Teeny Tiny Journaling

Probably about eight years or so ago I included some small journaling in one of my art journals ...

... and over the past few months I've wanted to get back to it, but hadn't found the right way, until now!

This teeny, weeny, traveller's notebook is made by Monica, on Instagram as @moon.4.life, and available in Cafe Analog's Webshop.

It comes beautifully packaged in a tiny little box.

Being tiny, it makes it extremely portable (but you have to keep your eye on it so it doesn't get lost!).  I love being able to take a pencil case of papers, glue stick, scissors and pencil and journal wherever I am.

Gelli printed deli paper makes for a great background,

.. and it's a great place to use up the tiniest of snippets of paper!

The trouble is, Monica's produced some new colours ... I can feel a collection coming on, oh dear!!

Making Marks

My goodness, I knew it had been a while since I'd blogged, but April?!!!  My internet presence is much better over on Instagram which is, well, pretty instant when it comes to sharing photos!

I have been using a LoT of PaperArtsy images lately and their latest challenge really caught my eye (I've been challenging myself to making my own marks rather than always using stamped images, as well as allowing myself to use stamped images to make marks as that's what I love and part of who I am!!), followed by Roxanne's (or 'By Bun' as I know her as I follow her on Instagram and love her work) wonderful step by step post today.  I don't have vintage photos in my stash but instead decided to apply her principles to a stamped image to see where it took me!

 I started by adding some fresco paints to my paper with my fingers.  I watched a fantastic video by Roben-Marie Smith this morning which also influenced this piece, starting with finger painting!

I added some splashes of watercolour ..

..followed by some sprinkles of PaperArtsy infusions.  I love how the colours merge and fleck.

I selected an area I really liked and wanted within the flower petals .... and missed!!  It's that splashy bit to the left of the numerals 487!!

I painted around the flower image with Snowflake fresco paint (I didn't have the same colours as Roxanne) which picked up some of the blue from the Infusions.  At the time I really wasn't keen on this but seeing it again now I'm not sure why!  I carried on though, telling myself it was a learning experience!

I added some yellow fresco paint, stencilled with some distress crayons, and stamped with Snowflake paint...

... and then got so involved I forgot to take any more step by step photos!!  There's lots more splashing of watercolour paint, some mark making with fresco paint and distress markers, some stamping and finally lots of collaged stamped images.  I had a great time rediscovering PaperArtsy stamps I've had for a long time!

I'm linking this to PaperArtsy's 17th blog challenge, 'Making Marks'

2014: My Year with Stampotique

OK, where did that year go?  I can't believe I've been on the Stampotique Designer's Blog team for a whole year!!  I have absolutely loved it; such a wonderful, friendly group of people.

As it's Boxing Day here in the UK an appropriate final project for 2014 would have been an altered matchbox, but that only occurred to me as I wrote this post!

I decided to pick out some of my favourite projects from the year and was hoping to put them in a slideshow but couldn't work out how!  So you have a shorter collection of photos from over the last year.

I've never done one of those end of year looking back posts but looking back at these projects is making me consider doing one!

I've made tags, envelopes and journal pages and happily cut, stuck, stitched, sprayed, collaged, stamped, painted and doodled and had a wonderful time :)

I've also made some lovely friends and want to thank Carol, Jim and Kim for having me on team this year.

Thanks for sticking with me on this photo heavy post!  And thanks for supporting me through my Stampotique adventure :)

 Wishing you all the very best for 2015, Sarah xx

an ogre, a seashell and the Cleveleys coastline

Stick with me, this fabulous ogre is 'explained' further on in the post

Last weekend saw our first residential Arts and Faith Network event and it was FaBuLouS!  On Saturday morning I got to be my friend Dee Rollinson's glamourous assistant.  This was a real treat as I got to spend time listening to how she ran a workshop.  Dee has a counselling background so it was interesting to hear her include some deep reflections alongside her art project.

Here she is posing for me when she realised I was taking a photograph of her taking photographs of the masks people had made.  Over lunch we transformed the room, partly so those people taking both Dee's and my workshops knew these were different events!!

I know I've said this before, but I love how differently people use colours and images.  I used this little star bird by Stampotique as my Christmas card but he looks fabulous on a journal page..

And how gorgeous are those little hand printed daisies?!

One of the real treats of the weekend was to have Jan Dean as a wandering poet, reflecting on the whole weekend's events and noting them in her 'little green book' (a thing of beauty in itself, hand bound with coptic stitch).  Here is part of her description of my workshop....

... which really touched me as, for me, that's what I want people to get out of my workshop, a real sense of playing.  I don't think we play enough (me included!), and it's so beneficial for our emotional and mental health.

Meals at Foxhill are lovely; even the biscuits are beautifully arranged at each coffee break!  After dinner, another treat; a talk by the extremely talented Stephen Broadbent.  He shared the stories behind some of his community sculptures but the one which touched us all, and is sending us up the coastline as soon as we can get there, was the Mythic Coast  project up at Cleveleys.

Sunday morning saw us spending more time with Stephen but this time we were busy 'doing'.  He generously made us all a wire sculpture each of a person which we all then personalised....

... before spending time in the chapel looking at how different each sculpture was and hearing the stories behind their creation.

The weekend was concluded with a service in the Chapel, where we also celebrated all the differing pieces of art work that had been produced - sculpture, silk painting, masks, art journaling and poetry....

  

Foxhill is a very peaceful place and if you live near Frodsham you can take a walk in its gardens anytime.

It truly is a place ...

What on earth was I thinking?!!!

... when I decided NoT to include my snowflake stencil in my travel journal kit for a week in the French Alps!!!

Whilst the rest of my family went ski-ing (I tried it a few years ago and it scared the living daylights out of me so I stuck to walking this time!) I had time to read, walk and journal :)

Bliss!

The view from the apartment changed daily, sometimes snowy, sometimes cloudy, sometimes very clear, but it did have an influence on my journal pages.

I made myself a couple of stencils.  One of the little tree you may be able to see peeping behind the building in the carpark in the above picture; and of a snowflake!  Funnily enough, after hankering after a snowflake image I didn't use it that much, but still...

My other influences were a couple of journaling books I bought recently to bring away with me.  I love Melanie Testa's style of journal page so treated myself to 'Dreaming from the Journal Page'

Her suggestions for 'decorative drawing' [pg 84] got me adding some drawn texture to my pages.

I took two journals with me, and worked in both (well, a couple of small ones snuck in there two but I didn't use them).  One of them is my typewriter teaching guide, which I love to use, and the second was a new one from Hobby craft - the same size as the typewriter book but plain cartridge paper inside.  Both books are A4 in size, but in landscape format, so the pages are really long when you work on a double spread.

Although I really like this page now, it took a lot of working at, and didn't feel quite as relaxing as when I splash a bit of ink or paint on a page and respond to it from there on in (although learning curves don't tend to be that relaxing!)  It's my 'Melanie Testa' style page!

I did enjoy painting with my watercolours though, something  I used to enjoy at school but hadn't really incorporated into my journals.  I really like the contrast of pencil with paint and pen and added some visual texture by tracing within my stencils - not that is ReaLLY fun!

I have more pages to share, but will keep them for another post, some inspired by my other new book, Dina Wakley's 'Art Journal Freedom' which I HiGHLY recommend.