May

I thought this month's tag for Tim's challenge would pose a few moments of thought....I wasn't wrong!

Apart from the 8 sticker, remnant rubs & the DYMO style stickers nothing is from his stuff....I sometimes wish I had his  craft stash LOL.

Here is the masters original

I've used some fabric (of a linen variety) and stuck it to the tag, my choice of ephemera was very limited as most was of the wrong scale. The little flowers arrived in happy mail this morning, the ribbon is paper.....

It was all about improvising this time.

Flowers

It's getting better on the weather front and the flowers are staring to appear in my garden but not fast enough for my liking so as the challenge across at Moo-Mania is flowers I thought I'd dust off a couple of stamps that I've not used in a while.....

Anita's Art with watercolour pencils

Hero Arts real heartbuds inked with felt pens & stamped onto a scrap than has Paper Artsy MN28 & MN27 stamped on it

Time to check out what the others have been posting!

Celebrate

Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe & sadly there is not peace everywhere these days.

I've been thinking about my mum a lot recently, it's almost a year since she passed away. 

This morning, whilst returning from Aberdeen, they were talking to people about their memories of VE Day and playing tunes from the time. Mum would have been just short of her 16th birthday and out at work - she left school at 14! I've no idea how she celebrated one of the many things we never got round to talking about.

I wanted to put a journal page together, originally thinking it might be retro enough for TIOT but that is 60's so cancel that plan :-(  and the lady in the picture is more 50's than 40's but she does remind me of mum so I'm sticking with her!!!

A piece of scrap paper that seemed grungy enough but still enough brightness to feel like light coming out of the dark days of war, a newspaper pape taken from today's local paper, assorted bunting in patriotic colours.

Tomorrow the papers will be full of election news of which I am heartily fed up so I say CELEBRATE our brave soldiers who did their best to keep us safe & free.

Trees

POSITIV +JOURNAL wants to know what sort of tree we would choose to be....

I decided to destash a bit! I've used a pile of punched leaves that have been in a small drawer for ages as well as some from that are die cut with the autumn gatherings die, I also found a load of acorns that just needed colouring.

I drew round the edge of a dinner plate to get a line to follow and then added a few more moving towards the corner.

I used some watercolour pencils in the bottom left corner & then stamped the TH mini autumn leaves oak in mowed lawn DI.

Next stop.....a new theme over at moo-mania but that's tomorrow's story.....

The sea

I decided that I really should join the girls over at art journal journey this time as the sun had been shining all day....it's a very different story today however as it's back to pouring rain!

So here is my page: stamps, watercolour pencils 

All I need now is for the sun to come back and brighten my day because it's back to the heating on & my work desk lamp too 😔

Check out all the lovely pages across at http://art-journal-journey.blogspot.co.at/p/about.html where I'm about to link myself.

Cats

Our new theme over at every inchie Monday is Leopard and contrary to what some of you might expect....I have no stamp for this one! Yes, I do have a lot of stamps and I'll show you some....

My inchie is actually an advert for Jaguar cars!

My ATC  is a die cut of a cat using some leopard print paper...

And here are some of my stamps.....

The top 2 images are 3 1/2" deep drawers (6 of them, not full)whereas the others are 1" deep (28!)and they are all 12" square.

I got these units a few years ago & there are also paper trays in one unit, next time it's looking tidy I'll take some photos LOL.

ALBOTAT

First my latest Moo before the theme expires....butterfly

Alcohol inks on photographic paper / Sizzix die / watercolour paper mop up 

Some journal pages....

Journal 52 observations

Here I've kept things simple, one of my new stencils for the 2 pages, left one done with old paper DI, the right with shabby shutters. The stamping has been done in forest moss.

My favourite dragonfly!

DLP has a new theme for this month: texture (touchy / feely)

And this week is about fabric & the fabric of your life.

I was hunting in the many drawers of 1 of the units in my craft room and came across some samples from one of the courses I did at an Embroiderers Guild summer school, can't remember which class this particular one came from but it seemed an opportune time to breath some love into it!

It's handmade paper with some textured yarn overlaid in a grid, the yarn has been embedded with wax. It's also had some metallic wax crayon rubbed over the yarn & then that has been melted too.

The small squares are kraft paper (wrapping paper in this case) rubbed with copper wax crayon & then ironed. The squares have been stitched down with variegated acetate thread & some fine wire, seed beads & sequins have also been added.

Some other fly stitching has been done with a variegated silk thread.

It's nice to have taken this piece from lying abandoned in a drawer to a treasure in a journal....reminds me of good friends that I made on my annual summer school trips!

Thanks for looking :-)