148x130cm sketchbook out to do this piece in.  Julie's chosen this week's wonderfully soft and romantic colours of warm red, taupe and hot pink...

I've been wanting to do some pale beige/pink pages for a while :)  so I started with a taupe background, adding some stamping and stencilling in a warm reddish pink.

I used my Martha Stewart 'hydrangea' punch, and my Claudine Hellmuth stamps [which I got from Jennie in October but you can get them now with 20% off!) alongside some stitching.

I free machine stitched around the larger flowers...

The design team have yet again come up with some amazing projects, as have our design team in waiting!  They start officially on 13th January but we've all been having fun getting to know each other over the past week or so ;)

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn
Ruby 2 Shoes

Julie Ranae - senior designer