Storing loose journal pages

All of the classes for the Life Book class are created on a single sheet of watercolour paper which will be bound together to make a journal later in the year.  The downside of this is that I had a rapidly growing pile of art that had nowhere to live and it was making me uncomfortable.  I came across this birdcage a few weeks ago and it has been sitting on the side in the lounge just looking prettily empty.  For some reason the Life Book ages came to mind yesterday and I had a flash of inspiration that had me running to see if they would fit.  It was as if they had been designed to go together!!  Its so lovely that they have a proper place to live for the time being and that they can been seen - the colourful pages are quite intriguing and draw people in to have a closer look!  This loveliness now sits in pride of place on our sideboard in the lounge and I have to say it looks pretty gorgeous.
So the moral of this story is that I don't need to buy fancy storage specifically designed for your projects all the time, taking a look around what we already had meant that I found something that suited my needs perfectly and cost me nothing!

Whimsy angel

One of the things I'm enjoying at the moment is creating these whimsy girls in my art journal. They come fairly easy and are a great way for me to warm up into creating. They are also a way for me to express myself, get things down onto paper and enjoy making stuff.
While all of this art journaling malarkey is a bit different from scrapbooking at first glance, it's still 'cutting and sticking', playing with colour and design principles. I think that's why I'm also in my element here, it's coming from the same place. I also think its making me a better scrapbooker, it's inspiring me to create differently using different mediums and materials and that's exciting. So please indulge me through these art journal posts, there's so much fun to be had!!

Life Book week 10 - Heart Connection

This week on the Life Book art journaling course we celebrated the connections of our hearts - everything and everyone that we love and treasure in our lives.  Its hard to see but the background is made up of at least eight different layers and processes.  Within these layers is some really meaningful writing that you can just catch glimpses of is you look carefully.  I played with alcohol and acrylic paint to create amazing interactions, collaged with vintage book pages and sheet music, stamped, dripped, gessoed, stamped some more, added tapes, painted, sprayed - basically you name it, I did a little bit of it.  If you stop and look closely at the background in real life you can see each process but its so subtle it all works together as one.
The key technique for this class was creating little rolled love letters which were then formed into a heart shape.  As usual, I approached mine in a different way to Tam's sample in my construction and was really happy with the result.  Each one of those rolls contains a love letter to someone really special to me, they will never read them but that's not important here, its the intention behind this process that really matters to me.  I loved creating this and each step of the way gave real pleasure.  I added the gorgeous wide May Arts ribbon to tie my heart together - we have this in the shop in both the black/cream and the green/white versions (yummy!!).
Those of you who are eagle-eyed may have noticed that I've missed posting about the week 9 class.  This is because I'm struggling with it a little and haven't really got to grips with the idea behind the techniques.  I'll be working on it over the next few days I'm sure!

Life Book 2013 - catching up week 1

I'm quite surprised at how compelling I am finding the Life Book class.  I came to a bit of an impasse with the second project for week 1 which was about creating a journal page about your journey into 2013.  It was to include your hopes and aspirations for the coming year and also celebrate your current blessings.  Tam drew a road with herself in a car and her hair blowing free in the wind and she drove towards the sun.  The concept made sense to me but I really didn't 'feel' the whole road idea!  It stopped me in my tracks and so I decided to skip past it and carry on with the week 2 project.

While I was stuck I got on with creating a background for the page using the fabulous vintage sheet music my wonderful father-in-law found for me at an auction.  I covered the page with the sheet music torn into pieces and then scrape gesso over the surface to soften and blend the pieces together.  I played then by adding smears of shimmery paints in white, gold, red and green.  I rubbed peach and cream acrylic paints on with my fingers which was very therapeutic!  In the meantime I kept ruminating on the whole journey idea and was drawn to a ladder or a staircase but also wanted it to have a natural feel.  This evolved into a tree with a spiral staircase leading up into its branches.

I cut leaves from watercolour paper, painted them and then wrote my hopes and dreams onto them.  To make them less prominent on the page I smeared shimmer paint over each leaf to create a cloudy shimmery group of leaves.  I found a Tim Holtz 'journey' stamp in my stash (another one I didn't know that I had!) and stamped it onto a scrap of painted watercolour paper which I cut freehand into a heart.  I punched flowers out of the remaining scrap paper and wrote my blessings onto them.  I added these to the bottom of the page, grounded at the start of my journey into this new year.  A bit of doodling and I was done, as soon as I was in the zone I couldn't stop and I'm so pleased with the finished piece.

The new lesson was released yesterday and I'm already itching to get going on it!  I have a feeling that this is going to be a very creative year!!

Free Prima notecards

Have you become a regular on the Prima Marketing Facebook page yet?  If not I can highly recommend you get into the habit of popping by their page regularly as they offer free printables on a very regular basis.  This week they have a mixed set with cards from quite a few of their paper ranges.  The mix of designs means that there is sure to be something for everyone on in this set.  Just search for Prima Marketing on Facebook, like their page and you will see a tab at the top of the page for the current freebie.  Have fun!!