lavinia stamps challenge #3 pastel colours

Sometimes a background journal page can sit there for a while before it gets finished.  This one has been there a few years now, but I liked it the way it was so it just sat there.

Then along came this month's challenge over at Lavinia Stamps and so my fairy page was born.

The tag at the bottom came about because the fairy's face didn't come out when I stamped it directly onto the page!  But I like it :)  The next page is as yet undecided.  I might just need to get the large 'Believe' stamp and some more tiny fairies in flight ;)

the 'umble ifferous

It fascinates me how there are some images that lots of people love (and some that lots of people love and others hate!), one of which is definitely umbelifferous plants!

For some reason though I can never remember the word 'umbelifferous', and frequently ask Sue 'what's that word for those flowers?'!!!  So I decided a journal page was in order; the blog title is courtesy of Sue after a conversation at Port Sunlight :)

This is started off as another page I didn't feel was very 'me' in my journal.  It got very bright so after a brief panic I stippled white paint through Tim's  Alpha Parts - numeric and am now really pleased with it.  I printed 'umbelifferous' on the computer and over typed it on a typewriter - which was weird after typing on computer keyboards for so many years!

revisiting my little orange art journal

  I love this journal.  It's got lots of pages in that I love and feel are very 'me'.

It also has had some pages that I really didn't like so I'm starting to re-work them.

I gessoed over the page on the left.  It had had circular images glued on and these peeled off fairly easy after gessoing which left a nice effect.  I removed the original matching page - it had a number of images attached that were far too small and didn't come off easily.

It was great to play with my new paints and stencils after the weekend's trip to Port Sunlight!

I added stamped, stencilled and rub on letters to link in the pen advert which was original to the page but it was still bugging me.

Happily the 'Chloe Stem' by Memory Box gave the pages a better focal point.  I have a couple more pages to re-work, and one to finish, but I'm much happier with the overall look of this journal now and, who knows, I might even get a whole book finished!

I have found it interesting, looking back through this journal, at how many pages have quotes on them!

a happy trip to Port Sunlight

Didn't we have a lovely time, the day we went to Port Sunlight 'Happy Stampers Northwest'?!!  It was great to catch up with so many friends, and, of course, buy some new supplies ;)

 Tracey Dutton encouraged me to use my Lavinia Stamps in my journal so this morning I got out my new Paperartsy paints and set to!

I worked in my small, square, pink pig journal, that I've not used for aaaaaaaaages.  It had a number of pages inside that I didn't like so I started off by gessoing over them last night, before adding patches of colour this morning, spraying through a floral stencil

then adding some stamping.

I did have to stamp the fairy onto paper and cut her out as my ink pad wasn't very inky!  (I did find a better one after that!)

 These pages are a much better fit for my journal!

On a very different note - this is my beautiful two day old niece Erin who we met for the first time today!

Gelli Play

 I got to play with a Gelli Plate today :)

I have to say that I hadn't been tempted by one in the slightest...until this week!  I signed up for the '21 Secrets Art Journaling Workshop' a while ago and recently watched Roben-Marie Smith using a Gelli Plate in her journal....and LoVeD it!

 Sue and I had planned a playday today (we've not had one for aaaaaaaaages!) and Sue suggested we play with her Gelli Plate :)  I now need to purchase my own lol

 We spent a couple of hours making papers and printing pages in our journals, stopped for lunch then did some creating with our papers.

[I also got to play with some of Sue's stamps and stencils :)]

I love the textures you can create with the gelli plate.  All I added to this envelope was the flower, the tiny stamped circles and three green paint circles (using the pritt stick lid) and the words 'native graciousness'.

Glassine envelopes are FaB to work with in conjunction with the Gelli Plate :)

 Finally, this envelope came about because Sue found an ant stamp which was just too fun not to use!!

a fabric art journal (edited for PDCC entry)

 The plan this weekend was to get a shed-load of school prep done.  It didn't happen!  My sewing machine was calling me far too intently.  I'm not sure why as I have new Dylusions inks and a new stencil waiting to be played with.

 The wonderful Sue Roddis of the 'Jabberwocky' has been on a roll making duct tape journals and I decided to make a fabric version!  When journaling with fabric I start in a similar way to my regular journals, by picking my colours and supplies.

I love the edge of cotton fabric where they put the pattern number and the colours used in the print and that ended up being my starting point, along with the feeling that it was a yellow day!

 I stitched strips of fabric next to each other before adding some blocks and finally the flower.

 On the canvas that formed the back cover I added some tiny flowers which were so small I had to hand sew the weeny scraps on.

I then cut a strip of furnishing fabric (only because I liked the feel of it and the colour!) and used it to join the front and back covers together.  The grey strip of fabric with the words on was going to go across the spine and onto the back cover, but I forgot to hold it straight when I was stitching so it went a bit wonky.  I wasn't about to unpick it all (one of the very many reasons I'm not applying for The Great British Sewing Bee!!!) and instead just adapted the design a little, trimming it down then highlighting the word 'creative'.

I love Sue's idea of putting her pages in her duct tape journals with elastic bands so she can easily take them out to work on them.  Elastic bands don't really work on fabric so I've pinned my pages.  

I've used a mixture of materials, including acetate and paper alongside fabric.

EDIT:  I hadn't realised but the colours I used for my journal are near enough those of this week's Play Date Cafe, so I was encouraged to enter!

I did have some exciting PDCC news this week ..

I was awarded the cup of the week and won a $25 gift certificate for Jenni Bowlin Studios - so exciting!!

a gallery crawl (no pubs involved, unfortunately ;) )

 I took my daughter (nearly sixteen) and my two nieces (nearly fifteen, and ten) on a bit of a gallery crawl the other day.  We started off at Unit Twelve Gallery near Stafford, run by the very talented Jennifer Collier.  The current exhibition is called 'Traditional Twisted' and features work by one of mine and Sophie's (Grammar?) favourite artists, Alix Swan as well as work by someone we know from our home town, Leah Fletcher.

Alix's work is based on traditional tales and I have a couple of her tiny books.  For this exhibition she had created wooden boxes containing elements from the stories, with a handle on the side to turn (which played music) and a book tucked in the back with a padded label stating 'pull me'.

 I love the way she reduces the stories to single words or snippets of sentences.

 And that long, thin book for 'Rapunzel' is just fab!  Sophie and I are already booked on her two day workshop at the end of May where we'll spend a whole weekend making a little hard back book and, I assume, putting some content in it.

 I'm struggling to decide which story, if any, to do as 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' is my very, very favourite, alongside 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'!  But Sophie is doing 'Little Red Riding Hood' for her GCSE project and I'm loving the references to trees, the snippets of red for the girl and grey for the wolf; plus 'The Princess and the Pea' would give great castle imagery and snippets of fabric for the mattresses, and would really suit a long thin book. Hmmm.

 Other work in the exhibition included these lovely paper/cloth quilts by Maria Thomas.  Look carefully and you can see regular packaging for biscuits and cakes and other sweet goodies.

Leah Fletcher's work is a beautiful combination of vintage fabric, memories and porcelain.

From Unit Twelve Gallery we travelled West, just a few minutes down the road to Stafford where we saw the 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' exhibition by Lauren Van Helmond at the Shire Hall Gallery (Sue, you'd love this!)

Lauren creates amazing metal sculptures of dogs and combines them with blokes!

I love how, with a simple bit of carving, wooden spoons can have such character!

The gallery shop is fabulous, full of way too many goodies.  There's a cafe too but we didn't have time for cake unfortunately!

Off on the road again we headed for the market town of Eccleshall, where a group of artists have got together and run a gallery called 'gallery at 12'.

It's a proper English town and the photo really doesn't do the main street justice, but how fab is that old fire station!

It was great to see work by Jo Hill in particular as I love her textile designs.

A quick trip to the old fashioned sweet shop completed our trip as my youngest niece had to get back to go bowling with a friend.  Cake would have been nice, but never mind, and there are lots of little boutique shops in Eccleshall which looked fabulous through the windows.