Where does the time go?

What happens to the weekends? They go so quickly. Sometimes I think there's a black hole sucking the time away from me. This weekend especially seeing as we've lost an hour! 1 hour is a lot in a crafter's life, we need them all.  Time suckage was the inspiration for this journal page below.

I used my new fabulous Dylusions inks from Art from the Heart, Vibrant Turquoise and London Blue for the background. I love these bright colours. I also used the Dylusions number jumble stencil here and there, using distress inks. I flecked water over too, and blotted for random blotches.

I used Crafty Individuals clocks stamps (CI-255) for all the clocks, but the 2 Big Ben's are from Papermania and Clarity Stamps. 

I drew the black hole with my soft pastels, using white, purple and blue, oh and the black!

I spent a long time shading in between those clocks, basically because I couldn't make my mind up. I did the shading first with orange soft pastels, but didn't think it was dark enough, then a dark blue Derwent pencil and then with black pencil. Quite like the way that has turned out now. I like to see how the page evolves when I change my mind.

The White Rabbit is the brilliant unmistakable Octopode Factory.  I stamped the bold clocks, and the white rabbit on a couple of pages I ripped out of an old calculus book I had. So you'll be able to see the calculations in the background of the stamp, and on the rabbits head too. I coloured them in using Promarkers.

I did the words on my computer. The frayed material stamp is from The Stamp Man. I flicked specks of mica powders mixed in white, red and blue paint all over the page, to create a starry effect.

Where does the time go, I wish I was on the other end of that black hole, where I would have too much time in one day! Oh what I'd do with a day like that!!!!!!!

Entered in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge

New title for the top

Just thought I needed a revamp of my blog.

Here will be the new title for the top.

I will work on something for the sides tonight.

Michelle x

New paperweight for my Journal

I've found a new paperweight for my journal! Only it keeps drinking my water.
This is Holly, she lays over most pieces of artwork, I figure its her way of telling me if it passes her feline standards. She jumped up on the top on Sunday night, and stuck her paw right into a tray of black acrylic paint. It was a two man clean up job before she was let loose again on the carpets.  I reckon I should let her walk into paint across one of my pages and create her own art. I'll do that in the garden though. I once scanned her sat on the scanner. I was going to put it on here, but you'd all think I was mental!

 

My first art journal, Page 1!

I think I've turned a corner.....or been hit by a truck carrying acrylic paints and inks.

I went to GNPE (Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza) in Harrogate on Saturday (yesterday) full of crafty excitement looking to spend a fortune on stamps and things. However, I had to leave the madness of argy bargy women and tiny stalls. I decided seeing as I was in Harrogate I'd go to Art from the Heart. I'd been meaning to go for a while.

I can't stress this enough...I'M SO GLAD I DID!
What a wonderful place to be, why did I even bother going to the GNPE in the first place!
If you're remotely arty you could easily get lost in all the wonderful samples of art, it's better than any art gallery. There are samples everywhere, they're displayed in a way that encourages you to have a closer look, feel it, read it, admire it. The atmosphere is so welcoming too, brought on firstly by Dyan Reaveley who is wonderfully chatty, and passionate about her arty craft and secondly Kate Crane who is equally as friendly and talked to me for ages about Posca pens. Thanks for the advice girls. And thirdly all the staff are very chatty and helpful.

Here I bought my first journal, a red Pink Pig spiral bound book, recommended by Dyan herself. I couldn't wait to get it home, but first I needed some of Dyan's wonderfully bright dylusions inks. I could only afford 6, but I wanted the lot! In fact I wanted the entire shop, but I would be destitute if I did. So page 1. of the journal happened in the space of about an hour, a rampant splurge of 20 years of suppressed creative expressiveness. Needless to say it was very liberating! The results of which are below.

I just couldn't wait to get started. My first page in my first art journal.

Maybe I'll break it down so you can see what it says.

Why has it taken me so long? I'm 41 and only just realised, "hey I’m missing out on something here".  Aimlessly blog hopping, I happened upon Dina's blog. There I stopped and indeed pondered for .......quite a while, 2 days in fact! 

I felt a stirring, something was moving.... hang on a minute Michelle, you went to art college, there's a reason why you love this...remember. With a rush of excitement an arty mojo engulfed my mind...The return of an old friend.  I want to do this too!  Now I have a head full of jumping hyperactive ideas. A trip to Art from the Heart sorted me out, I felt like Alice in Wonder-art-land, a journal was bought and an evacuation was about to commence.

After a frenzied affair with colour I could have sat back with a long sigh and lit a cigarette (if I hadn't packed in 5 years ago), looking at it from afar I realised that here is where I wanted to be, not suppressed by a mundane number crunching job.

I was eating a yellow (gouda) Baby Bell, and was playing with the wax, when I thought, right you're going on too.

This is my happy face! Thank you Art from the Heart. xx

Posted this in Simon Says Stamp challenge

Just found My Mojo Monthly very apt for this post, seeing as I found mine again.

B is for Beach

Well it's about time I put another post up, it's been too long, about 10 days I think.

Been very busy with Wedding invitations, Mother's Day cards and birthday commissions. It's  not that easy to be able to update the blog every day is it? I don't know how some of you guys do it everyday, and make wonderful things too. I just never seem to have the time. And of course I work full time too.

Oh well it's better late than never though so here is the next instalment of my decopatch letters.  I am up to the second 'B' of  'The Hobby Room'. This time I went for a summery beach theme, with stamped shells and small pieces of driftwood.  I think I was the only person walking along Seaton Carew beach on Sunday morning in the strong wind and sleat. The things we do for the love of crafting eh? My face was so numb from the cold that I couldn't even feel my hands touching my skin. Probably because my hands were just as cold as my face!

Anyhoo, I got my acrylic paints out and began being arty again, painting my background colours. I added some decorative sand and tiny stones I'd picked up from Internationale, or some place like that about a year or so ago. It was only about £2 for a big tub of it, I knew I'd be crafting with it at some point or another.

I was just experimenting with a word stamp and some Stazon ink to see if stamping onto shells worked, and I quite liked the effect so I went with it. I have an old dictionary that I cut the sail out of, and I just had to cut it  out of the words, beach and beachcomber. I stuck it to a thin piece of driftwood, and then stuck that into a bigger piece of driftwood, which I wanted to be the boat. I also used a punch to cut out my palm tree.

I glossy accented my waves, so they look wet. I really love this effect it looks great.

I love shells, so I just had to put some shells on, and a little star fish too. They are all real. I picked up the mussel shell at the beach on Sunday too. Oh I nearly forgot my silver fish charm, which incidentally has some random word in another language for fish I think. If you know what it says, please tell me?

Hope you like my shelly, beachy, B. 

Michelle x