Documented Life Project - October and the missing months

 My poor planner has quite a few missing journaled pages over the last few months.  I love a challenge but what with the busyness of teaching in school full time, and other demands on my time I haven't kept up with DLP until now.  Sometimes the challenge is too big!

 The October challenges, though, aren't too far from my comfort zone and so have been within reach in my limited time.  The theme for October is 'translucent papers'.

The leaves this autumn are just spectacular and I wanted to reflect that in my planner.  I used some newly purchased Paper Artsy Chalk Acrylics, my Gelli plate and some deli paper (the challenge for Oct 3rd).  The journaling around the leaf is my attempt at describing the wonderful colours of the season.

October 10th's challenge was to use tissue paper.  I had some in my drawer from a Clinique purchase which had the brand name printed on in deeper white, but this disappeared when I laid it on some paper I'd art journaled on at a Dina Wakely workshop.  I'm really pleased with the letter stencils - I've wanted some like this for many, many years and came across some recently at Fred Aldous.  They are made of waxed card so once they're all painty and inky I'll be able to incorporate the actual stencils in my work too!

This weekend's challenge was to use vellum.  I couldn't find any in my stash so improvised with a large translucent envelope.

Again using my new Paper Artsy Chalk Acrylics I began a page that could be inserted inside the 'envelope page'.

I may still add some more doodling but it's fine for now.  The 'Love with your Heart' stamp is by Visible Image and is another of my recent purchases - I had a lovely time at the Happy Stampers show, Port Sunlight, with friends :)

The fairy seemed quite apt for this time of year.  The October piece at the top of the page has been on my mind to do right from the beginning but it's taken me til now to purchase some suitable stamps!!  These are from Kaisercraft.

a quick little tag and some news

I put a couple of these tags together this morning using Brusho inked paper from my scrap paper box, an Impression Obsession stamp I got at the last Happy Stampers show and the 'I am Enough' stamps from Illustrated Faith.  Then I got a fabulous surprise on a trip to my local Hobbycraft ...

They had the latest Craft Stamper magazine in stock (not due on news stands until 4th Sept; subscriptions have shipped but I don't have one ...yet!).  Trish has done a fabulous revamp of the magazine, it looks amazing and is chock full of gorgeous projects.  I am very honoured to have been asked to write a step by step article that is featured this month!

FairyTale tag

I am loving the new release stamps from Lavinia Stamps so much I had another quick play this morning.

I had some inky paper left over from the other day so I trimmed it into a tag shape...

...and added some distress ink and brusho.

I used the new 'Embrace your Dreams' to add some text in the background...

...then added some grass by masking with torn paper along with the new 'Fairy Dandelions'.

After stamping 'FairyTale' I splattered some drops of water over the tag and then mopped them off, just to give it some more texture.

Some Stickles for glitter on her wings and the dandelion seeds, some grass created using the top of the 'Fairy Thistles' and the word 'dream' from the 'Embrace your Dreams' stamp and my tag was finished.  I really wasn't sure about it after adding the Brusho in the background, but more layers later and I love it!  And I love, love, love these dandelions!!!!  I used them in this month's online article too

http://laviniastamps.com/embrace-your-dreams-by-sarah-anderson/

Stitching flowers in the sunshine

It was a stunningly beautiful afternoon so after inking up my tag with distress inks and stamping some toadstools and flowers, I had a lovely time in the sunshine adding stitching.

My Lavinia Stamps order arrived this morning and I was itching to play with the new images.  'Single Fairy Thistle' has a wonderful spray of 'growth' on the top, which I used as fairy grass, and the flowers are a combination of 'Fairy Orbs' and 'Glow Flowers'.  I love how versatile these stamps are - using small sections in different ways expands the stamp collection in a way.

Off to play with the 'Fairy Dandelions' now for my monthly step by step article on LaviniaStamps.com , and pop into 'Try it on Tuesday' (where my good stamping buddy Chris is on the design team)  whose latest challenge is 'sending you flowers'

Truth in a Box

Life's journey can have ups and downs and almost 7 years ago I was very, very down, with a nasty case of clinical depression bordering on suicide.  Many people who've met me since cannot imagine how the happy, giggly person they know could possibly have been in such a dark place; even fresh snow, that fills me with a child-like joy and excitement, couldn't raise a smile back then.

So when Heather Von St.James contacted me to ask if I'd help her celebrate her ten year cancer-free anniversary I immediately said YeS because although, thankfully,  I've not had to battle cancer, I have experienced dreadful fear, and Heather's mission, alongside raising awareness of the impact of asbestos, is to build HoPe.

3 months after giving birth to her baby girl Lily, Heather discovered she had a cancer that, without treatment gave her another 15 months (see  https://mesothelioma.net/stage-ii-mesothelioma/ for info on prognosis), and with it, the likelihood of another 5 years. She had a malignant pleural mesothelioma, caused by exposure to asbestos.

10 years on she is celebrating her life and reflecting on her journey with a special blog.  You can follow her brilliantly written story here: http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/survivor/#intro

Thinking back, what got me through was a combination of medication, space to just 'be' and get on one minute at a time, the love and support of friends, a great therapist and my faith; not that I consciously 'did' much about it (I didn't go to church for months, but do you know, that's ok!), once I stopped sleeping all the time I still couldn't face going out of the house and meeting people!

People came to me though, and tiny step, by tiny step, I built up from sleeping less, through to getting dressed through to going out, conquering each fear one at a time, slowly, but with an "I can do this".   For me, my biggest battle was with my thoughts, and actually trying to catch the negative thoughts I was listening to was even trickier.  What CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy)  teaches is that these negative thoughts are usually exaggerated, highly imagined and sometimes improbable, often based on 'but what if..?'  They are
                                                     False  Evidence  Appearing  Real

and need tackling with a good dose of reality and truth.

I sometimes still have to fight those negative thoughts when I feel my mood sinking a touch.  One thing that brings me real peace though is playing with paint, paper, ink, stamps, colouring pencils.... There's a freedom in this kind of play; I realised that my thoughts get caught up in the play and stop my dwelling on the worries and fears... and the fear of the blank page?  Well, it's just a piece of paper and there's plenty more, so I just choose the colours I'm liking that moment and off I go!!

For this project I started with my Brusho pigments on a glass worktop saver and decided to try and write down some of my thoughts as I worked (which is how I realised how caught up in the play I get!)

"pink?  Is there a pink?  There's a white..I'll make it.  Hmm, is Gamboge another red?  Yellowy orange!  I'll use Brilliant Scarlet"

Now to my comfort colour of turquoise, except my eye falls on Prussian Blue, unopened, so I try it :) My colours start to run so I hunt out my heat gun and notice my typewriter - might type some words in later!

I decide on some yellow and after making some beautiful shades of green change my technique and sprinkle the pigment directly onto the paper and spritz with water.

I've been wanting to make a little matchbox book for a while so decide that's what my project will be, and I'll fill it with positive words.  There's a patch of muddy-ish colour in there but I know from experience that by the time I've trimmed the paper and/or added more layers it'll look different - I'll either love it or hate it and at the end of the day, it's just paper!

There are particular sections I like already - the contrast of the yellow and purple; the area where the pink fades to nothing...

And then I get so caught up in the choices of stamps, marks to be made with a coloured pencil and collage bits n bobs,  that I forget to record any more steps or note down my thoughts and become immersed in the project....and so my little book nestles in it's box.

Thank for staying with me in this extra long post, and thank you Heather for inviting me to celebrate with you!!

http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/survivor/#intro

a teeny weeny gelli plate

For this month's project for Lavinia Stamps  I used the teeny weeny gelli plate that I treated myself to recently!  It measures 3" x 5" inches and is perfect for creating quick and easy cards.  Step by step instructions are over on the Lavinia Stamps website here.

It's also great for small projects like tags.  I enjoyed playing so much I carried on from cards onto a tag; and I have a new favourite stamp - the new flower border!  I just love it :)

five layers of journaling

Still catching up on sharing my pages from my moleskine planner, inspired by the Original Documented Life Project and this is another of my favourites.

Art Challenge: Using at least Five Layers

The challenge was to use at least five layers and I was hugely inspired by the fabulous Art to the 5th Cardboard Crush workshop.

I painted up a strip of paper with a repeated mark and created five separate 'pages' that I then stitched together.

Each of the five 'pages' has five layers on it....

...and they lift up so are journaled on both sides.

I hope you get a good idea from these photos; it was hard to get good images of the way this page was put together!

I'm loving adding doodling to my pages :)

The above 'page' started off as a scrap of paper that I'd added some watercolour paint to.  I then doodled around a leaf shape and added some collage.

I'm not sure where this little guy came from - possibly an old lotto game.  I just loved him and decided he'd be happy in my journal.  I added art journaling to the other side of the card ...

Another page featured a verse from Documented Faith

I really can recommend this art challenge.  I'm loving it :)