Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Well, to be honest, its been beginning to look a lot like Christmas since August when I started a 16 week project - which became known as SEASONAL SUNDAY... I decided to select one of my older Christmas stamps sets each week and demo a card made with that set - I did this for SIXTEEN WEEKS over in my JoFY Jamboree!! Facebook group. (I'm just repeating the '16 weeks' as it was quite a mammoth, but manageable, undertaking!)

I really enjoyed doing the Facebook lives each week - its been a learning curve! Sometimes they had to be rescheduled (Merry Monday, Tinseliscious Tuesday, Wassailing Wedenesday - we started with Festive Friday lol) but I made it all the way to the end!  YAY for me lol

It was lovely to connect with people each week and share ideas.

For those of you not on Facebook here are the cards I made....

Thanks for stopping by, happy crafting!

JOFY New releases!!

ooooh new stamps and stencils!!  Spots, jumbled alphabets, and flowers (of course!).

New JOFY products.....

   

I'm a bit late adding this to my blog (bad blogger, bad blogger) but things have been a bit hectic so without further ado here are the latest JOFY products... available at your chosen PaperArtsy stockist.

I love, love, love this new release - and its especially exciting as it marks my 100th, yes ONE HUNDREDth stamp set!!!

JOFY Set 98 (JOFY98)

 

JOFY Set 99 (JOFY99)

JOFY Set 100 (JOFY100)

 

PaperArtsy Stencil 230 (PS230)

PaperArtsy Stencil 231 (PS231)

PaperArtsy Stencil 232 (PS232)

You can see lots of lovely samples over on the PaperArtsy blog, and a couple of FB lives over in the PaperArtsy People & JoFY Jamboree groups on Facebook.

Thanks for stopping by.

Dream of good things, art journal spread

Hi

This is something I made last year but couldn't add it to Instagram because I couldn't successfully show the 'before and after' so I thought I'd add it here.

Below is an art journal spread I completed last year.... I think for the product release....  but there's something about it that I just don't like.

I'd flip past it (quickly), or clip it shut and was seriously considering sticking the pages together so I didn't have to look at it (I've done that before on pages!)... 

So, I decided to take drastic action - I painted the whole art journal spread black.  Oh it felt good to do that!!!  There's something about a page covered in black gesso! It looks so lush!

I remembered I had some sample flowers left over after teaching my 'Bloom' online workshop (sample below) - the flowers would look stunning on a black background!!   It would be really interesting to have two versions of the same project in dramatically different colour schemes.....

So that's what I did! I used most of the same flowers and foliage die cuts, & used the same stencil to add background detail using Arteza' Pearl Space Gray' metallic acrylic paint (it gives a really lovely shimmery grey/almost black finish).

LOVE LOVE LOVE this journal spread now!  lol

I really like that the 'history' of the page can be seen - the black paint didn't completely cover the embossed white flowers of the original spread, and I don't mind that at all - it gives interesting texture to the back ground.

I think its a gorgeous transformation... (I've already painted several other journal spreads that I didn't like.... NB I always take a photograph of the original pages because I think there is always something to learn from things that go wrong, or that are disliked)

I'd recommend covering up pages/spreads you're not happy with - cover them with paint or papers - alter them in some way.. part of the fun of art journaling and you'll learn something along the way... I know I did.

Thanks for stopping by

PS: The 'Bloom' workshop is still available as a Facebook Live class, please contact me on FB if you'd like to join.

Christmas Alphabet

Hi

During December I made a 'Christmas Alphabet' book.   This was an idea I had stemming my alphabet game (when I can't sleep I pick a subject and find things to do with that subject for every letter of the alphabet (I may have mentioned this before) (eg:  countries: Albania, Belgium, Canada, Denmark etc etc etc you get the idea).  Then I heard a song by Dickie Valentine called the 'Christmas Alphabet' that is THE most retro, heartwarming christmas song I've heard in a while - it topped the Christmas music charts in 1955 (way before my time! lol) - look it up - its totally charming - I warn you though - its an earworm. I apologise in advance.

I made this book (5x7inches) as a way of working on a Christmas project without actually documenting christmas.  I got as far as 19 letters which I think is pretty good!  I stopped because I set a time limit - not because I couldn't think of anything to do with certain letters - though Q was, and still is, a bit tricky! (so if you think of something please let me know, add it to the comments.  Thanks!)

I posted all the pages on Instagram but I wanted to put them on my blog too - so here it is - my Chritsmas Alphabet! 

A: Angel

B: Baubles

C: Candles

D: Donkey, Decorations,..... ??

E:  Elf

F: Father Christmas

G: Gift

H: Holly

I: Ice Skating

J: Jingle, Jolly (I was struggling with this letter and then DH said 'er, how about Jesus?!' Oh my goodness how could I have forgotten the main reason for christmas!  Shamed, straight onto the naughty list.)

K: Kings ('we three kings of orient are....')

L: ??

M:  Mittens, Mistletoe, Mincepie

N: Naughty or Nice

O: Ornaments

P: Poinsettia

Q: ???

R: Reindeer/Rudolph

S: Snow

T: Tree

U:  Us (yes, I was stretching the christmas theme with this one but due to Covid restrictions (we're in Tier 4) it was just the two of us this christmas so I felt it was justified.

V: ???

W: Wreath

X: Xmas

Y: Yule log

Z:  was going to be lots of little Zs to illustrate sleeping - inspired by 'twas the night before christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....'

Thanks for stopping by.