Art Journals & Canvas's

So many things started .. A LOT to finish lol :D ... still that's how I like it.
I have lot's of journal pages ready to do something with, so here they are in their unfinished / only just started state ...





Then there is a selection of Canvas's that I'm in the middle of working on :



And then there is this mountboard canvas that I painted first and then used encaustic wax on to finish it (yes I did say Finish !) lol :D



I will be sure to post pictures as & when each project is completed !
thanks for stopping by x

Art Journal Workshop .. What a FUN day !

Well it's been and gone again, another Art Journaling workshop, A FAB group of ladies and a lot of brilliant pages later & I'm back relaxing with a glass of wine lol :D
The girls (Becky, Sharon, Sarah, Patti & Emma) were lovely to work with all day, bags of enthusiasm & a willingness to try whatever lol :D .. Thanks for making my life such a breeze girls x
Here's some pictures from the day
The first one is when I'd all set up, before they arrived :


Here's Sharon, Sarah & Emma working hard ...


And here is Patti & Emma busy creating ...



And a few sneaky peeks at the work in progress :

WOYWW

So it's that time of the week again already ! Sorry I didn't make it round so many desks last week, Artisan rather took over. I promise to do better this week, though it will be tomorrow rather than today !
On my desk (well on the small space that had any room on it is a little pile of interesting bits I picked up at Artisan ... there was a pile of beads too, but I did a bead loom workshop there & have already started using those .. will post a picture of the latest bracelet I'm making when it's done :o)
Off to a Ploughing Match today (in the rain) so will catch up with you all soon .. Thanks for stopping by x
If you want to join in WOYWW call over at Julia's

& a jolly good time was had by all :D

Well it's Tuesday afternoon & finally I can see my desk top again, Artisan was a huge amount of fun over Friday and Saturday,But it has left me with stash & goodies everywhere ! Then instead of tidying up I went off en famille to play Paintballing all day Sunday ! Now that WAS alot of fun lol :D but very exhausting after the two days at Artisan, still these things have to be done :D
Yesterday was busy sorting things out for today & tomorrow, I've been into school this afternoon teaching class 5 & 6 how to make a mini tag book and then tomorrow I'm helping out the company my husband works for at a Ploughing match .. no, I'm not the one doing the ploughing, nope I put on my best Hostess with the mostess disguise & serve tea, coffee & food to lot's of hungry farmers lol :D .. My husband works at an Agricultural & builders merchants & they have a stand there, so that's my Wednesday spoken for ! I am however REALLY looking forward to the Art Journalling workshop on Friday (think there are still a couple of places to be had)
The picture is early on Saturday morning at Artisan whilst myself & my Daughter were beginning to set up for the Distress Ink workshop. Both workshops were full with 20 people each day, which was lovely, could have been a tad upset if only 3 or so had turned up lol :D

& this one is mid way through the workshop :D

We met some lovely people there on both days, some who visit me on here, some who are regular customers at Artist Trading Post & some who come to my workshops here and made some new friends, perfect :D x

ATC's and getting ready for Artisan

Well it's been a very busy couple of days up in here in my studio ... piles of alcohol inks being sorted out :

and piles of distress inks ....

and some of the ATC's that I've been busy making ready to trade at Artisan ...

I'll try & get some pictures from Artisan to share with you soon x

Woyww ... A pile of Mess

Well I've got to admit things are in a mess, I'm busy sorting out workshops for the Artisan show, I'm doing alcohol ink techniques on Friday & Distress ink techniques on Saturday ...Got a stack of leaflets on my desk about the workshops to take there, and some pre-painted grunge shapes too. Really looking forward to it, and there will be plenty of time for shopping & trading some ATC's too ... As well of course as helping out when needed on Artist Trading Posts stand... Mums going with us Friday and my daughter is going with us on Saturday so should be a lot of fun !
Anyone on here going ?

& if anyone wonders why I'm sharing my mess with you pop over to see Julia

Mini Book Workshop

Well I think a lovely time was had by all, I certainly enjoyed myself with a smashing group of ladies :D
We made 4 different mini books today with some fabby results :D
Here they are at work :


Looking forward to seeing some of them at Artisan next week too ! Are any of you going to be there ?

WOYWW & other stories ...

Good morning all you WOYWW'ers ..if your not a woyww'er, you've obviously not been to Stamping Ground hosted by the lovely Julia.
I admit I'm cheating today & am actually writing this last night lol ..if that makes sense :D I find there's often enough happening here, trying to get 3 kids off to school so this is one job I can do when it's a little less frantic lol !
So on my workdesk today is a pile of Mini books, ready for the mini book workshop on Friday ... some still need some tarting up but I'm getting there !
There's also a small art journal, pages painted up ready for the next layer .. other than that it's probably the same as last weeks lol, I've not really tidied up since then !
I'll visit as many of you as I can when I get back from the school run & dog walk, over a nice cup of coffee and some toast, let me know if you want some too ...
thanks for visiting me today x

50th Birthday card

I mentioned last week that I'd made as requested by the teachers a card for one of the TA's at school for her 50th birthday, but I couldn't show it to you incase she saw it lol .. so today I thought I'd share it with you ...

I had a piece of Bronze coloured card from the school to use as my base as they wanted it to be a large card from them all, So I used my Tim Holtz Sizzix dies, the flower & the birdcage, I distress inked some card for the flower and mixed it with the bronze card and some of Tims lovely papers, I used buttons for the centres of the flowers and added some beaded trim to the bottom of the birdcaqe. I used a bundle of real twigs for the flower stems, bound together with some wire, and a strip of 7 Gypsies gaffer tape along the bottom.
The background was created with distress inks (that makes for a change then lol)and some paper artsy stamps.
Basically I just had real creative fun playing with it :D
Thanks for stopping by x

Mini Paper your Nuts class :o)

Well it says it all in the title lol .. a paper your nuts mini class :D
This is something that myself & Linda Elbourne saw in America when we went to Ranger U together, they were in the craft store Micheals & were quite expensive so me & Linda decided they were something that we could definately reproduce at very little expense back home!

So start off by either going to your local hardware store (or your other halfs garden shed or garage .. wherever he keeps his stash lol) and grab yourself a handful of these babies :o)


Then you need to tear up some bits of an old book, or some newspaper. (really small pieces are good here)



Using glossy accents randomly stick on the pieces of paper to the nuts


Then using some distress ink (I used walnut stain) rub a little onto the paper using some cut'n'dry foam & voila you should have some papered nuts :D .. excellent embellishments for book rings or as charms on the ends of fibre ... on a blokey card on a wire .. anything, anywhere .. hope you have fun :D (you can also do this to metal washers too)

WOYWW

Having had a bit of a break from blogs etc over the summer I am now back with vengeance lol, I have 'pimped my blog' with new buttons for online mini classes, Workshops and a gallery ... I've updated my links tab and dusted down my keyboard in the process :D .. I've finally swapped my Apple Mac computer which I couldn't get on with for a PC with a huge memory etc that works really quickly and has made my life soooo much easier :D
On my WOYWW today you will be able to spy an Art Journal amongst other things, that's because I succumbed to some more of Dyan's collage sheets and they're so lovely I can't resist playing with them :D
I'll post a picture of the page when it's completed ...
There's also a pile of metal embellishments, some 7 gypsies Industrial Gears which just fell into my hands last time I went shopping at Jamies Artist Trading Post lol :D some paperartsy stamps that I love and well a whole array of everything else in between too !
If you wonder why I'm sharing this information with you, you obviously don't know what WOYWW is .. well pop over to Julia's to find out :D x

It's all starting to take shape !

Finally ! I have worked out how to make buttons that link to my workshops, my gallery and my online mini classes, next is to set up my Etsy shop, and add more images to the gallery , but this is at least more than a start .. Hurrah !
Here is a sneaky peek at something that is soon to come :

This is one of the projects I've done for Etsy, though I have also done a couple of Mini Classes for the blog from it too, so look out for those !
I've done a card for the school, but I daren't show it to you just yet as it's not the persons birthday until Thursday, so I'd better wait & show you later in the week :o)

Vintage printers tray with curiosities ...

Did my husband want a vintage printers tray filled with curiosities for his birthday ? I have no idea, But yesterday he got one that I had made him. Here it is :

I got the tray from Artist Trading Post, (I don't believe that they are on the website because of the carriage .. but if your willing to pay a carriage charge then I'm sure Jamie would post one out to you .. give him a ring :o) )
I filled it with all sorts of paraphenalia, war medal, 2nd WW bullet casings (rich is into war history) there are some metal detector finds old coins etc, there are old bottles some with their original contents still in them, there are some very old glasses in a little leather case, all kinds of things that we managed to find :) .. and there are still plenty of spaces to add more things too.
I papered the backgrounds, each individual piece was cut out then inked with walnut distress ink, all the items (if more valuable & might want to get them out again are stuck in with glue dots, and the no value stuff is adhered with Glossy accents.

Then just before Rich's birthday we had been away in Spain for 12 days ... I took an art journal with me to play in, I tried to do the backgrounds before we went & took just one small folder of images, 1 gluestick & my art journalling pens to finish off the pages.
Here are some of them so far ...

Altered Book workshop

Finally I've made it back to my computer to update my blog, this is what happens when the kids all break up from school & I feel that perhaps I really ought to do 'those' jobs that I avoid most of the time, we spent 4 hours yesterday, washing, drying & Ironing the backlog of clothes, & at the same time getting the boys to try on everything in their wardrobe, Sas did hers at the same time & we now have a good 4 bags of clothes for charity ... another good job done !
So back to the business in hand, I ran an altered book workshop on Tuesday, with 10 lovely ladies attending we had a full house & a very messy table ( for those of you who read my blog you'll know I find the messy table bit hard lol)

We did hand print opening pages, we made windows, opening doors, pockets & Niches & several different ways of folding the pages to add interest. We tried gesso'ing the pages out & leaving the type showing.

We got VERY messy but had fun playing with Colour washes from Ranger, Spray Inks from Dyan at Art from the heart, Distress Inks, Claudine Hellmuth studio line paints, Dabbers and piles of collaging materials.
The ladies were alot of fun, we had some of a younger generation along to play too, (thanks for coming Jo, Amy & Alex) :o)
BEtween them all they created some beautiful pages, I was suitably impressed with all of them & their first attempts at altering a book, (apart from Sue who has already altered a book :o) ... Even Bernice who wasn't at all sure about ripping pages out of the book before we started got into the swing of things & even started a second book when she got home, Blimey !

So from left to right we have Bernice, Jayne, Amy, Trish & Jo.

and from right to left we have June, Jenny, Alex, Halina and Sue

And here is my lovely daughter Saskia making tea & coffee for everyone ! She came along to help out for the day :D

Here's Jo with one of her pocket pages

This is the very talented Trish with her window pages ,,
Here is Amy (Trish's daughter) with her handprint pages
Here is Jayne with one of her lovely backgrounds ..

Here's our resident workshopee Bernice ...

And June with her gorgeous Opening doors page

Halina on the left & Alix on the right with their fabby pages,

Jenny with her lovely page ,,,

And last but certainly not least is Sue (sue is my most brilliant Mum xx)