finally caught up...Dina Wakely workshops

Sue and I had a real treat earlier this month.....we went up to Art from the Heart in Harrogate where Dina Wakely was teaching two days of workshops.

I've been keeping my eye on Dina's blog for a while as I love her use of 'white space' on the page, as well as her splodgy, inky, splattery effects.  

Dina was working in the most enormous book (full of yummy paper :)  )

Day One saw us exploring masks, and thinking about image placement on the page.  It was great to use masks that I wouldn't normally try...stars and flowers are usually my choice of image, but I love how the lady (she did have a name, Betty probably!!) turned out.

The people on the workshop were a great bunch and it was amazing to see how we all started with the same prompts yet produced such different work.

We were kept thoroughly entertained, and the snacks also kept us laughing!!!

On the way in to Art from the Heart we met Milliande (centre of photo below), whose online videos on art journalling I've watched.  [do check them out, I think they are brilliant!]

We discovered we were all staying in the same place so hooked up later for dinner and a good chat, with time later to share our journals.

[sorry for the poor photo, it was a bit dark in the room; thought it was worth sharing the piccie anyway]

Milliande had some gorgeous pages in her journal and showed us some she'd done for her January 'page a day'.

Day 2 involved a change of seat, a change of name [i just fancied being labelled differently so I was 'Alice', Sue was 'Fred', and we certainly weren't short of other cheeky girls to join in the fun :) ] and lots of layering.

We were very definitely the noisy end of the table, which surprised Dyan, she'd got the impression from my blog and the lovely things people say about me that I was quiet!!!! ;)

Er, no, not when I'm happy!  And throwing myself into my artwork

I felt like Harry Potter giving my page a good old splattering!! [Only when he holds a stick like this it's to conjure up a magic spell]. 

 

I love the layered piece I made that morning.  Milliande concentrated on making a piece in her journal with 'white space', and succeeded wonderfully [sorry I didn't get a piccie of it] and even used peeloffs  to great effect!

Actually, there was a distinct lack of peeloffs in this workshop, we had to bring our own ;) lol  Not that I could persuade Sue to use hers!!!  I do love the colours she used in this piece.

 I played with embedding objects...

before focusing on leaving a 'white space' on a page.  This is still unfinished, but I'm pleased with it so far.

As the workshop was over by about 4pm, we decided to continue back at the Premier Inn.  This is a bit difficult to do in one of their rooms as there is limited space, but sweet talking the lady at the reception desk (or putting your foot in it, which is what I did - fancy mentioning paint!!!) meant we got to play in the meeting room.

We set out our 'stuff'', then worked on each other's journals for a timed ten minutes at a time, before moving onto the next one.  My camera battery gave out at this point so Milliande took the piccies.  It was a fabulous experience, and I love my resulting page :)

Day three saw us travelling back down the motorway after a sneaky visit to Harrogate for brunch.  And look who came in after us!!!  Great minds and all that!!

bits n bobs

Just a few bits n bobs to share today.  It was Mothers' Day here in the UK yesterday.  My Mum is in the US at the minute so I've not made her card yet, but I did get one made for Malc's Mum.

I love to add little snippets to my cards, and really enjoyed sewing this one together.  But why can I never design and make a card in ten minutes?!!

 

The flower is by Wendy Vecchi and is stamped onto some card I had sprayed with lilac ink.  The centre is a prima flower and the rest is just bits n pieces from around my craft room :)

Last week saw me in the plant nursery that my sister runs.  We were creating a centre piece to the room based on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  It's not finished yet, but it was great fun making bird feeders from cups and saucers, and planting herbs in jugs and cups :)

 

I managed to squeeze in some time today to complete a zentangle, something I've wanted to play with for ages.  Milliande put a challenge on her blog to draw a zentangle within a handshape within a mandala.  So here's mine:

This is across two pages in my journal so I think I'll add more circles around it, of various size, and maybe do a zentangle border.

catching up

I had such a busy week last week I was exhausted for days!!  But I really wanted to share some of the things I was up to.  The most recent was the second of my Art Journalling workshops, imaginatively titled 'Art Journalling 2', which I taught it at Paddy's Stamping Place. [now on tour in Crewe and Wantage ;)] 

Look how studious my students are, bless them!

Art journalling for me is about taking time to play, so we spent time exploring fun and unusual ways of adding colour and texture to our journals.

I officially lost my marbles that day!  But what a fabulous effect :)  How cool would journalling look like written on those yellow lines?

And although the shaving foam was a bit messy, it smelt delicious :)

Unfortunately my camera battery died on the second workshop, but masking over these delicate stencilled patterns with a strong colour is just stunning, I promise you!

Then there's stencilling through a sink drainer mat..

..and through a potato masher.  Later we spent time playing a game that resulted in us adding different layers to our pages in random order.

This resulted in some very different pages, as well as lots of relaxed and happy people.

These pages are still works in progress, but you can already see how exciting they will be!

The best thing about teaching art journalling though, is seeing how people relax and start to enjoy the materials they are using.  Thanks everyone, I had a GReaT time :)

let's party at the play date cafe, but don't forget challenge #20!!

It's been busy, busy, busy behind the scenes at the cafe this week and we can now proudly announce our new design team.  They are:

Suzanne Czosek

Stephanie Kraft

Ruby2Shoes

Savannah O'Gwynn

Lisa Somerville

As a senior design team, Julie, Mona and I are saying goodbye to our much loved senior designer Julie Campbell.  Julie has some great opportunities opening up for her but she's promised to keep playing along with the challenge when she can.  We're holding you to that Julie :)

So, to celebrate Julie C's new opportunities, and the new design team, we have a BLOG HOP, with a prize at the end :)  And you get to increase your chances of winning by 3!!

The blog hop starts over at the cafe, and you'll get back to me via Savannah's stunning blog.

Here are the THREE ways to give you the best chance to win:

1. Make sure you stop at each designer's blog and leave a comment.
There are ONLY 9 total so it won't take too long, just limit your browsing time lol!

2. Become a follower of The Play Date Cafe...easy-peasy!

3. Play along with this week's colour challenge

The winner will be chosen by random.org

Julie C has shared with us this lovely bathroom photo for colour inspiration this week.  The colours are

lavender          green          white

There are a few greens in the photo so you can really find your own shade and go with it :)  

I've had a hankering to work small this week so chose to make an ATC using a sketch of some lavender that I did many years ago.  I reduced it on the scanner and darkened the pencil lines before adding dusty concord and crushed olive (yep, that's a new one!!) distress inks.  The butterfly is cut from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  I wanted to give the card a vintage feel as that is Julie's true love!

Now, if you're blog hopping, hop on over to Stephanie's blog to say hi :)  She does such truly stunning cards!

Good luck!!

wow, look at this blog candy!!

Jill over at The Stampman is giving away All TwElvE nEw dIstrEss Ink pAds [or the reinkers if you already have the ink pads].  How cool is that?  Jill, you're so generous :)

Just head over to Jill's blog and leave a comment, and if you have a blog, spread the word!  You have until Mother's Day this Sunday to enter.

ps whilst you're over there, check out the sneak peeks of Tracey's new designs, and Jill's tv dates for craft creations :)

I'm not a big fan of yellow, but...

...that's what the play date cafe colour challenge is for - to challenge you to use colours you may not normally use! When I saw this photo by Maria Medeiros I just knew I wanted to challenge myself (and you guys!) with the colour yellow!

Yellow really isn't my colour, although it is definitely creeping into my box of supplies! A couple of years ago I wouldn't have been able to produce this journal page as I just never bought any products in yellow. But I've learnt what a great accent colour it can be, and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with it on it's own in my journal :)

Spring is certainly in the air here in the UK, and snowdrops and crocuses are adorning the gardens.  The only yellow flowers that make it into my garden are daffodils, well, narcissi really as I love the creamy white ones with the yellowish trumpets.  I also love the noise daffodils make - if you've never heard it, buy a bunch and once the flowers are open, shake them and listen to the sound as the stems and petals brush against each other :)

So do you have a colour you avoid?  I'd love to know what it is.  It intrigues me that we all have our own internal colour palette of colours we like and use. 

Wendy's canvas

I'm scheduling this post (and have my fingers crossed that Wendy has her canvas!!) as I'm in Harrogate taking this class with Dina Wakley :)

I really enjoyed making this, especially as it had been in my head for so long!  It was my first time using grungeboard and I just aDoRe it's texture :) 

My sewing machine had no problems going through it at all.

The flowers are Wendy Vecchi stamps and co-incidentally (and I promise, it wasn't planned!  It's scary sometimes how Julie and I are thinking similar things at the same time LOL) Julie has posted an autograph session with Wendy Vecchi over on her blog 'Julie's Open Window'!

The buttons are from my button tin ... I have LoTS as I LoVe buttons :)  I used Tim Holtz masks and stamps for the background, along with a mixture of adirondack dabbers and spray inks.

Hmm, now I need to get one of these made for me!!!