Time to go cycling?

What a beautiful day it has been today - I started thinking about getting out my bike ... until I looked in the bike shed, that is ...

... then I decided I'd stick to taking pictures round the garden for now, and couldn't resist this lonely crocus in the sunshine.

But I will get my bike out later this year!

Mothers Day

Today was a sad day in many ways - my first Mothers Day since my mum died.

I thought the children were going to forget about it, but they surprised me with a card, some chocolate, and a W.H. Smith voucher - which I am very much looking forward to spending! Thank you!

My journal only has one page for the weekend, so I chose to do a page illustrating Mothers' Day.



I chose the daffodil as its petals are supposed to represent the six letters of the word mother. I miscalculated the number of petals on the first daffodil I drew, and so had to make a new daffodil to stick over the incorrect one. So todays entry is my first journal collage!

Being Creative!

I really feel that this year is becoming a properly creative year. Apart from the fact that I have managed to update my blog regularly since the beginning of this year, I have been trying out so many new creative avenues, and discovering abilities I never dreamt I had! My latest endeavour has been to start an art journal. The inspiration for this came mainly from the amazing journal entries published by Ann-D on the Creative Mom Podcast Flickr group pages.

I bought myself a greatly reduced page-a-day diary and cheated a little bit by creating this image of my word for the the year on the the page for January 01! Then I left lots of blank pages and made this entry for yesterday.

It was such a cold, windy and miserable day yesterday that I decided to create this warm sunny image to cheer me up! Both images have been created using fine line permanent markers for the outlines and Derwent watercolour pencils for the colour.

Time Flies!

I really don't know where this week has gone to! Speaking of time - I made this layout with a photograph of my brother's back to front clock the other day.

I've been having fun since Tuesday night with my car overheating and pouring steam out of the radiator - much to the consternation of other motorists! ... but it seems to be sorted now, thanks to the ever helpful mechanics at my local garage - I really don't know what I'd do without them! I really must remember to put water in the radiator ;)

Today I had fun catching up with one of my friends from University. If you're looking in Aaron, this is what I did with the first daffodil and your lettering ...

What do you think? Definitely a transformation! I did a little bit of tweaking with the lettering to fill in some of the gaps, but I'm really pleased with it now - Thank you!

When I got home today, I spotted that the snowdrops had opened out and just had to take a photo.


Don't they just look like little people!

Time to catch up!

I've been busy catching up today - catching up with paying the bills, but much more fun - catching up with the last Paper Adventure challenge, 'Something Old'.

When I saw the prompt, the first thing that came to my mind was my old 'spider' knife. I bought it at Habitat in the '70's and have been making new handles for it for the last 20 years! This latest handle consists of some kitchen roll wound round the tang, covered in tightly wound layers of 'gaffer tape'. 'Spider' is the brand name of the knife, so I had to include a google eyed spider in the layout! It wasn't until after I stuck my home made spider to the page that I suddenly remembered I was planning to keep my pages flat to save straining the binding of the album any more! Oh well - I shall definitely have to rebind my book now!!

After I finished my layout, I played with a couple more zentangles! They are just so addictive!

The flower was hand drawn, then various colour combinations were added digitally.

This shape made me think of a slug, but Wendy on Flickr reckons it is a turtle!

Why is that as soon as I sit down at the computer to update my blog, I get this sudden urge to go and make some tea and toast? It must be that time of day!

I should really have been working on the last Paper Adventure prompt - I've got the page all planned out in my head - but I just can't seem to get round to taking the photos and making the page! I have been doodling however. Here are my latest efforts. I can't decide which way up this one should go - it depends when I look at it!

This one is a digital composite of a couple of seperate doodles that I thought might look good together!

And this is just an elephant that I drew for my friends birthday.

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get round to working on the Paper Adventure pages. It involves taking photos of a very old knife! You'll have to wait for the rest of the story!

How to Assemble a Trampoline!

Yesterday we went to visit to visit my brother, and ended up helping him put up the trampoline he bought for my niece's birthday in January. It took a lot longer than we initially thought, as it was being placed on an uneven slope. This meant that the ground had to be dug away at one end to make it sit level!

I made a photo collage of some of the pictures we took!

When we got home I scanned in some of my latest zentangles, and gave them some digital colour before uploading them to flickr. Then I fell asleep, which is why I'm posting this today!

When I added the colour to the balloons I just allowed it to bleed into the surrounding colours, but with the butterflies I cropped the colours to give a more formal look in line with the presentation of the illustration.

And I added another spring flower to my collection!

Spring is on the way!

Spring is definitely on it's way, despite the cold frosty, foggy weather we have been having lately. Looking out my workshop window today, I noticed the first of the spring flowers blooming in the garden.

The violets are so hard to see growing close to the ground, but they are such a beautiful colour.

The snowdrops, traditionally the first flower to bloom in the new year, look so graceful on their long stems.

I picked this violet and brought it into the workshop to photograph - I just love the shapes that it forms.

Yesterday was definitely a good day for my two teenage children. Their band 'Deep Sea Astronauts' won a local Battle of the Bands competition. Y e s !! ... they sounded really good! They may not have made the big time yet, but they were thrilled that their long hours of practice brought them this victory.

I've been busy today!

Despite it being half-term, I managed to finish the latest Paper Adventure challenge today, and purely by chance it also fitted the Weekend Creative brief - so I was able to post it to both groups!

Just showing off now, but I managed to create another zentangle as well!

But I don't suppose I'll get much done tomorrow, as I have a class to prepare and lots of catching up to do.

Zentangles

I discovered 'Zentagles' the other day, and just had to have a go! It is a very stylised form of doodling, but it is very relaxing.

These are my first two attmpts. I think I need to use a softer pencil for the shading, but apart from that I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out.

It's certainly a good discipline - drawing in ink with no pencil guidlelines - very freeing!

Almost there!

My Paper Adventure 08 challenges are almost up to date now - only this week's one to do. Here's the latest -





I am really enjoying doing these challenges, and hope I can manage to keep up for the year!I hope to post some more tomorrow, but for now - I'm off to bed!

Nearly done!

I've nearly finished catching up with my Paper Adventure assignments, but I didn't manage to photograph them yet, so you'll have to wait till I can get some daylight tomorrow!

One of the prompts was to create a freeze frame for a day. I chose today for my freeze day, and made this photo collage of some everyday images.

It really is making such a difference to my creative output, having my new workshop!

More Paper Adventure!

I have been busy playing catchup with the Paper Adventure assignments today. I've done a lot of designing and journalling, but haven't got very much finished yet! Here are my pages for no.2 - my souvenir;

and here's the first page of my design for no.6 - colour.

As you can see - I'm being very methodical in my approach to this task ..... not!! Hopefully I will be able to complete some more tomorrow.

Foggy Day!

It has been foggy most of the day today. The sun tried really hard to get through, made it for a very short time, then the fog took over again!

I've been working on my layouts for the Paper Adventure book (in between writing the notes for tonight's class!) and have been photographing some of my old Art College work for one of the layouts.

The rest of the photos are on my flickr account. I hope to be able to post some layouts by tomorrow!

Catching Up

It's been a while again ... I keep falling aleep when I should be posting! But I have been busy creating. I spent ages making this cover for a book I'm making to keep my fabric postcards in so that they don't get lost or damaged. I didn't like part of the first attempt, so I removed as much as I could of the bits I didn't like, then covered up the rest with the new design! I was intending to use the 'bind-it-all' to bind the book, but the covers were just too thick to fit in the slot!! So I shall be using book rings instead. I just have to punch the holes and make the pages.

Then I rediscovered elise blaha's blog challenge 'Paper Adventure 08' and remembered that I really wanted to have a go at this weekly challenge, so I had to make a book for that! This time I made sure it fitted in the 'bind-it-all'. The cover and first page are below. Now I have to catch up with the first six challenges!

In between creating things, I took a few photos in the garden.

I specially like this one of the baby plant ... a sure sign that spring is on the way!

Winter Sunshine!

This morning the sun was shining and the light was just perfect to go to the beach with the camera - so that's what I did. The tide was coming in fast when I arrived, but I managed to get this shot of the birds having their breakfast.

Then I couldn't resist this shot of the shadows on the sand ridges - pleasing as a photo - but also really useful as part of a background paper for scrapbooking!

Even the muddy puddles on the cliff top path looked beatiful in the sunlight!



I took over 100 photos in just over an hour! To see some more, have a look on my flickr account here.

My "Word for the Year"

After much soul searching and mind changing I have finally decided on my word for 2008 - Transformation! (see Ali Edward's blog)

The Juggler

Today I finished 'The Juggler'. After I'd sewn on the figure, it felt as though something was missing. So I started playing around with varous bits and scraps of materials (like you do), and the blue balls just seemed to fit .... suddenly he was a juggler! And to prove I was working, I took this photo showing what a mess I make when I'm being creative!

Postcard number 3!

Where did the weekend go to? I didn't get half the jobs done I was planning to do! I made a good start on writing the postcards to my 'Finding You' friends, and I did some clearing out in my bedroom. I didn't manage to do any of the weekend challenges, but I did get another fabric postcard finished and a fourth one started! And I think I have finally chosen my word for the year!!! .... I just need to mull it over for another day or so and then I'll post it.

Fabric Fun

I have been wanting to have a go at making fabric postcards ever since I heard about them, around six months ago, but couldn't find anyone to teach me how to make them. Then last night, while googgling around, I came across this post on Deb Richardson's blog Red Shoe Ramblings. I could not have asked for a better tutorial - it was amazing! And to prove it .... here are two postcards I made today following her instructions .... well almost .... I had to add a few little quirks of my own now didn't I!

So now I'm all fired up and rearing to make some more!