More journaling, more snow and a winner!

There is a story behind this journal page....  My 10 year old niece Mart is an avid artist and she gave me a drawing of the person you see on the journal page. She did this after looking at Teesha Moore's drawing lesson on her blog. I really liked the way Mart took and it and made it her own, and created a really grungy look (this was an accident she tells me, she drew the outline in watercolour pencil which consequently ran. Serendipity!) My art journal seemed to be the ideal place to 'store' this precious picture and I may do more of this in the future :-)  I created a background using Ranger dabbers, and Starburst Stains for a touch of shimmer.

(Incase you are wondering, I scanned the drawing which was originally A4 size, then reduced it in PICASA and printed it out smaller for my journal.)

Ok, last week I offered a stamp as a giveaway to celebrate 100 blog followers. Thanks v. much indeed for all of those who left me a comment.  I visited random.org earlier today and I can now tell you the winner is............Terri of Pringle Hill Studio Yayy for you Terri!! E-mail me your address and I'll post it ASAP

And finally, what can I say? Snow, snow and more snow. The temperature is getting colder and colder, and we are forecast even more snow :-(   The children had another snow day off school today but my school (I'm a teacher) was still open! How annoying is that?! The roads are treacherous because there isn't enough grit, so I slithered out of my village sideways today.......

Bye for now

Back to normality.....

The Christmas tree and decorations are down, the visitors have all gone, and normal life resumes. There is so much preparation for Christmas and yet it is all over in the blink of an eye. Today I was supposed to be visiting a very good buddy but the snow still falls and the temp is -5 so I daren't risk the journey. I had a little time to play about with some paints and this is the outcome:

A while ago I went on a course (for teachers) called 'philosophy for children' (I have blogged about this before...). It's not often I come away from a course feeling thoroughly enlightened but I really really did this time. One of the things we talked about was allowing yourself to fail, in this case as a teacher, and also allowing children in your class to fail because failure is part of learning. As adults we want to jump in and put things right don't we? Allowing myself to fail on this art journey I am on does not come easy but I have set myself a 'no tearing out' rule in my art journals which means I have to live with the failures. It's good for me! I know you don't all like the gothic images I use sometimes (because you tell me!) but it seemed appropriate in this case. The image came from Rian here. Do take a look, there are some fab freebies to be had :-)

I used Ranger dabbers but I wanted to intensify the colours a bit so I experimented with some Starburst Stains I got from The Stamp Man. I wasn't sure if these would work over acrylics but they did and they added a beautiful intense shimmery glow. Yum!

I don't always use gothic images, sometimes I do 'pretty'. On this ATC I used a Lynn Perella stamp on some asian text (which I burned around the edges),  mounted on some hand-made paper, and stitched mica over the top:

I found this fabulously appropriate quote to go with the stamped image:

And finally, I added the 2010 to my calendar page. The background is still not complete, I'm working on it as I go along.

Byeeeeee for now

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope there aren't toooo many sore heads today :-)

Let the Calendar Challenge begin! Thanks to all of you who have signed up for the challenge - the list is still growing! If I have missed you off the list below please do let me know. I have been hopping around a few blogs this aft and I see many of you are ready to go with January and your calendars are looking fab. Mine (above) is almost ready to go but is not quite finished (I haven't even got 2010 on yet!)but that's the beauty of it isn't it? I can keep adding to it as I go along.

To make things a bit easier I have added a link in the sidebar to the original post where everyone's name is listed. The link is under 'My Web Pages'. That way, if you want to see the other calendars you can click on the link all year round and you will have immediate access to everone's blog.

Also, I have started a new Flickr Group here as a place where we can all share photos of our art calendars throughout the year. If you are not a member of Flickr, do check it out - it's a great place to share photos. The link for this is also in the sidebar under 'My Web Pages'.

Bye for now :-)

Craft Stamper, 100 followers and a little give away....

Well, I didn't realise quite how many of you would be interested in doing the calendar challenge....the list has grown and grown :-)))  Thanks to you all so much for joining in but remember there is NO GOING BACK NOW  LOL! Hopefully we can all encourage each other and keep each other going. I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone's art at the end of every month. If you'd like to join in it's not too late -  see the post below.

The next issue of Craft Stamper is out in the shops this week (UK) and in this issue I have the first part of a 3-part series on Art Journaling. Here are some sneak peeks of the art journal I made for this issue:

Inside the front cover:

Inside the back cover:

And I also took part in 'Stamping Contrasts' this issue and was given some Inchie Stamps by Innovative Stamp Creations to play with. Here are some sneak peeks using Crafty Individuals papers:

And finally.........I see I now have 100 followers. Yippee! Thanks to you all. I'm offering this cute little birdie stamp by Crafty Individuals as a little thank you. If you are a follower and would like to win this stamp, just leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a winner on Wednesday 6th January.

Happy new year everyone. Hope the new year brings you peace, joy and lots of art :-)

Calendar Challenge and snow

Hello again! Hope you all had a fab Christmas and happy times with family and friends. This snowy scene is what we woke up to on Christmas Eve and it continued to snow and get deeper and deeper. Santa brought my children lovely new mountain bikes for Christmas and they haven't been able to get outside on them yet!

Thank you all for your very kind comments on my article being published in Somerset Art Journaling. My mag arrived just before Christmas WOO HOO!

Now onto the 2010 365 calendar challenge. If you are joining in the calendar challenge you have four days to get ready for January! Here is my December page almost finished (click on it for a closer look). I tried this for a month to see if I could keep up with it and if I enjoyed doing it before I committed to doing it for a year, and I have really enjoyed it. December is a frantically busy month and I haven't had time to do as much art as I would like but however busy my day I could find 5 minutes to fill in a small square. When I look back on these pages I realise why I get so tired!

Here, I am working in an A4 Moleskine and each square measures about 1 1/2", but feel free to do this in any way you like. Every day I write, doodle or draw a picture of what I have been up to as a record of the minutiae of every day life. So far the following people have said they would like to join in the 365 challenge (I think), and remember, if you're thinking about it, it's not too late to join!

Jill

Sue C

Dyan

Tanya

Sharon (livewire jewelry blog)

Pat

Francie

Sarah A

Sarah H

Annette

Cath

Lesley

Kirsti

Pat

Sandy

Ann

Carolyn

Audrey

Sonja

Sharon (my-little-pad)

Kate B

Amanda

Gez

Jude

Caroline

Sue A

Emma

Karen

Suzie

Chris

Laura

Michele

Chris G

Gill M

Linda

Kaz

Tracey

Leigh

Kate (Auntie Cake)

Bernice

Robbyn

Karen

Irene (sorry, no link for Irene..)

Craftygirl (This is my daughter and IF she keeps this up I will post it here!)

If you have changed your mind / don't want to do it or whatever just let me know, it's not a problem. This is how it's going to work: At the end of every month post a picture of your completed journal page on your blog or flickr, link it back to here. When I post my journal page I shall link back to you all. Simples! We'll maybe throw a little blog candy in along the way. I think and I hope that this will be a great way to encourage each other to keep going!

Jill, over on Third Age Musings blog was my inspiration for doing this. She is also running a calendar challenge but at a slightly more sedate pace - a month at a time. Have a look at Jill's blog as she has posted a step-by-step on how to create your page. If you want to see my step-by-step have a look here. And finally for more inspiration, and to see different ways to set up a page have a look at the pictures posted on this Flickr group

Bye for now :-)