More Catching Up To Do

Two weeks since my last post and I am still behind with my collages and Journal 52. Well after a late dash of summer type weather, we are back to winter with mostly rainy, dismal days broken up by the occasional cold but sunny day - just like today. Best to find an indoor spot in the sun and settle down for a read or a nap!

Colour Me Positive Week 20 - Wonder

This week we got a quote from Socrates: "Wisdom begins in wonder" and were given the option to use bubbles on our pages. I decided to try out my 8 x 8 Dylusions journal for this challenge spreading paint for the background with an old credit card. I then used the bubble stencil before doing a wash of crimson, and dabbing splotches of red, yellow & orange. To make the bubbles, I stamped using two different sized plastic containers.

For the bubbles, I searched on YouTube and found a suitable how-to using coloured pencils at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLJV9XPrpLk. I just changed the colours I used to match my background. A white Uniball pen provided the highlights - and I was really happy with it.

CMP Week 21 - Abundance

I enjoyed using the 8 x 8 journal so ended up using it again for this week's challenge. We are looking at how abundance comes into our lives with the quote: "Gratitude is the open door to abundance", and we are invited to use sheet music on the page. The only sheet music I have is on some Tim Holtz tissue paper, then I found another suitable quote to do with gratitude: "Be in love with your life, every minute of it!"

I used my Distress stains for the background, with a small doily to get some white space (idea from Tamara Laporte). I stencilled the girl's face and then painted her, used a bit of napkin for her dress and then tore the doily in half to make a head-dress. Markers made the ribbons, the music & quote were stuck down, and I used three key words inside the doily - abundance, gratitude, life.

Journal 52 Week 19 - Friendship

Effy's challenge was to do a page about friendship and use flowers for bonus points. Sarah's challenge was to do a page about pets or "furfriends". As I don't have a pet, I thought I would do a garden and use the quote "Friends are the flowers in life's garden", inspired by Effy.

The background started well with colours swirled over the page and a floral stencil over the top. Then I used what flower stamps I have and then painted them. This did NOT work so well and colours ended up muddy. I put it all aside for several days before going over everything and adding some pen-work. This is not my best effort, and for some reason it just defeated me!

As you can see, I haven't even cropped the photo.

Journal 52 Week 20 - What feeds you?

Effy's challenge is to look at what feeds your soul and Sarah's was food with a face! Fairly obvious that I would choose feeding my soul, and strangely enough, gratitude comes into this challenge too.

I made a list of everything that feeds my soul and that I am grateful for, and then wrote out my thanks on one page. On the other page, I drew a face and used coloured pencils to flesh her out. Inpired by some YouTube videos by Nika Rouss, I then used a stencil for her hair. The most suitable stencil I have is the leaves and I used autumn colours. My brushmarkers outlined the leaves and filled in the letters on the opposite page.

Collages - R

I think my choice of "rendezvous" was fairly obvious as it was really easy to find pictures of couples and others meeting in all sorts of places. Most of these pictures came from my Royal Auto magazines.

Collages - S

There were lots of lovely S words, but I chose "scintillating" because I knew I had the tiara photo and I also have a jewellery catalogue with lots of lovely pictures. Scintillate is a term used to describe the way gems sparkle.

That's everything that I've completed since my last post. I've done the background for the next CMP, I have an idea for the next Journal 52, and I know which T word I will use, so that's a start. Heaven only knows when I will get them done or when I will post next because work is busy and I have to work extra hours for the next 2-3 weeks.

So goodbye for now and thanks for visiting.

Three Weeks Just Flew By

I can't believe it is nearly three weeks since my last post - where did the time go? I haven't been anywhere or done anything much. With the onset of the cooler weather I tend to hunker down inside, only emerging to go to work or food shopping.

Although -- I did drive 40 minutes a couple of weeks ago, to visit my cousin. She is in her seventies, is partially blind and has difficulty walking. She is looked after by her daughters who share the care, so every few weeks Ruth moves from one daughter's house to the next. I visited at her younger daughter's home in the outer east of Melbourne, where we had a lovely afternoon catching up and talking family history.

Because I've got so much to catch up with, I won't comment much on each piece and hopefully this post won't be too long!

Colour Me Positive Week 17 - Friendship

I found the picture right after I'd done the week 9 challenge PLAYFUL, but it ended up working well for this challenge too. The quote was : "Find your tribe. Love them hard" - Danielle LaPorte.

CMP Week 18 - Healing

This week we were to use hearts on our page and the quote was : "Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing". I found the photo on-line and it dictated the colour scheme.

 CMP Week 19 - Balance

This challenge was about achieving balance in our lives and to use feather(s) on the page. I didn't use the supplied quote, but found a shorter one : "Life is a balancing act".

Journal 52 Week 8 - Hearts

This is a catch up for the challenges Hearts or Skulls. I chose hearts and interestingly finished this spread just a few days before the CMP Week 18 challenge of Healing & Hearts!!!

Journal 52 Week 17 - Rise / Fall

This feels more like a scrapbook page to me as I've used some of my photos from Alice Springs in 2006, but it just seemed like a no-brainer to use pictures of the hot air balloon trip.

Journal 52 Week 18 - Prince / Purple

The challenge FB group feed was awash with purple rain and crying doves, so I thought I would try for a different song by Prince. I looked up a song list, thought "7" was a cool title, then I looked at a YouTube video and the lyrics. The words of the chorus are written around the edge of the page and I wrote the numeral 7 in several other languages.

Collage - P

I used a torn paper technique inspired by one of the ladies in the CMP group - she does these amazing collages for each challenge. All of these came from the RACV magazine and hopefully give a "panoramic" view.

Collage - Q

Another torn paper collage, this time from the Daphne magazines. I always thought "quixotic" meant changeable/mercurial - but while looking up words for this challenge, I discovered that it actually means dreamy, romantic or impractical.

Wow, that was a lot to catch up on - hope you weren't bored. I am having an absolute ball doing these challenges, flexing long dormant brain cells to come up with ideas and slowly regaining technique not used in forty years or more. Bye for now.