Next

It's the last day of December 2015, I'm so not sure how the heck that happened but it did!

It's been busy here, I took delivery of my new fridge just before Christmas & as it's different to my old one I'm still working out what fits where. Disaster struck again a few days ago....the power kept tripping out in the newer half of the kitchen! Bill thought we might need a new tv but we set about doing a process of elimination & discovered that even with every electrical item in that part of the house unplugged....yep, the power was still tripping! I managed to cajole an electrician to come round and it turned out to be a trapped wire that had burnt through (23years after the event).

So after unplanned spring cleaning due to moving the freezer & washing machine we are now set for Hogmanay or New Year as the rest of the world calls it.

This has meant no inchie last week but I managed to conjure one up for the last the e of the year which is NEXT.

 And whilst I'm here I'll share the last DLP page too

Not sure how many challenges I'm doing next year as there are several options now open to me...but see you back here next year and you can discover just where these take me :-)

Happy Hogmanay to you all and thanks for your company in 2015

Bad

Bad girl! Not done my inchie....it didn't spark any ideas (evolution) Journal 52 still hasn't given out the theme, it normally gets revealed on a Friday evening! Positiv is over for the year as its cover this week & mine was already done, the only one out of the 3 in fact!

DLP this week is hidden journaling 

Lots of stencilling, some stamping & a hidden message behind the Kraft label.

I delivered the last Christmas card today....

And  I counted up the ones I have made from all the scraps that have been lying on my desk...28! That's  a good chunk out of what I'll be needing for next year so I'm well pleased and will now be able to get all the seasonal stuff put away.

I've now been without a fridge for 6 days....thank goodness the new one is getting delivered tomorrow because I'm not too keen on tepid wine!  

I'm off to check a few blogs now so have fun in the rush to Christmas, remember keep calm & craft on.

Loco

It's another week that's gone speeding by....I had a wonderful weekend in Edinburgh to finish it off despite having to travel an extra hour by road to get there, we could have taken the train but that gets awfully busy at the best of times so with the Christmas rush on we stuck with 4 wheels.

Locomotive is our inchie theme so here are my inchie

And ATC

As well as my latest journal pages

Journal 52 - add a dinosaur 

Pure fantasy!

And DLP 

Use quotes & lyrics / "one of the hardest things in life is having the words in your heart that you cannot utter" James Earl Jones

The lyrics are from a song by Michel Sardou & just to the right of my husbands shoulder are the words "you are my number one" which I don't tell him enough.

Winter

New challenge at Positiv Journal....winter!

Which for me is snow, fir trees, roofs covered in sparkling snow, poinsettias as well as log fires, mulled wine & skiing.

My journals are getting fat now...

DLP

Journal 52 without its wire binding as it's got too fat!

Positiv Journal 

They've only got a few more weeks to go :-) but I'll possibly keep filling the last one as there is room for another full 52 weeks!

Snow White & the frog

There's almost a link to my posts in the title :-)

Saturday we went to the local panto to see "Snow White & the Frog"  and I have used a frog for my Journal 52 post 'self care or take time for yourself' 

I've got some acrylics on the backgrounds, an adult colouring page on the left in the shape of a tree frog & an ATC from a friend Marelyne Glanton that goes back to 2008. It was nice to give it a more per ashore here on a stencilled page.

I also have my DLP page done, we have a new monthly theme in the shape of storytelling with the written word.

Prompts are words front & centre - life is a book we fill the pages.

I used my Gelli plate & distress ink for the background, stencil & gesso for the trees & added charcoal pencil to the design,stencil & ink writing, stamp & ink (paper Artsy) some die cut doodled borders.

I made a little booklet for my story.

Added some Stickles as tree baubles (I had decorated my tree that day!)

And last but not least my inchie for this week is Angel - we had fairies in the panto and they had the most magnificent wings, they reminded me of angels!

Monet

A challenge for Positiv Journal is to do a page in the style of Claude Monet.

I love his paintings but sadly did not manage to see them when they came to London nor have I been to Giverny but that was not going to stop me...

Here's my inspiration 

I've used oil pastels that have been lurking in a drawer since my C&G days for the background 

Blues for the water and some greens to give an idea of the lily pads and then printed off a colouring page for the waterlilies and used the oil pastels again - all in all, not too bad an effort on the colour front  but a huge leap away from the masters art!

Tea

It's Monday & it's cold! A nice hot cuppa to start the day and it's also Tea that is the theme over at every inchie Monday & this time I have several & even have an ATC !

Teapot

Teacup 

Different teapot

Afternoon tea!

And as I'm in a generous mood and the weather is so chilly I've been out topping up the bird feeders which gave me the idea for our DLP challenge this week where we are to use mask/stencil/stamp together and the words are from Henry James :three things in life are important: the first is to be kind, second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. 

I used some messy pages, juniper sprig die to create my stencil & mask and stamped/embossed be kind as well as adding a small feathered friend who has his feathers all fluffed up to keep cosy!

See you all again soon.....

Grid

On grid or off grid? I certainly don't live off grid! Our theme over at journal 52 this week is "grid based"

And I've gone with just some of the items that were lying on my desk....stamps from Chocolate Baroque & inkadinkadoo plus a couple of home made ones, stencilled page that happened to be the right size (!)

 and some ATCs that are also grid/block background based. One is tiny fabric scraps that were bonded onto a base fabric & then over stitched using the sewing machine & some fancy stitches.

I also have 2 pieces of sprayed canvaswork that are samples from a course I did....

They are almost the same size as the pages so I'm thinking I might trim them down slightly and add them to the journal as its loose leaf at the moment & I can incorporate what I want :-) 

Rudolph day

It's a month to Christmas and our last Rudolph Day challenge! I've also been trying to do the 12 tags of Christmas challenge sponsored by the Funkie Junkie so here's what I have come up with this time....

This is Linda's offering for challenge week 5

http://thefunkiejunkie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/challenge-12-tags-of-christmas-funkie_26.html

I've gone with similar colours and the randomly stamped background for this as well as the added tree as an extra layer.

Then for her week 4 challenge which you can check out here...

http://thefunkiejunkie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/challenge-12-tags-of-christmas-funkie_19.html

I have interpreted this way....

I went with the stripes rather than plaid but I've used the foliage and a poinsettia and as I had 2 striped papers I liked I did 2 cards that are both slightly different!

Off to link with the challenges now, have you got your cards done or started?

Crochet

Wow! It's Monday, it's inchie day & I actually have my photos working! So, without further ado here is every inchie Monday crochet 

I've been hoarding this one for a long time!

I've also added to 2 journal pages....still not finished...

And I got Journal 52 'architecture' done using more hoarded images lol

Athens Acropolis, London Houses of Parliament & Big Ben, Dunedin NZ on the left page

Altered card, 2 images from a recent art show catalogue, leaning tower of Pisa, Rome's colosseum, New York's Chrysler building and another piece of happy mail.

Over at DLP it's masks this week so I used versamark/ clear EP, vinyl  butterflies as masks on the first version

I didn't feel too happy with this one so then I did another sun underpapers, stamped snowflakes that I masked with some paper circles & also used  my TH umbrella man as a mask then gave the pages a coat of black acrylic 

I also stamped on some silver snowflakes & used holographic EP and added a little white pen doodling.

I cannot believe that November is almost at an end until I look outside and see how dark it's got and it's not quite 4 pm :-(...hey ho, it's only a month to the shortest day & the things will start to improve!

Assembled

.....but not finished!

Rear & front covers...

These are unchanged 

I found a "mason jar of tears" that seemed appropriate for the reverse side of the terror in Paris page & as I'd got the shattered stencil on there I decided to add a couple more "bullet" holes.

I've still stuff to do to these pages!