Journaling, mud, and you tube

Images by Marsha at Tumblefish Studios

Paints and inks by Dylusions

Finally, the festivities are over, the house is back to normal and the kids are back at school so I had a little time for journaling and made this page in my A4 (12 x 8") Moleskine. The wonderful images are by Marsha at Tumblefish Studios and are available in her Etsy. The figure is from a set called Dollface, and I handcut the border and flowers from a set called Brightside. Marsha puts fabulous backgrounds together and these are just perfect for cutting your own shapes.

Here's the page before I journaled on it:

The journaling itself was triggered by a Teacher Training day I attended earlier this week. It was the first day back at school after Christmas - the most dismal of days - and 240 teachers were listening to an inspirational / motivational speaker. It takes a lot to motivate anyone in January I always think.

Anyway it did get me thinking a bit .....  

There is always a danger with this sort of thing. If you get people to think too much about their real dreams and ambitions, and encourage people to be very very honest with themselves about what they really want to do with their lives, they might just all quit their jobs and go and follow their dreams LOL!

Back in the summer I spent 3 wonderful days at Art from the Heart taking lessons from the fabulous Dina Wakley. She had a small journal with her for 'mopping up' ink left over on stencils etc, and paint on brushes and so on and these 'leftovers' made perfect journal backgrounds. I got myself a little cheapo sketchbook so I too could mop up ink and here is a completed page. The little note was written by my daughter some time ago, which she left in my lunchbox one day. I decided to get it out of my box of treasures and add it to my journal.

Here's the second page of the note and this really makes me laugh. Like I need directions to find chocolate!! Ha ha ha, I can sniff it out a mile off!

Finally the snow has cleared and following a big snow fall you always get mud. We had a particularly muddy walk after new year:

Here's a few random pics of things I saw on our muddy walk:

I just love hand-made signs! Who or what on earth is Cherry?! Is she riding a bike and walking dogs at the same time?! I may have to go back and investigate further ....!

I have been overwhelmed by the response to the calendar challenge for 2011 - over 70 of you so far and the list is still growing. I'm so happy and excited that so many of you want to participate. Please check the list and do let me know if I have made any errors. Due to the large numbers of bloggers involved this time I will add a 'Mr Linky' towards the end of the month to make it easier for us all to visit each other's blogs so keep an eye out for that.

Here is my first ever vid on you tube. I am a real amateur at this so please excuse the camera wobble ha ha ha ha!!



Byeeee for now.