A work in progress.........

Some time ago I was browsing through the very beautiful 'Take Flight' by Kelly Rae Roberts when I caught sight of a paragraph that struck such a chord with me. For as long as I can remember I have felt that one day someone will find out that I am not as good as they think I am; it applies to my job....to my art..........to everything. I have internalised this all my life so I found it reassuring that I am not the only one who feels like this. I looked it up on Wikepedia and there it was in black and white IMPOSTER SYNDROME. (It didn't come as a complete surprise to find out it applies to mainly women, that men don't feel this!) Until I read Kelly Rae's book I had no idea that anyone else felt like this. (If you've got the book have a look - it's on page 32). So, of course I had to do a journal page about it. This page isn't finished yet - it's a work in progress but it has come to a temporary halt so I thought I would share it in it's current state for now. Why the pink flamingoes? Because pink flamingoes are not really pink; they are only pink because of the shell fish that they eat. IMPOSTERS!

And now a big shout out to Aauumm. Yesterday I had a load of hits on my blog from Eastern Europe - unusual for me. I couldn't work it out until I followed a link back to Aauumm's Russian blog www.liveinternet.ru/users/aauumm where she had put my eyeball ATC. Of course I couldn't read a word of it because it was all in Russian ha ha! HELLO EUROPE!

One more sleep till I go to Dy's place at http://www.afth.co.uk/ to do some more art journaling.

And tonight I am going to see the ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again YAYY!........'Waterloo, I was defeated you won the war.....la la la la'.......................

Byeeeeeeeeeeeee for now

Eyeballed...........

Hee hee hee I just love this Paper Artsy stamp. It's a little bit freaky, a little bit cartoonish and a little bit 'Doctor Who'. (For those of you who may not know, Doctor Who is a British cult TV programme about a time travelling doctor who encounters all sorts of weird creatures).
So, this is an ATC I managed to squeeze into my hectic week, just for the sake of it. Art for art's sake. I started with an inky background then added one of my fave number background stamps by Paper Artsy. Then I added the image. At this point I really didn't like it and it nearly went into the bin. This is not unusual for me and I have been known to retrieve things from the bin the next day and carry on working on them at a later date. Sometimes they have even picked up a few scratches and bin-type marks along the way but it all adds to the character. (Hee hee hee - you'll think of this and wonder what those little marks are if you ever swap ATCs with me!)

I added my usual bit of stitching and then some words which I cut from my best ever purchase from a second hand book store - 'The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'.
Now off for some shut-eye. Tomorrow I face something that most teachers dread - LESSON OBSERVATION. Yikes! I must do my best to look like super-teacher even if it is Friday morning and I am already worn out by the first four days of the week. Never mind, got a day of journaling to look forward to with Dy at http://www.afth.co.uk/ on Sunday :-)
Ciao for now.........................

Is it that time again already?

Blimey! Time for next workshop already! Where did the last month go? Tomorrow I'm holding a 'techniques' day which is a posh way of saying 'let's spend the whole day mucking about'! Oooh, we're sure to have lots of fun.

My niece taught me how to make this gift box which requires NO GLUE so I thought that would be a popular choice for the workshop as most of my ladies despise glue. Thanks for the tutorial Martha :-) Anyway, we're going to make some gift boxes and look at different ways of decorating them. For the one above I did the background with alcohol inks and then stamped on top with the beautiful Crafty Individuals humming birds stamp. (Incidentally I have got a fab camera and a fab lens - now I just need someone to show me how to use it properly as you can see from the photo......)

I used my cuttlebug embossing folder on this, before cutting a heart out of a bit of mountboard (I got friendly with my local picture framer) with my trusty old Sissix and then triple embossed it with Blonde Moments embossing powder. I stamped into it while it was still warm with a Paper Artsy squiggly stamp and then brushed a little Blonde Moments pearl pigments powder into it - a technique I learned off Dyan http://www.afth.co.uk/

Right, off to get my stuff packed for tomorrow. Byeeeeeee

Cool Journal Page...

So, when I got to see the inky Guru I just so happened to have my art journal on me (yeah, right!). This is going to be the coolest art journal page ever.......... :-))))

Happy Valentine's Day xxx

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Can you tell I went to see Tim Holtz this week?!

I started with a manila tag and covered it with some Basic Grey paper. Next I added a Tim mask and sponged over with distress ink (walnut) then stamped a Tim stamp randomly over it. (Something else I learned about Tim Holtz this week - he never lines his stamps up - he's random!) I ran a grungeboard heart through a Cuttlebug embossing folder before painting it with Claudine's acrylic paint in dash of red and then scuffed it up with some sandpaper and added more walnut distress ink. I painted the grungeboard wings with a gold dabber and then added some of Tim's ideology bits and bobs.

Really, if Ranger ever needs a new ambassador I'm the girl!

Byeeeeeeeeeeeee

Look who I met today!!!!!

Yayy! Finally I got to meet the guru of all things inky :-) How come Tim Holtz came all the way to little old North Yorkshire in little old England?! Who cares! I'm very glad he did. Can you see the fab tag he's doing in the pic with distress inks and a mask? Really, I learned a lot today and I have come home feeling all inspired and ready to start sponging my inks. And it's half term next week too so I'll even have a little time. The things that man can do with alcohol inks is amazing. He just squirts a few bits on his craft mat and swooshes the card over and makes a totally fab background. I'm gonna give it a go - watch this space.............

Shall I tell you something? Tim Holtz does not clean his stamps! Just how liberating is that? He even thinks they stamp better if you don't clean them - like you need an excuse. He just gives them a wipe down the front of his Ranger apron and then carries on inking. I'm throwing away my stamp cleaner right now and investing in an apron, or as my friend commented today - just wear black trousers ha ha ha. Yeah, that's you 'Mucky Pup' - now we know where you got your name :-)

The down side of meeting Tim is that the list of things I NEED is getting longer. I need every one of his new stamp sets for a start and I think I NEED one of those little dinky swing around things to hand your blending tools on, but I haven't got any blending tools either so I'd need those too. And after today I also realised I NEED grungeboard and lots of it.

Ah well, back to the real world...... byee

Yayy! I won something!

Hurray! I won the ATC competition in Craft Stamper magazine :-) It's lovely to see your work in print. I made this ATC a while ago for the 'cats and dogs' swap. It's a bit cuter than my usual style but I really enjoyed making it. If you click on the pic you can see it up close and read the print.

I entered this one too and although it didn't win it got published too!

I put this on Flickr when I made it back in November and it's had quite a lot of interest. It was featured on 'explore' on flickr and I didn't even know what that was until I got a flickr mail off someone saying 'congratulations on explore'!! It's where they select 500 photos to showcase every day based on interestingness- that's not many when you think how many thousands of photos get uploaded onto Flickr.

Ah well, it's nice to be just a little bit famous for a while :-)

Anyway, my husband turns 40 today so this weekend I have to get creative making a birthday cake instead of crafting...................

Bye for now