2016

It's a new day & a new year so let me wish you all a very happy, healthy & prosperous year.

Formalities over!

...it's a new start with a different journaling group for me over at Colour me Positive and we have a quote: "when you look at life through eyes of gratitude, the world becomes a magical & amazing place"

A sheet of under paper & Dyan Reaveley stamps soon sorted that one out...

DLP starts tomorrow: 2016-the "un-planner" and I can't wait to see what that is going to be all about.

See you back here soon.

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!