Dreamweaver - Scrapbooking, Altered Journals, Art, Thoughts, Life

Book Review - Thr3e

2011-12-18T14:32:00.000+08:00

If you're looking for a really great thriller/suspense/mystery then you can't go past Thr3e written by Ted Dekker. This is a seriously good read and it will keep you guessing right until the very end. I'd love to write a long review but I don't want to spoil anything or accidentally give away any clues. Instead I'll just copy and paste the synopsis from Amazon.

By all accounts seminary student Kevin Parsins is leading a good, if not virtuous, life. But like all people, Kevin has his secrets. And someone wants them revealed.

While driving home from a day at graduate school, Kevin receives a call from a mysterious stranger who calls himself Slater. Slater demands Kevin confess his sin in the next three minutes or the vehicle he is manning will be blown to pieces.

Thus starts a harrowing chain of events. After narrowly escaping his exploding car, Kevin continues to receive phone calls from Slater, each with another riddle, another consequence, and another three minutes to confess his sin.

The problem is Kevin is unsure of what that sin might be. And Slater's cycle won't stop until he figures it out.

I could barely put the book down and thoroughly enjoyed it.

My First ATC's

2011-11-25T23:43:00.000+08:00

ATC's or Artist Trading Cards are usually made for swapping (in very much the same way that baseball cards are swapped.) The main rule is they all conform to one size which is - 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. They can be made horizontally or vertically and you can basically use anything you want to decorate them.

I'll write an instructional guide to ATC's at another time.

I found myself not feeling inspired by anything in particular but I really wanted to do something crafty so a couple of months ago I decided I would start making a few ATC's. I have no intention of swapping them, I'm just doing it for the fun of it. It was my mum's birthday earlier this month and I made her a card by mounting an ATC I had previously made, onto some cardstock. It turned out really nice. I'm going to write quotes onto the backs of some of these cards and give them to Jade for the inspirational quote box I made her. I believe that 7Gypsies sells some sort of wall hanging on which you can display your ATC's. That's something I may look into in the future. But for now I'm just making them to use up small scraps and to have a bit of fun.

Over the next few days I'll upload the ones I've made so far. I decided to take photos of them instead of scanning them and now wish I had used my scanner. The quality isn't too good (and in some cases they are a bit blurry.) I'll scan any new ones I make. I hope you like them :)

Click on pictures for the full sized version (which look a lot crisper and nicer than the small size)

On the first one I used butterflies which I printed onto transparencies. The words are from a magazine. The second and third ones have buttons and the fourth one has some fibres (I really must start using ribbons and fibres a lot more. They are perfect for ATC's)

I love brown and blue together. On the first and second cards I strung some beads onto some wire. The word "graceful"on the third card was a pre-made metal sticker. I used some sandpaper to remove and scratch up some of the metal which made the word really pop. The pink jewel heart on the fourth card used to belong to my daughter's barbie doll.

Jade at her 21st Party

2011-10-26T22:58:00.000+08:00

Just wanted to share a photo of Jade at her 21st Birthday Party.

Still here

2011-10-26T22:44:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone. It's been quite some time between posts. The main reason is my computer ... it just loves to play up on me. Hopefully I'll be able to get things fixed up soon and will be back and blogging again.

I've been making heaps of ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) over the last couple of months. I find them fun to make and much quicker than an art journal page. I'll scan them and share them when I'm back online full-time.

My daughter turned 21 last week. I'm so proud of her and all her achievements so far in her life.

On a sad note, I lost another aunt. She fought a long battle with cancer and passed away a couple of weeks ago. We are all so very sad and mum is still devastated at losing another sibling. Our condolences go out to all the family. You are in our hearts, thoughts and prayers.

I look forward to blogging again and hope I can get to it soon. Take care everyone.

2011 Art Journal Page - Zombie Attack

2011-06-08T23:58:00.000+08:00

ZOMBIE ATTACK


BACKGROUND

Just a silly, fun little page.

I painted this background with watercolours and used acrylic paints to stamp patterns here and there and really wasn't pleased with the results. It was too fussy. However, after turning it into an art journal page I'm quite happy with the results.

My Thought of the Day

The naked truth is always better

than the best-dressed lie.

Tags - six more watercolour tags

2011-06-06T23:36:00.000+08:00

Here are some more tags I made. Just like the ones I posted earlier, they are watercoloured and the words "Havoc" and "Expression" are clothing tags.

Small Bound Mini Book (made from one sheet of paper)

2011-06-06T23:27:00.000+08:00

I made this small album from just one sheet of folded paper. I wrote out these instructions years ago and finally decided to give it a go. To be honest I was just "trying it out" so didn't put as much effort into it as I usually would. However I'm pleased with the results and will definitely be making some more.

I made the album for Brian and it contains a few lines from my favourite poem. The whole thing was very quick and easy to make so if you're looking for a project you can complete in one short sitting, give it a go.

I've scanned the instructions and hope they are easy enough to understand.

CLICK THE PICTURE FOR A LARGER VERSION

HINT - I would suggest you first practice with a piece of scrap paper, just in case you make a mistake ... no point in ruining your good paper. And while we're on the subject of paper, don't use cardstock to make this album. It's too thick and the pages won't line up once they are folded. I used some cheap 180gsm smooth watercolour paper and it was the perfect thickness. Thinner paper would work just fine too.

COMPLETED ALBUM

(click for larger pictures)


FRONT COVER

PAGES 1 AND 2

PAGES 3 AND 4

PAGES 5 AND 6

BACK COVER

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Dance

2011-06-06T22:48:00.000+08:00

Just a simple and very quick page. I drew the girl with a black sharpie and glued green strips of paper around the edges for the border.

My Thought of the Day

Colours speak all languages

~Joseph Addison~

Tags - six watercoloured tags

2011-06-06T04:57:00.000+08:00

I've been making a lot of tags lately. These are completely different to the ones I used to make and must admit I had a lot of fun making them. It's fun just going with the flow and not trying to be perfect :)

The blue fabric attached to the bottom left tag is from a piece of clothing (yes I collect everything!) It say's "Blue Juice" and though it has no relevance to anything on the tag, it looks funky and I just had to use it. I'll upload more tags during the week. Thanks for looking :)

My Thought of the Day

Do the common things in life in an

uncommon way.

2011 Art Journal Page - Cute Shoes

2011-06-06T04:36:00.000+08:00

Cute Shoes

Here's another art journal page. I played around with the background of this page and had a lot of fun doing so. After doing my usual watercolour background I used acrylic paints along with bubble wrap, a piece of square foam, some magic mesh and a small bottle cap to add the patterns. To get the black lines, I painted the edge of a scrap of cardstock and "stamped" it onto the paper.

My Thought of the Day

You've got to be kind to yourself.

30 years together

2011-05-30T04:13:00.000+08:00

On 5th April this year Brian and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Today we celebrate 30 years since our first date. We both knew from that day we would never be apart. We fell in love, head over heels in love and that love still burns as brightly as it did back then.

Sure, we're older now. Sure, life has thrown us some dooozies. We've been through so much, especially as far as both our health is concerned. Yet we haven't given up. It's never been an option. We can't live without each other. He takes a breath and my lungs fill. I cry and the tears run down his face. I truly believe we were destined to be together and he feels the same way.

So, my Brian, my husband and my best friend, thank you for inviting me to that 21st birthday party all those years ago. I love you and have loved you ... yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever.

My Thought of the Day

If you live to be 100 years old I hope I live to be 100 years less one day so I will never have to live a day without you.

2011 Art Journal Page - Woman

2011-05-19T16:29:00.000+08:00

WOMAN

Like the one before it, here's another page I'm not too fond of. It looked way better and more integrated before I outlined the face and I'm not as fond of the quote as I had first thought I was. Here I go embracing imperfection again :)

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Realm of Fairy

2011-05-19T16:16:00.000+08:00

THE REALM OF FAIRY

I can't say I'm pleased with this page. After I scanned it I added a black border around the edges which seems to help a bit but I think I need to add something black to the bottom left corner to balance it out. I think I may try a black and white strip. Anyway it's done and I'm trying really hard to embrace imperfection so am posting it rather than putting it away and forgetting it or tearing it up.

My Thought of the Day

You have your way, I have my way.

As for the right way, and the only way, it does not exist.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Art Colour Life

2011-05-16T23:11:00.000+08:00

ART COLOUR LIFE

Another page with lots of flowers and some quotes I love. This is the last one for today. I'll upload some more tomorrow. Enjoy your day everyone and thanks for visiting :)

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Discover who you are

2011-05-16T23:02:00.000+08:00

DISCOVER WHO YOU ARE

I am addicted to making these flowers. They're so easy and fun to put together and they make a nice impact on the page. It's a great way to use up your scraps. I tried a different type of border with this page and like the way it turned out.

My Thought of the Day

The world can be amazing when you're

slightly strange.

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Love

2011-05-16T22:51:00.000+08:00

Love

Mad, passionate, extraordinary! Ah, yes, that's the love I LOVE!

This is another page done with the cheap watercolour paper that I spoke about in the last couple of posts.

My Thought of the Day

Spread your wings and let the

fairy in you fly.

~Unknown~

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Odd

2011-05-16T01:49:00.000+08:00

Odd

This page was done on the same cheap watercolour paper as the three pages I posted before it. I pressed this page for a few hours by placing some heavy books on it and if you compare this page to the previous ones you'll see that there's pretty much no buckling of the paper.

I drew and painted the flowers, bird and butterfly on another sheet, cut them out and glued them to the page. This is the last one I'll upload for now. I've got about fifteen more pages to upload but won't bombard you with them all now :) Hope you all have a wonderful week.

To my FF friends, I'll be in touch soon. I haven't been online all that much, thus the lack of visits.

Thank you to everyone for continuing to view my blog.

My Thought of the Day

"We've all got both LIGHT and DARK inside of us.

What matters is the part we choose to act on, that's who we really are."

~ Sirius Black ~

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Butterfly

2011-05-16T01:33:00.000+08:00

Butterfly

A couple of my favourite butterfly quotes.

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Go Yield Surrender

2011-05-16T01:22:00.000+08:00

Go. Yield. Surrender.

I normally use middle of the range watercolour paper and have just about run out. The other day I asked my mum to pick me up a watercolour pad. She looked everywhere but couldn't find the type I wanted but she did find a very cheap one (AUS $3.50) in one of the department stores. I must admit that I'm quite impressed. Although it's nowhere near as good as a decent watercolour pad (which should cost at least $20) it's fine for what I'm using it for. The pad is made by Hunter Studio and is an A4, 24 sheet pad with smooth 180gsm sheets. It buckles slightly when using it but it flattens out just fine if you weigh it down with some books.

Although I haven't bothered to do this, you can "size" the paper by wetting the back before painting on the front. This should stop a lot of the buckling.

I've decided to leave the slight warping in the pages. It gives them character and I like the way it looks for these particular pages.

This paper would be great for making mini albums. It's thick enough to glue things to (and take a bit of a beating) and I'm definitely going to give it a try one of these days.

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Your Dress

2011-05-16T01:04:00.000+08:00

Your Dress

Over the last week or so, my health problems took a dive and I have been a bit worse than usual. On doctor's orders I had to stay still and stay in bed. My computer was giving me problems (only working when it felt like it) and I was going mad just lying in bed with nothing to do so I made a few art journal pages.

The ones with no borders and where the paint doesn't go to the edges (like the one above) were literally done lying on my back. I rested the pages on my knees and used watercolour crayons and my aquash brush.

They're not that good but I do kind of like them as they're different to my usual style. Yay for finding a new style to work with! Don't know what I'd do without those crayons and that brush. No mess and you can use them anywhere and in any position :)

My Thought of the Day

Don't cry because it's over.

Smile because it happened.

~ Dr. Seuss~

2011 Art Journal Page - Secret Worlds

2011-05-10T22:43:00.000+08:00

Secret Worlds

When I found these ruby red shoes in a magazine I immediately knew I had to use them.

2011 Art Journal Page - Go Your Own Way

2011-05-10T22:36:00.000+08:00

Go Your Own Way

A really simple page but I like it. I thought about covering it with doodles but decided to just leave it as is. I guess sometimes less really can be more.

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Life is Art

2011-05-10T22:13:00.000+08:00

Life is Art

A whimsical little page. The cup and saucer was cut freehand from some pretty patterned paper that I never thought I'd use until now :)

May 2011 Art Journal Page - Journey

2011-05-07T23:05:00.000+08:00

Journey

I had previously made these flowers with real buttons in the middle. They were a bit bulky for the album I keep my Art Journal pages in so I made some more with the same papers but made the fake buttons out of paper. Must admit that the real button flowers look much better but this will have to do.

I wanted the flowers to look like I had sewn the edges with black thread but was way too lazy to get out my sewing machine. Instead I drew the lines with a black gel pen and like the way it turned out. I'm quite happy with this page. I like the way the background colour turned out :)

May 2011 Art Journal Page - I Believe

2011-05-07T22:54:00.000+08:00

I Believe

I love this quote from Audrey Hepburn so decided to make a page around it.

My Thought of the Day

Dwell in possibility...

~Emily Dickinson~

April 2011 Small Art Journal - Greatest Love Story

2011-04-25T18:14:00.000+08:00

Greatest Love Story

This is the last of my April art journal pages. Now to put them into my album :)

I can't wait to start a new project. I'm torn between trying to find a book that I can alter or making some darker art journal pages. Maybe I'll do both. I also want to learn how to make some handmade flowers for my pages, do some zentangling and just play with my craft stuff. Mmmm, what to do first?

April 2011 Small Art Journal - Dreams and Reality

2011-04-25T01:23:00.000+08:00

Dreams and Reality

I made the border of this page differently to the other art journal pages I've done. Basically, I just watercoloured some paper with strips of different colours and then cut them out into the shapes you see.

I forgot to give the girl red lips and cheeks (will go back and do that later). I usually draw a black line around everything on the page however this time I didn't continue the line around everything. I find that the page looks a little softer than usual and I *think* I like it. I'm not 100% convinced yet LOL Brian likes it so I guess that's something ha ha. Thanks for looking.

My Thought for the Day

Be who you wanna be!

April 2011 Small Art Journal - Weird Life

2011-04-25T01:09:00.000+08:00

Weird Life

Another art journal page to share. I loved the picture of the strange looking man kissing the pretty woman and knew I had to use it as soon as I saw it. I *think* the picture is from the movie "Watchmen" though I'm not a hundred percent sure?

My Thought of the Day

At the end of the day,

you can focus on

what's tearing you

apart, or what's

holding you together.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T02:21:00.000+08:00

I want to wish all my family and friends and those of you who read my blog

A HAPPY EASTER

However you spend the day (religious or otherwise) I hope you all get to enjoy time with your families. And remember, don't eat too much chocolate LOL

God bless and *hugs* xxx Lynn

He has Risen

April 2011 Small Art Journal - A Message to Myself

2011-04-24T01:56:00.000+08:00

A Message to Myself

This is the last one I'll upload for now. I have three more pages but don't want to saturate you with too many of them at once LOL

I quite like this page and how it turned out (although it's rather pink!) Thanks for looking.

My Thought of the Day

It always seems impossible

until it is done.

April 2011 Small Art Journal - I Want ...

2011-04-24T01:48:00.000+08:00

I Want...

When making these small art journal pages I first drew all the doodles, the girl etc. onto some Derwent Visual Diary paper, watercoloured them, cut them out and then attached them to the watercoloured background page. With my larger pages (2010-2011 Art Journal) I drew the doodles straight onto the background. I like the results of doing it both ways however I do find that the this way gives brighter images because I am drawing onto white paper and not over a watercoloured background.

I'm writig this because I have written a couple of tutorials for my larger pages and wanted to mention that this is another way of making your pages.

If you are interested, you can find the tutorials here -
2010 Art Journal - Perfect Hope - Step by Step Instructions
2010 Art Journal - A Life Uncaged - Step by Step Instructions

My Thought of the Day

Home is where the heart can grow.

April 2011 Small Art Journal - Mutual Weirdness

2011-04-24T01:23:00.000+08:00

I only had a couple of large sheets of watercolour paper left so I decided to make a few smaller pages. These ones are rectangular (as opposed to my usual square ones) and are approximately 7.5" x 5". I will be placing them in the same album as my 2010 art journal pages (as I still have heaps of blank pages I need to fill).

I kept them whimsical (like last year's pages) and kept the borders fairly similar. I'll probably make some more various sized pages to go into my black album and they too will be fairly whimsical and bright.

I can't wait to start a new art journal. I think my next one will have more "real" journaling in it and less quotes and some of the pages will be a lot darker in content.

Anyway, this one is called Mutual Weirdness. Hope you like it :)


Mutual Weirdness

Bookmark - Books

2011-04-24T01:09:00.000+08:00

Here's another whimsical bookmark in the same vein as this one - Gorgeousness.

The background is watercoloured with my favourite product - watercolour crayons.

I drew the picture on separate paper, coloured it in, cut it out and glued it to the bookmark.

Lastly I added some pretty fibres and am happy with the result.

My Thought of the Day

"I Believe in Pink"

~Audrey Hepburn~

2010-2011 Art Journal - Domestic Goddess

2011-04-09T22:33:00.000+08:00

Domestic Goddess

Ah, I wonder how many true Domestic Goddesses there are out there :) You know, those ladies who vacuum in their stilettos while looking perfectly groomed. Me, well I like my shorts and t-shirt, bare feet and hair in a ponytail.

2010-2011 Art Journal - The Other Side of Here

2011-04-09T22:30:00.000+08:00

The Other Side of Here

I'm a bit disappointed in the way the black lines showed up in her clothes. I had originally drawn white dots all around the inside but thought it looked too much so I covered some of the dots up with a black marker. Didn't realise it would stand out so much. Apart from that I quite like this page... it's a little left of center...

My Thought of the Day

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living,

it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

~Theodore Geisel~

2010-2011 Art Journal - Invisible Wings

2011-04-08T20:50:00.000+08:00

Invisible Wings

I love the way this page turned out. I'm so happy with the wings and the girl has an interesting face. I must remember to change the date though. No idea why I wrote 2001 instead of 2011.

2010-2011 Art Journal - The Evolution of Beauty

2011-04-08T20:36:00.000+08:00

The Evolution of Beauty

I'm pretty happy with this page. I like the way the colours turned out and I love my green plastic faced girl with her punky hair :) I made a small mistake, the "Father Time" quote should have gone on the "Age" journal page. Oh well...

My Thought of the Day

There is beauty everywhere, you just need to open your eyes and look...

2010-2011 Art Journal - May Your...

2011-04-07T13:55:00.000+08:00

Another page. I'll upload the rest later.

2010-2011 Art Journal - Aquarius

2011-04-07T13:46:00.000+08:00

This page is about my birth sign - Aquarius.

2010-2011 Art Journal - Age

2011-04-07T13:34:00.000+08:00

I love the face of this old lady.

I just realised that I totally forgot to doodle on this page. I may go back and add a few swirls and flowers. I think my scanner needs a new bulb as this page is slightly brighter in real life.

2010 Art Journal - Just a little ramble about it

2011-04-07T13:14:00.000+08:00

Lately I've been feeling a little down. There's a lot going on in my life right now and I found that working on my 2010 Art Journal was the perfect remedy. I have a beautiful album with black pages and vellum between each page. I've been putting the pages into this album and it's looking pretty good. Only problem is that it's now 2011. I was going to start a new journal but there are so many blank pages left in this album. What to do? Keep going of course. I'm going to continue with these type of art journal pages (i.e. they all have the same type of border etc.) and I'll also start a new journal. I want to try different techniques and I'll do that with the new one. So, my 2010 Journal now becomes my 2010-2011 Art Journal and hopefully by the end of the year I will have filled all the pages of the album.

I sign and date the pages once I've made them. Well while scanning them I realised that I've been signing the latest ones with "March or April '01" Why? I have no idea. Guess I should change that! Should be easy enough, I just need to put a 2 in front of the 0 and a 1 after the 1 :) Easy ;) OK, enough rambling... time to upload some pages.

Bookmark - Gorgeousness

2011-04-07T12:53:00.000+08:00

Watercoloured Bookmark

I finally put this bookmark together. I had painted the ladies head ages ago.

I should mention that I'm 90 percent sure she is from my imagination however there is a chance I may have seen her somewhere and copied her. I remember making her when I got my new watercolour crayons and for the life of me I can't remember if she is from my imagination. I usually write a note when I copy something and as there was no note with her I presume she's mine.

Ah, the perils of having memory problems. Mine are steadily getting worse year by year. I remember my childhood like it was yesterday. I remember ten years ago fairly well. Yesterday...well I have to refer to my journal to see what I did...

Anyway, if you recognise her please let me know and I'll be sure to give credit.

The background is done with watercolour crayons (my absolute favourite product). I wrote the quote, cut out the lady and attached her to the bookmark along with some funky threads. I'm really happy with the results :)

Published in The Art Journal Journey

2011-03-27T01:15:00.000+08:00

Just over a month ago I was contacted by Artella. They wanted to publish my Perfect Hope art journal page and instructions in the March issue of their Ezine, The Art Journal Journey. I was of course thrilled :) Well the issue has just come out and I thought I'd put the pages I'm in on my blog. It was a four page spread and if you'd like to see the original just look under my blog label "art journal." One of these days I'd like to upload all my published works so this is a start. The Ezine is only for subscribers but there is a lot of great stuff on the site.

The magazine did a great job of making my pages and instrucitons look great and I'd like to thank them for that.

Page 1

Pages 2 and 3 - click for a larger version

Page 4

Easy Crumpled Flower Embellishments

2011-03-22T02:57:00.001+08:00

Flowers have always been my favourite embellishment and most of my cards and scrapbook layouts contain a flower or two. When I started scrapbooking, many, many years ago, flowers were not a commonly available embellishment so for the first couple of years I made all my own. I still like to do that and thought I'd share some tips (and later some tutorials) on how to make many different types.

Nowadays you can buy the absolutely gorgeous Prima fabric flowers (along with many other brands) and one of these days I'm going to learn how to make those myself.

I believe it was around my first year of scrapbooking when I made this layout and the flowers. They came about purely by accident. I drew three flowers on a piece of white paper and cut them out. I placed them on my layout and didn't like the look at all ... it was too plain. So, I picked them up, crumpled them and threw them in the bin. Mmmm, one of them had opened up and what do you know? It no longer looked plain. I retrieved them and placed them back on my layout and loved the look. Thus, my crumpled flowers were born. I used three buttons for the centres however practically anything with a round shape will work.

Since making these flowers I've made many, many more. Nowadays I like to crumple them, open them out, crumple them again, open them out and repeat this a few times. It lends a softness to the flowers.

I hope you'll give it a try :)

Gift Envelopes - how to make them

2011-03-10T06:20:00.000+08:00

These little envelopes are so easy to make and can be used for many things. If I am giving a gift of money I like to place it into one of these small handmade envelopes. You can also adhere them to scrapbook pages to hold hidden journaling, trinkets, ephemera etc. and they are great to place into altered albums to hide little treasures.

Other ways of decorating them include stamping, painting, adding stickers, adding a collage to the front, covering them in embellishments etc. They also look good with the top simply torn off and the edges inked or chalked. Attach it to your scrapbook page and place some hidden journaling inside.

Manila Coin Envelopes

You can pick them up from most office supply stores and they are usually called "manila coin envelopes". Some scrapbook and specialty shops sell them in a variety of colours but I prefer the plain yellow/orange ones.

For the two envelopes I made I simply unglued a coin envelope and flattened it out. Using some thick white cardstock I drew around one of the envelopes, cut it out and folded it in all the right places. I put this away with all my other templates in case I ever need to make one and don't have an original on hand.

I only had a couple of yellow manila envelopes left and didn't want to use them for this particular project so I made a couple more envelopes using the unglued one as a template and using thick white cardstock.

I folded the two envelopes, opened them out again and simply stuck patterned papers to the outside. I cut the patterned paper slightly larger than the envelopes and once it was glued in place I cut off the excess paper that was hanging over the edges. I find this much easier than trying to cut the patterned paper to the right size.

You can of course make the whole envelope from patterned paper, fold it, decorate it and then glue it back together. For this project, I found it easier to make a "base envelope" because I was using a couple of different colour papers for each and the papers I used were just small scraps that were left over from layouts I made. The papers are made by "Mustard Moon".

To decorate the envelopes I used a couple of metal rimmed tags and a couple of pretty flower stickers. I placed a rub-on of the letter "J" (for Jade) on one of the tags. I made a hole in each of the top flaps and threaded some silver beading through them. The brads that I placed through the holes is just for decoration, it doesn't hold the envelopes shut. I used the spiral paper clips to hold them closed.

That's it. Easy isn't it?

Tips

Next time you find a nice sized envelope why not open it out and use it to make a template.

Make some envelopes in Christmas colours and hang on your tree with little gifts inside.

My Thought of the Day

Anything, everything, little or big becomes an adventure when the right person shares it.

~ Kathleen Norris ~

54 Years

2011-03-09T22:11:00.001+08:00

If my dad had lived, today mum and dad would have been celebrating their fifty fourth Wedding Anniversary. I often sit and wonder what life would have been like if dad hadn't died back in 1986, just six short months after Brian and I got married. I think he would have made a wonderful grandfather who would have adored and spoiled his grandchildren.

I've watched mum cope without dad for all these years and she is just amazing. Not a day goes by when she doesn't think of him. I think that if dad were here, there would have been a big party this weekend, but life is fleeting and the things we want to keep hold of can disappear in the blink of an eye.

I'm thinking of you and love you mum and dad ...

I have a Blog Award

2011-03-07T06:30:00.000+08:00

I decided to make my own Blog Award. I'll be giving this award to blogs that I find very interesting, informative and fun and in turn the recipient may pass the award on to two other blogs.

Most awards come with a lot of conditions however after some thought, I decided to just place a couple of conditions on the award. Those that receive it will need to place a link back to the blog of the person who gave them the award and I would really appreciate it if they would place a link back to my blog as well (although it's not compulsory unless the person receives the award directly from me.)

I'll keep both the picture of the award and how to use it in the right hand column of the main page of my blog.

If you receive this award and need the picture, right click it (from here or from the sidebar) and save it to your computer and then upload it to your blog. The size is 220px × 284px so should fit in most sidebars without needing to resize it.

The very first recipient of my Creative Blog Award is Maja. I hope you will accept it. Your blog is so wonderful and full of gorgeous eye candy. I love your cards and all your creations. Congratulations.

Free Paper Piecing Pattern - Christmas Angel and Title

2011-03-05T00:20:00.001+08:00

I made this paper piecing pattern and topper (title) quite a few years ago and remember that some people used both the angel and topper for a scrapbook page while others used just the angel and placed her on a Christmas card. Whatever you do, I hope you have fun.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture but I used chalks around the edges of the angel to add some dimension. The wings are made from clear vellum and the cuffs and hem of her dress are made from a paper called Vivelle. It has a great texture to it and looks and feels like fabric.

You can easily alter the angel if you wish. Use cardstock or patterned paper for the wings or just leave them out altogether. You can turn her into a girl to match your scrapbook page and the star in her hand can be changed into a bunch of flowers or anything else that takes your fancy.

Please excuse the bad scans. Click the pictures and pattern to enlarge.

A Review of my Blog - Thank you Maja

2011-03-04T20:26:00.000+08:00

My dear friend Maja wrote a review of my blog and she has totally blown me away. I blog because I love to do it and I craft because I love to do it. However, knowing that someone out there both likes and can make use out of the things I do is an amazing feeling. Thank you so much dear friend.

If you are looking for inspiration, I urge you to go and look at Maja's blog. She makes the most beautiful cards and jewellery and is one talented lady.

Here is the link to her blog - My Little World (Crafty Little Bee)

Here is the link to the wonderful review she gave me -Inspirational Blog

My Thought of the Day

A friend is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.

Blog Award (The Versatile Blogger Award)

2011-03-03T23:28:00.000+08:00

I was thrilled to find out that I have received another blog award. It's from the very talented Maya (or, as I call her, Maja) and it's called "The Versatile Blogger Award".

Thank you so much Maja. I urge everyone to visit her blog - My Little World. It's full of inspiration and I thoroughly recommend it.

This award comes with a couple of rules.

I need to thank the person who gave me the award.
Thank you (again) Maja. You totally made my day!

I need to write seven things about myself. OK, let's see..

I was born in England and moved to Australia at the age of ten. I've lived in Australia for 37 years but my memories of England are extremely vivid.
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to write a novel. I've started several and one day may actually get around to finishing one.
I love making mini albums, scrapbooks, art journals, cards etc. and have been crafty for most of my life.
The 5th of April will be my 25th Wedding Anniversary though I have been with my husband for 30 years (on 30th May). He was my first boyfriend!
I could watch Buffy and Angel over and over.
Until we got our cat, Moxie, I was always a dog person. I never thought I would own a cat one day. Now I'm definitely a cat person (though I still love dogs.) Cats make you work for their love...I like that, it keeps you on your toes.
I would be totally lost without my laptop.

I have to pass this award on to 15 people and let them know they received it from me.
I'm not going to do that right now but will get it done very soon. I'll post about it as soon as I do it.

My Thought of the Day

There's nothing quite as nice as being recognised for who you

are or what you do. Take the time to smile at someone today

or pay them a compliment. It will make both you and the

person who receives your kindness, feel very good.

2010 Art Journal - A Life Uncaged - Step by step instructions

2011-03-01T03:05:00.000+08:00

A few posts back I wrote step by step instructions for an art journal page called Perfect Hope. I received some great personal emails about the tutorial and an online magazine contacted me and asked if they could publish my tutorial in the next issue of their Zine. I was thrilled and decided to write up a tutorial to go with this page - A Life Uncaged. While the tutorial is similar, it's not exactly the same and this one includes a couple of steps that the other tutorial did not have. I hope you enjoy it.

A Life Uncaged - Supply List

Watercolour Paper (180g) cut to 8 x 8 inches

Watercolour Crayons by Mungyo

Derwent Watercolour Pencils

Aquash Water Brush

Black and White Pens (various)

Pictures from Magazines

Glue

A larger picture of the completed page is at the end of this tutorial.

Background - Dry Watercolour Crayons

I used a mix of red, pink, yellow and orange dry watercolour crayons to colour the background of the page. This stage doesn't have to be perfect as you will be going over the colours with water and blending them together.

Add Water to the Background

I used my Aquash brush and began wetting and blending the colours. This part is fun. It's great to see how intense the colours become with just a little water added to them. This is where you can be bold, remember that you will be covering up most of the background with pictures and writing so don't worry about any mistakes as they won't show up in the final product.

Painted Background

This is the background once all the colours have been blended. If you want to add more colour, now is the time to do it. It's also the best time to darken or lighten any parts of the background. Just go over those parts with a crayon and blend with your brush. Alternatively (and this is the way I prefer to do it) rub your wet brush over the tip of the crayon, pulling some of the colour onto the brush and paint it wherever you want.

As you can see in the picture, these are the crayons I use and on the left are my trusted Derwent watercolour pencils.

Borders - Step One

Using a combination of watercolour crayons and watercolour pencils I draw in the borders. This basically consists of any shapes that take your fancy. This is just the way I like to do it but you can really do whatever you want. You could use stamps, draw a black line around the page or even glue small pieces of paper around the edges. Once I've drawn and coloured in my shapes I use my Aquash brush (or any paint brush) to blend the colours. While it's not necessary to wet the paint I find it gives it a vibrant look. Just go with whatever suits you.

Borders - Step Two

Once the paint is dry it's time to decorate your borders a little. I like to go around each shape with a black Sharpie pen. I also add things like dots, lines, squiggles etc. to the shapes using both a black and a white pen. Occasionally I'll use my Tombow Markers for the patterns.

Decorating the Background

Now it's time to work with your background. I add pictures and drawings first and then I do my writing.

The Pictures - Whenever I find an interesting picture in a magazine I cut it out and put it into a display book. Each page holds a different category, for instance, heads, birds, wings, animals, clothes, legs, arms etc. When I have some spare time or am in the mood for it, I go through this display book and find bits and pieces that go together. See the photo above. I put these bits in a separate page, ready to use on an art page one day. The legs in the picture above were covered with black stockings. I drew white lines using a white Uniball Signo pen. When I finally put the picture together on my journal page, I cut off the birds head and put it back in the display book. I'll use it another time on another journal page.

I always work out what I'm going to write before actually writing on the page. I make a quick draft on some scrap paper that's the same size as the journal page, however before writing on the scrap I usually place the picture on on it, in the same place it will go on the final page. It helps to use a tiny bit of re positionable tape to temporarily hold it in place. Another way to do it is by lightly tracing a rough outline of your picture onto the scrap paper just so you'll have an idea of how much space it will take up. I write my title and draw any other main pictures onto the scrap paper and then I write my journaling. When I am satisfied it will all fit onto my page I stick the picture to the journal page, do my drawings (in this case, a birdcage) and write my title.

I use a sharpie pen and write my journaling directly onto the background.

Just about there ... the final touches

We're nearly done. Now is the time for all the little finishing touches. I go around my artwork with a black pen, adding any little details it may need (like the lines in the hair). Then I start to fill in all the gaps with things like flowers, doodles, swirls etc. I outline everything in black and colour it in. If I have enough space I'll add quotes or words that pertain to the subject.

Finished Art Journal Page - A Life Uncaged

And there you go ... the journal page is finished, sign it, date it and show off your creation!

My Thought of the Day

DREAM.IMAGINE.CREATE.BE

Mini Album - Why I think you're special

2011-02-28T23:22:00.000+08:00

I made this small album for a friend a couple of years ago. She looked after a scrapbooking group I was in and did such a great job, plus, she was a wonderful friend and an extremely talented scrapper.

I used Basic Grey Papers and Letter Stickers for the whole album and stamped the pages with Whirly Gig stamps by Technique Tuesday. I had heaps of little bits of ribbon so I added them to each page. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't used the ribbons or at least not used so many different colours of ribbons. I just think it would have looked better without them.
Some flowers by Prima and a few embellishments finished it all off.

Whirly Gig Stamps by Technique Tuesday - My favourite swirl stamps

I'm not sure why I scanned the pages so small but I think you can get a fair idea of what they look like.

Front Cover

Decide what size you want your album to be and cut each page.

I held the album together by punching holes in the top left corner of each page and threading some silver beading through the holes.

For decoration I attached a Prima flower to the tag with a silver brad and hung it from the beading. I painted the middle of the flower white to give it some depth.

NOTE - Each page and the page behind it were stuck together so I could glue the ribbons between the two pages.

Page 1

All the letter stickers I used were by Basic Grey (one of my favourite companies.)

The red heart is made of chipboard and the gold heart is a nailhead. Because I stuck each page and the page behind it, together, it not only hid the ends of the ribbons but also the backs of the nailheads and brads that I used.

Page 2

I used Black Brillance Ink with the stamps. The gold flower is another nailhead.

Page 3

I sewed a few buttons to this page and used a white Uniball Signo pen for the writing.

Page 4

The red flower was freehand cut and then distressed with some sandpaper. I placed a small cream Prima flower and brad in the centre of it.

Page 5

The white photo anchor is just for decoration but they are also great for holding down cardstock that has personal writing behind it and of course for holding down photos. Again I added flowers to the page (can you tell I love to use flowers lol)

Page 6

I wrote my friends initial on the other side of the metal edged tag.

Back Cover

My Thought of the Day

Recipe for a Happy Home
4 cups of Love
2 cups of Loyalty
3 cups of Forgiveness
1 cup of Friendship
5 spoons of Hope
2 spoons of Tenderness
4 quarts of Faith
1 barrel of Laughter

Take love and loyalty, mix them thoroughly with faith. Blend it with tenderness, kindness and understanding. Sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Bake it with sunshine. Serve generous helpings daily!

Box of Inspirational Cards

2011-02-26T05:22:00.000+08:00

A few years ago I made a box of inspirational cards for Brian. Jade loved them and asked me if I would make her some to keep on her desk. This is the result. I gave them to her a few months ago and she loved them. She keeps them on her study desk and takes out a card a day.

I ended up making around 350+ cards and tried to vary the cards as much as possible. These are some of the things I put on the cards.

Quotes
Poems
Messages to Jade
I Wrote about memories
I asked Jade a question and she had to write the answer on the back
Jokes
Interactive cards - Jade is very pedantic (a lot like me actually.) She likes her stationery to be orderly and pretty. While it's not a bad trait it can at times be very limiting so on some of the cards I got her to do things very much out of character. For instance she was to scribble all over one and put it back in the box. Another one she was to keep crumpling, opening it up, crumpling it again and so on. Again it was to go back into the box when she finished. I even got her to poke holes all over one card.

As far as decoration goes, I just went with whatever I felt like doing. I used everything from patterned and plain papers, charms and threads and lots of other embellishments. This was a great time to use up leftover stickers and scraps of patterned paper. I watercoloured the backgrounds of some of the cards and must admit these turned out to be my favourite looking ones.

I used a plastic chocolate box to hold the cards. It was either a Lindt or Ferrer Rocher Chocolate box (I can't remember which). I removed the lid and glued a pretty ribbon around the outside. The pre-cut cards I had fit perfectly. I also cut some watercolour paper to size and made a few cards from coloured cardstock and I must admit that I was really pleased with the look of everything when it was finished. I didn't take pictures of all the cards however there are still enough to give you a bit of an idea as to what they ended up looking like.

I watercoloured the backgrounds...

and then added the writing.

I painted patterns on some of the watercolour backgrounds

Various Cards

There you have it. A fun and easy to make gift for someone special. I'll probably make some more cards throughout the year so she'll have a fresh batch for next year.

Guinea Pigs - George and Millie AKA our Grandkids

2011-02-25T03:14:00.000+08:00

I've decided to steal a post from Jade's blog. I was going to write about her guinea pigs AKA our grandkids, but her post was much more interesting than anything I could write about them. So here you go, straight from Jade's mouth (or blog).

The following was written by Jade on 6 December, 2010

"My Two Beautiful Girls

Since my last post I have become a Mother... to two Guinea Pigs.

George

About a month ago Aaron and I were doing our shopping and suddenly decided we needed a pet. Dogs were too expensive and a cat was out of the question. I have never really been a small animal lover, however Aaron convinced me that a Guinea pig would be a good choice, to be honest I was skeptical. We did our research before hand and then went to the pet store, Aaron wanted me to be the one to choose which Guinea pig we would take home. Naturally I chose the smallest and cutest one, and once in my arms I fell in love. We bought all the supplies and a cage and ventured home. Since we were unsure whether the little one was male or female we named it George (don't ask about the logic behind the name). We are now certain George is female.

Millie

A week later Aaron and I were out shopping again and went into a pet store (just to pick up food and have a look at the cute puppies). I happened to ask the manager if they had any Guinea pigs, they didn't, however the lady was on a mission to call every pet store she knew to find us one (I didn't have the heart to tell her we weren't actually looking for one). The manager was so pleased to tell us she found one, a female, and had asked the pet shop to hold it for us. That Guinea pig is now named Millie and is our second child.

George and Millie

George is the baby (literally a month or so younger than Millie) and in many ways seems to respect her older companion. She was loving from the moment we got her home. She loves cuddles and purrs like crazy when we pet her. Millie was a little slower to warm up to us, however she now purrs and willingly comes up to us for cuddles. Both of them 'popcorn' when they are happy and enjoy playing follow the leader and chasey (especially at the break of dawn). They await their large bowl of fresh vegetables every morning and yell at me when it's taking too long, they also associate the sound the fridge makes when it opens as breakfast time and chirp every time someone opens it. We take them out of their cage regularly and allow them to have a run around on the floor, on the couch or just in our laps.

Okay... so I am completely and utterly in love."

UPDATE from me - Here's the latest photo of George and Millie, taken a couple of days ago. Jade and Aaron took them to the Vet the other day (for a check up and (I think) immunisation and the Vet said they were the healthiest guinea pigs he had ever seen. I must admit their coats are extremely shiny and apart from the "evil eyes" the camera created, they look the picture of health :) It's hard to tell but they are now HUGE, especially Millie.

Stickers - using leftover stickers

2011-02-24T02:09:00.000+08:00

This isn't so much about using leftover stickers as it is about using the backing of the sticker or what's left once you've used the actual sticker.

In this case, the sticker was a gold embossed butterfly. After using the sticker I was left with the backing sheet which still had a little of the gold left on it. I simply cut around the butterfly shape keeping the gold border and I had a second embossed butterfly which was perfect for this tag.

I find that embossed stickers are the best to use as you have a built-in pattern in the backing paper.

Next time don't be so quick to throw away your leftovers. Take a good look at what you have and see if there's something you can do with it. It's a great way to save a little money too!

My Thought of the Day

May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun

And find your shoulder to light on,

To bring you luck, happiness and riches

Today, tomorrow and beyond.

~Irish Blessing~

Magic Mesh - Change the colour with embossing powder

2011-02-23T23:06:00.000+08:00

If you haven't used magic mesh, well it's a pretty cool product. It comes in a wide variety of colours and thicknesses and is sticky on one side which makes it easily repositionable. It feels a little like plastic which makes it easy to cut into shapes but the really wonderful thing about it is that you can emboss it (and it doesn't melt.)

Years ago I received some but unfortunately the colours were not exactly to my taste. What to do? Well I decided to emboss it with some copper embossing power and the results were outstanding.

The great thing is that it's already sticky on one side so there's no need to use any sort of embossing ink for the powder to stick to. I placed the mesh on a piece of paper (sticky side up) and poured copper embossing powder all over it until it was covered. I picked it up by a corner and applied my heat gun and within seconds the powder melted and I had some lovely copper magic mesh.

If you find that there are still some gaps where you can see the underneath colour, just run an inkpad of clear embossing ink over the mesh, pour on some more powder and heat.

Note - The top piece was originally burgundy and the bottom piece was bright yellow

Now it's just up to your imagination as to what you want to do with it :) Of course it will no longer be sticky so you can dab some glue on one side (in a few spots), use some double sided tape on the edges and then cover the edges with something so you can't see the tape through the holes. You can also use ribbon or threads to tie your mesh to the page. Pretty much anything goes...

My Thought of the Day

Love is, above all,

the gift of oneself.

~Jean Anoulih~

Handmade Mini Album - Friend, Faith, Belief, Trust

2011-02-22T03:57:00.000+08:00

This is another mini album I made back in 2009 and am embarrassed to say that I still haven't sent it out. Like the other album I made, I will get around to it soon (or at least sometime this year) :) I love making these small paper bag albums and want to make a couple more for two very special friends of mine.

The blank page actually has writing on it but I blurred it out as it's personal. On a couple of other pages I blurred out the name of the person who will be receiving the album.

Front of Album

I yellowed the top flower a little to give it an aged look. The beads were taken from a pair of earrings (from the 1980's)

Pages 1 and 2

I blurred out the writing on the left hand page as it's personal.

Pages 3 and 4

I just noticed that there's one of my hairs across the page LOL I'd better check that I haven't glued it on accidentally :) As you can see I love using flowers in albums.

Pages 5 and 6

I chalked around the edges of the white right hand page to age it a bit. It seemed too stark without the chalking.

Back Cover of Album

Tags that go into the top pockets of the album

I didn't make these tags especially for this album. I love making tags and keep a stash of them so I can add them to cards, layouts and albums. These ones seemed perfect for this particular album.

My Thought of the Day

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

~Michelangelo~

Sometimes just a few words make all the difference...

2011-02-20T01:06:00.000+08:00

Although this is a personal post, I am going to share it. Sometimes we don't need riches to make us feel good. Sometimes all we need are a few heartfelt words...

Unlike a lot of kids, my daughter Jade has no idea of what it is like to have two healthy parents, live in a beautiful home and have whatever she wants. I have been ill for all of her life and Brian has been ill for over half of her life. Needless to say, life can be hard, very hard. Now Jade herself has an illness which she is coping with in the best way she can and it is just amazing at the way she manages to carry herself and tries to keep her life as normal as possible even with all the things she has to face.

It was my birthday on February 13th. As money is not something that has ever been in abundance in our home, we always try and write each other something special for birthdays, Christmas and other special events. These gifts are truly priceless and all three of us treasure what we get from each other. Jade's letters usually consist of pages and pages LOL This one was shorter than usual but the words were just what I needed to hear.

I had been feeling a bit down on myself and even though Jade no longer lives at home, we talk and see her a lot and that daughter of mine picks up on everything. For my birthday, she wrote me a beautiful letter and I am going to put some of it on my blog. It is here to remind me that my family believe in me and I hope it will inspire others as well.

If you are feeling down, think about your children and how much they love you, even when you may not love yourself.

Thank you my beautiful Jade. I love you. You and your dad keep the spark alive in me!

Dearest Mama, I know life hasn't always been fair to all of us, but somewhere between the ups and downs the world gave us each other.

Sometimes I wish I could turn back time or somehow control the future to give you the life you deserved...but I guess I'll just have to settle with hope. I will NEVER give up on you...on dad or on us as a family.

You have been a wonderful mother and it hurts when you doubt yourself because you have so much heart and passion, I wouldn't change that for the world. Thank you for everything. I know I am not perfect but you somehow seem to understand me (sometimes better than I understand myself!)

So lets raise a glass to celebrate you...because you are pretty bloody special! Love always, now and forever, Jade xxx

Free Fonts

2011-02-17T00:14:00.000+08:00

Four free fonts you might like.

Click to download Angel Tears

Click to download Moonlight Shadow

Click to download MailArt Graphics

Click to download MailArt Rubberstamp

Handmade Mini Album - Friend

2011-02-15T22:05:00.000+08:00

I think it was in 2009 when I made this album for my friend and I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't sent it to her. While scanning it the other day I felt that it lacked something so I am thinking of making some tags to go into the top pockets of the album. I made one tag when I made the album and it holds a personal message to my friend however I think it will look nice with a few more tags with beads and threads hanging off them.

This is a paper bag album made of folded paper bags. Although there are not many pages in it, it's rather thick which is why it was a little hard to scan and why the scans are slightly blurry. One of these days I will definitely get the album to my friend LOL

Front of Album

I painted the gold metal bookplate with white paint and then scratched it up a bit for a rustic look. It's a bit hard to tell but that's a 3D clear acrylic "M" monogram in the top right corner.

Pages 1 and 2

Pages 3 and 4

The tag on the left hand page has been walnut inked. All the paper and tags have had the edges swiped with ink. The round embellishment on the right hand page is a round piece of wood. I painted it with brown and white paints and wrote on it with a white pen.

Pages 5 and 6

On the bottom of the right hand page I have written some of my friend's favourite music.

Front and Back of the Album

Here's a look at both the front and back of the album

Card - Hello my Friend

2011-02-10T03:37:00.000+08:00

Here's a card I made some time ago. It only took a few minutes to make and I used scraps of patterned paper (that I can never bear to throw away!)

The patterned paper is centered on the brownish background of the card but the scan makes it look a bit off centre.

Make your own coloured (distressed) walnut ink

2011-02-10T03:02:00.000+08:00

You can buy coloured walnut ink (also known as distressed ink) and it really is lovely stuff. However it can be fairly pricey. This is my version and costs next to nothing.

What you'll need

Walnut Ink Crystals or Liquid
Food Colouring
Water
Spray Bottle

I find it's best to use a small spray bottle (even smaller than the ones I have used). Place a little water in the bottle. You don't need to make a lot as a little goes a long way.
Add some food colouring to the water until you get a colour you are happy with.
Make up a small amount of walnut ink by adding some crystals to some warm water and letting the crystals dissolve (or use a liquid walnut ink.)
Now add some of the walnut ink to the coloured water in your spray bottle until you end up with a colour you like.

It's as easy as that. Now you're ready to use it in any way you wish. In my paper samples at the very top of this post I simply sprayed some paper and really like the colour. In the layout sample above, the triangle over the photo has been crumpled and sprayed with the green ink.

The addition of the walnut ink gives an antique look to your colours. I find that these sprays are perfect if you like the Shabby Chic look.

Some other ways to use your spray.

Backgrounds - Spray less on some parts and more on other parts for a unique look. You can wait till it dries and then add some extra spray to parts of your background.
Art Journal Pages
Material
Lace
Ribbons
Tags
Chipboard pieces
Wood

I'm sure you can find heaps of other ways to use it. Have fun!

My Thought of the Day

Recall it as often as you wish, a happy memory

never wears out.

~Libby Futim~

Blog Award (Attitude Blog Award)

2011-02-09T00:50:00.001+08:00

I received an Attitude Blog Award from Maja.

Thank you so much for this award Maja. Please go and take a peek at Maja's lovely blog. She makes really beautiful jewellery, cards and other artsy things.

Now I need to share three things about myself.

I'm a science fiction fan. I'll watch pretty much any sci-fi TV show or movie and I also love to watch Buffy and Angel.
I'm not a very good cook.
I'm a Facebook addict.

I'd like to share this award with the following blogs. There are so many people I would like to have shared this award with and it was really hard to choose but I've finally made my decision.

These blogs are all very different to each other but each is written by a lady who is very passionate about the things she writes about ...and it shows. I hope you ladies will accept this award and I hope that anyone who reads this will take a look at these blogs.

Dawn Stan
Onna Bugeisha
Brazen's Culinary Adventures

Blog Award (Blog Love)

2011-02-09T00:04:00.001+08:00

I have received two blog awards and am completely over the moon :)

Above is the first one. I received it from Cebelica (Maja) at Crafty Little Bee. Thanks so much Maja, you have totally made my day

Along with this award come some obligations which must be fulfilled if you accept it.

Link to the person who gave you the award. Please take a peek at Maja's Crafty Little Bee Blog. She makes beautiful jewellery, cards and other crafty things.
I have to let the person who gave me this award, know that I accepted it. Thank you Maja.
I have to post the Blog Love image in my blog. See above and in the sidebar.
I have to pick 3-5 of my favourite blogs and pass the award to them. I also need to link to these blogs in my post and then the blog owners should inform me that they know they have been tagged.

There is one rule about choosing your favourite blogs and that is:

"Dear Bloggers, the aim of this award is that we bring unknown, good blogs to light so I ask that you do not pass this award to fellow bloggers who have more than 3000 followers."

It was so hard finding blogs to pass this award on to. I read so many great blogs and so many of them deserve an award. To keep things simple, I decided to go with four craft/hobby/scrapbook related blogs.

I would like to pass this award on to the following blogs:

2010 Art Journal - Perfect Hope - Step by Step Instructions

2011-02-07T01:03:00.003+08:00

This art journal page is called Perfect Hope and here are some step by step instructions as to how I put it together.

Supplies I used:

Watercolour Paper (180g) cut to 8 x 8 inches

Watercolour Crayons by Mungyo

Derwent Watercolour Pencils

Aquash Water Brush

Black and White Pens (various)

Pictures from Magazines

Glue

A larger picture of the completed page is at the end of this tutorial.

Background - Dry Watercolour Crayons

Using dry watercolour crayons I colour in the background. There's no need to make it too dark as the colours will darken considerably once water is added. This is the time to play and I like to choose about four different colours though you can use more or less depending on what type of mood you are looking for.

Add Water and Borders

Using my Aquash Water Brush I start to add water to the background and blend until I'm satisfied with the look. Remember, it doesn't have to look perfect as this is just the background layer and you will be adding pictures and writing later on. I prefer to use my water brush so I'm not constantly dipping into water but you can of course use any paint brushes, sponges or anything else that takes your fancy.

Once this is dry (and it doesn't take too long as watercolour crayons seem to dry quite fast) I start on the borders. I simply draw shapes around all four edges. I use a combination of Derwent Watercolour Pencils and my watercolour crayons to do this. I make the borders a lot darker than the background and once I'm finished I use my water brush to blend the colours. While it's not necessary to do this I find that it darkens the colours on the edges and smooths the colour, ready for the next step.

Outline and Decorate Borders

Let the borders dry and then using a black pen (I use a Sharpie) I outline all the shapes. Then using a thinner black sharpie and a white pen I fill in the shapes with squiggles, dotes, lines etc.

NOTE: If you find your page has buckled quite a bit, just place it between some phone books or heavy books and leave for a few hours or a day. You will find that once you have completed the entire page (i.e. added the writing and pictures) it may have warped again. No problem, just place between heavy objects and it will flatten out in a couple of days.

The Writing and Pictures

I like to cut different pictures from magazines and put them together. I always work out what I'm going to write before actually writing on the page. I make a quick draft on some scrap paper that's the same size as the journal page, however before writing on the scrap I usually place the picture on on it, in the same place it will go on the final page. It helps to use a tiny bit of re positionable tape to temporarily hold it in place. Another way to do it is by lightly tracing a rough outline of your picture onto the scrap paper just so you'll have an idea of how much space it will take up. I now do the writing, including the title to make sure it will all fit on the actual art page. When I'm satisfied that it will, I stick my picture to the background of the art journal page and using a Sharpie pen I write everything straight onto the background.

Finishing Touches and Finished Page

Depending on how you want your finished page to look, you can stop now or you can add some finishing touches. Firstly, I outline my picture and add any small decorations the picture may need. Then, I fill in some of the background spaces with doodles, swirls and flowers, making sure I outline everything with a black Sharpie and if there's a large empty space I'll usually write something in it like a quote or just some words that relate to the topic of my page.

And there you have it, simple and fun … a completed Art Journal Page.

Remember that as far as an Art Journal goes ... “anything goes”. If you are going to use paint, you can use acrylics instead of watercolours. You can stamp the background with inks or paints or you can cover the background with various pieces of patterned paper. I like to keep the pages of this particular journal fairly flat so it fits nicely into the album I have for it, however three dimensional pages look great too.

My Thought of the Day

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

~Henry David Thoreau~

I'm blogging again and some photos of Moxie

2011-02-03T10:05:00.000+08:00

Well, it's certainly been a long time between posts. I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and a very happy new year to you all. Our celebrations were quiet but nice :)

I'm going to make an effort to blog regularly, like I used to. I still have quite a few things that I have made but haven't as yet uploaded. I guess I've been in a bit of a slump with my art stuff. Many times I want to do something artsy but my health just won't let me and when my health will let me I just don't have the urge. What a conundrum LOL I have no intention of giving it up though and hope to start on some new projects this year.

As you know, this blog is not just about scrapbooks and journals etc. but it's about my family as well so I'll leave you with a couple of photos of my little boy. He's quite big now but still acts like a kitten and I love him to death .

Have a great day everyone.

Photos of Jade

2010-09-05T03:32:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Jade's friend Steph, I finally have some up to date photos of Jade. These were taken last weekend.

Steph is the lovely girl on the right and my girl is, of course, on the left.

Father's Day

2010-09-05T03:14:00.000+08:00

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

A very happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband.

Brian, Jade is so lucky to have a dad like you. I know that she absolutely adores you and in return you are so lucky to have such an amazing daughter.

I love you so much.

To my own dad ... the years pass and I think that maybe it's getting a tiny bit easier and then a special occasion like this comes along and I realise that it will never truly get easier. I miss you so much.

Happy Father's day also to my brother Michael, my brother-in-law, Leo and my father-in-law, Pat and to all the other dads out there.

Just catching up and a layout

2010-08-24T04:50:00.000+08:00

Sharing an old layout I did of Jade in our back garden. My, how the time has flown. That little girl will be 20 very soon.

I thought I'd do a short catch up post. I haven't been feeling too well lately thus my lack of blog posts.

Well something lovely happened to me last week. A new magazine contacted me and asked me to do some art journal pages along with step by step instructions for them. They also wanted to interview me etc. I did a lot of soul searching and realise that I'm just not up to making any commitments at the moment however I have worked out something with the magazine and will definitely do work for them but at my own pace. The lady I spoke with (through emails) was so lovely and really accommodating. The online magazine is due to be launched in October. I'll be putting up links to it as the launch date gets closer.

Brian turned 48 on Saturday. He had a lovely, albeit quiet birthday. Today Jade and mum came over and we celebrated with some cake.

I've nearly finished making the inspirational cards for Jade and I'm really liking the way they have turned out. I've made way over 300 of them so that should keep her going for around a year :) I really must get some scanning done. I have quite a few things that still need to be scanned and uploaded.

I am now in touch with more of my overseas cousins. It's really lovely and I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

Lots more has happened but I can't think of it all right now. I mainly wanted to put up a post so those who read my blog will know I'm still around and will be blogging regularly again very soon.

Keep smiling...

My week in a nutshell

2010-08-06T17:58:00.000+08:00

It's been a very emotional week. I wanted to write a post but have decided to just make a list rather than go into detail... just so I can remember what has happened.

I only got to see Jade for about 4 hours this week and am missing her terribly. She is settling into the new house and told me it already feels like home. She got a distinction in one of her Psychology units from last semester at uni. Congratulations my girl!

I've started on the motivational cards I'm making Jade (mentioned in another post) and have already made about 40-50 of them. Still have heaps to go but I'm enjoying the process.

I've connected with my Scottish cousins through Facebook and am thrilled about that. I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

This weekend I'm hoping to get some scanning done. I want to scan some of the cards I've made for Jade along with an art journal page and one or two mini albums I made at the start of the year.

I managed to get some cute photos of Moxie but this laptop doesn't read the card. Going to see if I can get my old (and partially broken) laptop to work so I can grab the photos and upload them.

Last but certainly not least, someone I love very dearly is ill and while things are not quite as bad as we had first thought, she is not out of the woods yet. I find myself constantly worrying about her and her family. Here's a bunch of virtual flowers sent to her with real love.

As you can see, it's just a short post and mainly for my own benefit.

My Thought of the Day

Take everything just one day at a time...

My Friend ... My Muse ... Sister of my Soul ...

2010-07-29T18:11:00.000+08:00

See this beautiful creature? Her name is Sarah Anne and she is one of my dearest friends. We are sisters of the soul. The other day she painted her face and took some photos. The minute I saw this particular one, I felt something.

Up until now I have had one Muse. One person who inspires me when I create. That person is my daughter Jade. When I saw this photo of Sarah Anne I knew I had found my second Muse. There is something special about this photo and it's not just one thing. I know Sarah's soul, I know the strength and kindness it holds, I see her beauty and now, with this makeup I see something that inspires me to no end. It makes me think of magical things, of fairies, wood nymphs, muses ...

Thank you my friend, for allowing me to post this photo of you. I don't want to forget the way I felt when I first saw it. (Click photo for a much larger version).

My Thought of the Day

True beauty comes from the inside.

Zentangle - Circus (thanks Jamie)

2010-07-29T17:48:00.000+08:00

I drew and posted this Zentangle a couple of months ago. I started giving my 'tangles' names and asked for help with those I hadn't found names for as yet. Well my sweet friend Jamie commented a couple of days ago and said that this one reminded her of a circus.

So, thanks to her it shall now go by the name of "The Circus" :) Thanks so much Jamie. I was so thrilled to read your comment and really appreciate you taking time out to read my blog and help me with the name.

Here's what Jamie wrote.

"I have possible name for the one that looks like a tent in the middle, @ the end of the post: The circus..To me it looks like a circus tent, and all the patterns surrounding it gives me the idea of all the magic and whimsy that goes with a circus or something a child might imagine :)"

My Thought of the Day

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

New Home - Congrats Mitch, Van, Jade and Aaron

2010-07-24T17:58:00.000+08:00

Today, Jade, Aaron, Mitch and Vanessa all moved into Mitch's brand new house. What a huge day for all four of them. Brian and I just want to wish them all the happiness in the world :)

My Thought of the Day

Optimists have no clue about the joyful surprises that pessimists experience. ~ Peter Bamm

Hint - photograph your work in progress

2010-07-16T03:31:00.000+08:00

As most paper artists and scrapbookers know, it's not always easy to finish a project in one sitting. You can of course leave your project on your table and come back to it later but if you have pets or children that's not always a good idea.

I often work on more than one project at a time and it's not easy to find enough room to leave one page out while working on something else. I put everything I'm using into a plastic folder but it's hard to remember how everything was set out when you come back to it. I used to make a quick sketch but now I take a photo.

Pretty obvious isn't it? Nowadays, with our digital cameras, we can just pull the photo up on the camera screen and within a minute or two, have our layout or project back to the way it was looking before we put it away.

The photo is just an example of a journal page I was working on. Nothing was stuck down when I put it away. The finished project did look a bit different but that's because I added things. I kept the basic design the same.

It's such a quick and easy tip and one worth remembering. I have saved myself so much time since I started doing this.

I've also started doing it with my painted backgrounds of my 2010 Art Journal. Once I've added pictures and writing, it's hard to remember what the background originally looked like and sometimes they work out better than other times so now it will be easy for me to reproduce the look.

Here are my two latest backgrounds. Click any picture for a larger view.

I've already turned one of these pages into a full journal page complete with drawings and writing. It's hard to see what the background originally looked like but even though you can no longer see the detail, it all adds to the overall look of the finished page.

My Thought of the Day

Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint you can on it.

Jade, a cardboard mini album and some inspirational cards

2010-07-16T02:48:00.000+08:00

Facebook has been giving me problems all day and it's driving me crazy. I guess I'm more addicted to the place than I had thought. I decided I'd write a blog post before heading off to bed.

A couple of years ago I made Jade a small chipboard album that she always carries in her handbag. She's never without it and has told me that she reads it quite often. It's just a small album and has messages, quotes and affirmations in it.

When Brian worked and his health started getting really bad, I made him a set of cards. Each card held either a personal message, an affirmation, quote, poem, joke or quote. He told me that every day he would choose a card and read it and that he loved the gift and it in fact got him through many days.

After he was no longer able to work, he gave the box of cards to Jade to keep on her desk. She often picks one out and reads it while she is studying.

Well, she and Aaron are moving to a new house soon and she'll have her own study. I want to make another box of cards but these ones will relate to her. I'm quite excited about staring this little project. Any crafter will know the pleasure they get when someone really enjoys and appreciates their work and Jade certainly does that. She in fact asked me if I would do this for her but asked me to wait until they moved.

Jade has had the same best friend since kindergarten and when they were young they would always say that one day they would live together. Well her best friend's boyfriend (they have been together for quite some time now) has just built his own house. Jade and Aaron will be moving in with them. They are just waiting for the carpets to go down and then they should be ready to go. They've been spending time at the house, putting together all the new furniture etc. The four of them are a perfect match. They are all such good friends and I believe these living arrangements are going to turn out to be just wonderful.

My Thought for the Day

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Tutorial - Packing Tape Transfer Technique

2010-07-13T06:03:00.000+08:00

This is such a great technique and so easy to do.

You will need -

Packing tape or transparent contact paper for larger images
Scissors
Bowl of water (I prefer warm water)
Bone folder, ruler, popsicle stick or just your thumb
A picture that you like. I like to take pictures from magazines or glossy brochures. You can also use a toner or laser printer copy of any image you want.

Cut out your picture. Adhere packing tape over the picture. Note - the sticky side of the packing tape goes on the side of the picture that you are going to use (not on the back of the picture.)

You now need to burnish the tape to the picture. Use a bone folder, edge of a ruler, a popsicle stick or your thumb to really rub the tape and picture together.

Place the taped image into a bowl of water (I like to use warm water but am not sure whether it actually makes a difference.) Leave it to soak for around ten minutes.

Remove from water. Now you are going to gently rub the paper image off the tape. Use your fingers and use a circular motion. Keep going until all the paper has been removed. I swish the tape in the water every now and then to remove the sticky clumps of paper. You will know you have finished when you are left with a see through picture or basically a transparency. If your image isn't completely transparent keep rubbing away as there is bound to be more paper stuck to the tape. If you find that the paper is not coming off easily, just soak it for a while longer.

Use some paper towels to dry your packing tape and there you go. You have a transparent image that you can use on a scrapbook page, a card, tag, bookmark ... basically anything you want. These images look really good when you place some patterned paper behind the image or paper that has writing on it. Bold coloured cardstock also looks great.

In my example I painted a light wash of walnut ink onto the tag. While it was still wet I sprinkled a little table salt onto the wet ink. Once dry I rubbed away the salt and was left with some pretty dots on the tag. The Father Christmas picture is my transferred image. As you can see, some of the dots show through on the lighter parts of the image (see the fur on his coat.) I later added the tag to a Christmas card I made.

Good luck and remember ... have fun! If it doesn't work the first time, try again.

My Thought of the Day

Try something different!

... And 36 years later I found it - TV show

2010-07-04T05:11:00.000+08:00

Ever remember a TV show you watched as a child but just can't remember the name of it? Well that happened to me. When I still lived in England there was a sci-fi show that I loved to watch. In fact I would have to give it credit for getting me so addicted to everything science fiction (well, that along with the movie Logan's Run.)

We immigrated to Australia in 1974 and very soon after, the name of the show escaped me. I remember asking all my new friends if they had heard of it but no one had. It was a British show and was never broadcast out here. Well back then there were no computers and I was just 10 years old. That didn't stop me from trying to remember the name. Year after year I kept trying but it still never came to me. Then in the 80's I got my first computer. A few years later when search engines appeared I started searching for this old TV show with no luck and I have been at it ever since.

I could remember a few things about the show but they were hard to put into words. Today I once again tried and to my utmost surprise I found some leads and within half an hour or so I had found the name of the show. It was called Timeslip. Now that I had the name I started searching for some information about it and would you believe it I found quite a bit, including an official website. If that wasn't good enough, this website had a complete episode guide for all the episodes. Needless to say, I have been reading through them and devouring each and every word for the last couple of hours. There's nothing quite like a wonderful trip down memory lane :)

It's been fun looking at the photos on the website. Silly costumes and wonky sets but the storylines were great. It's also quite amazing at how some of the things that were mentioned on the show have actually come to pass over the years.

Right now I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I no longer have to search and search for this show in the hopes that someone may have known what I was talking about. So, was it worth it? All those years of searching. You betcha it was.

Now, if only I could remember the name of ....

My Thought of the Day

Keep searching ...

Photos

2010-07-03T02:45:00.000+08:00

Just a few photos I wanted to share. Mainly for family members but feel free to take a look :)

Mum bought Jade and Aaron a few lovely presents when they got engaged. Here are the two of them opening up their gifts. Around April 2010

Helen (my sister) and Brent's two dogs ... Milo and Otis - 2010

Mum, at the pub on St. Patrick's Day 2010. You would think she was drunk with the way she plays around etc. but this woman doesn't drink alcohol LOL

Sizzler Cheese Toast - Recipe

2010-07-03T02:12:00.000+08:00

I've decided to add a new label to my blog. Recipes. Over time I'll share some of my favourite (and pretty much fail safe) recipes. Hope you enjoy them.

The Sizzler restaurant has a new advertisement on TV and I seem to catch it every single time it's on. The advert tells us how delicious their Cheesy Toast is. Well I have been making the cheesy toast at home for years and mine tastes exactly like theirs. I thought I'd share the recipe.

You'll need

White Sliced bread. - You can cut your own bread if you like it thick but I prefer ready-sliced bread.
Equal parts of margarine and dried, grated Parmesan cheese. Butter doesn't seem to work as well as margarine and the Parmesan cheese I'm talking about is the stuff that comes in a plastic packet or jar in the dried foods section along with all the Italian foods like dried pasta etc.

Mix the margarine and Parmesan cheese together. A good tablespoon of each should be enough for about 3 slices of bread but it's so quick and easy to do, you can always make more. Play around with it. You may prefer to add a little more (or less) Parmesan in the future.

Spread the margarine mixture onto each slice of bread. Don't spread too thinly. Again, this is trial and error and after cooking your first slice of bread you'll know whether you need to use more or less margarine the next time.

Heat up a non stick frying pan and when it's nice and hot, place your bread margarine side down onto the frying pan. Cook until golden brown. Just lift the bread and check it ... you don't want the cheese to burn.

That's it. You don't cook the side that is facing up on the frying pan. Taste your first slice and adjust ingredients as needed. This literally takes a couple of minutes to do and is such a lovely accompaniment to a meal. We especially like it with a Caesar salad.

My Thought of the Day

The best feelings are those that have no words to describe them...

The cat is back

2010-06-25T05:33:00.000+08:00

In my last post I wrote about our cat Moxie and how he got outside. Well it took many hours until he came home. A friend told me to put some of our clothes and his food/treats on the front porch as the smell may bring him back. Brian tried that and another cat from the street came running straight onto the porch. No Moxie though. We spent the entire night awake with Brian going outside every half hour or so to look for him.

Just as the sun came up, Brian went down the street again and then around the back yard. When he came back to the front porch there was Moxie, dry as a bone, sitting at the front door. The grass was dewy and it was damp outside but our cat was totally dry. We still have no idea where he went but one thing's for sure ... we will be much more careful in future. I don't want him getting out again.

Although we didn't tell him off, he knew he had done wrong. All that day he kept to himself and kept far away from us. Later that night he sheepishly started brushing against us and before we knew it he was acting like nothing had happened LOL CATS! How do they do it? The wrap themselves around your heart and you are left hopelessly in love with them.

I firmly believe that Moxie thinks he's part dog and part human. As I mentioned, he's an indoor cat and spends all his time with Brian and myself. We have taught him to sit, give his paw, lie down, sing and talk (so to speak). He also fetches etc. He's just awesome and we love him to bits.

Moxie - where are you?

2010-06-22T02:44:00.000+08:00

Our cat Moxie is an indoor cat. About seven hours ago he managed to slip out of the door and we can't find him. Needless to say, I'm starting to get worried (OK, so I'm fretting and could start crying at any moment.)

Thank goodness he's not de-clawed so he should be able to protect himself but still I worry. He has been on the front porch before but never goes further than that. Once he ventured off and Brian found him in the back garden however he has never been gone this long. Brian keeps going outside to look for him but it's already 2.35am. I just know I'll never be able to sleep until he's found.

Argh, how can cat's get such a hold of our hearts? Never would I have believed that I could love a cat this much and worry about him to the point of tears...

These photos were taken in December 2009. The quality was pretty bad so I had to brighten them quite a bit.

Photos - Mum with snake and koala

2010-06-07T21:05:00.000+08:00

Here are three photos of my mum that were taken a couple of weeks ago. I'm putting them up so family members can have a peek :) I honestly never thought I'd see the day when my mum would hold a snake!

She seems to be doing fine...

...until it turns to look at her!

Cute and cuddly (both of them ;)

My Thought of the Day

Take chances, you might surprise yourself.

Two Zentangles

2010-06-07T00:15:00.000+08:00

A couple of Zentangles. Click for larger versions.

I used a thicker pen than usual for this one and am not sure whether I like the bold look. Have to admit though, that I do think the bolder ones will be good to do on a medium to large sized canvas and hung on the wall.

I haven't thought of a name for this one yet. I'm thinking of something to do with the ocean as I can see shells and seaweed in there. That's what I love about Zentangles, they are a bit like inkblots. You don't know what you're going to end up with (or see in the picture) until you have finished it.

*EDIT* - I've come up with a name ...

"The Mermaid's Lair"

Thought of the Day

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.

Layouts - Double Page Layouts

2010-06-06T23:35:00.000+08:00

Most of my scrapbooking layouts are single pages. For some reason I just prefer it that way. There are of course times when I scrap double pages and I thought I'd share a few of them.

Double page layouts are great when you have more than a couple of photos or you have a lot of journaling you want to include. In fact, most scrapbookers seem to prefer the double page look as it keeps their albums looking nice and coordinated, with facing pages matching each other.

My albums however are neither neat nor coordinated and I'm fine with that. I do try and place my layouts into my albums in chronological order but more often than not that doesn't happen as I tend to scrap whatever photo takes my fancy on a particular day. The main thing is to do what works for you. Scrap by theme, date, person etc. It doesn't matter. They are your layouts and your albums so do it your way. Click pictures for larger versions.

Bryan Adams (or the concert that never was)

I love Bryan Adams and twice I had tickets for his concerts. As it would happen, I never made it to either concert due to illness. I'm not giving up though and one day I hope to see him live in concert! I made this layout a bit grungy to go with the music/rock and roll theme.

Cousins

Jade and her cousins quite a few years ago.

Fashion Diva

This layout contains the tags from some clothes Jade has bought over the years.

Art Classes

When Jade and her best friend were young, they went to private art classes together.

Making Memories Foam stamps with white acrylic paint.

Waterford Crystal Collection

I used Basic Grey papers and letter stickers

My Thought of the Day

The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Zentangles - yep a few more :)

2010-05-31T16:59:00.000+08:00

I'm determined to get all my Zentangles uploaded to my blog but I'll still do it in small batches. I've started mounting them in a nice black visual diary and am really pleased with the way it's turning out. It will make an interesting coffee table book when it's finished. I've kept the larger ones for framing.

I've been trying to give each one a name after I've made it. Sometimes the name comes to me in seconds and some I ponder over for days or more. I've given most of these ones titles but can't remember them at the moment so I'll update it with titles later. As always, click for larger images.

My Thought of the Day

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

~Alan Kay~

Zentangles - including one that has been coloured slightly

2010-05-26T05:25:00.001+08:00

I scanned quite a few of my latest Zentangles a couple of days ago and will share them a few at a time so as not to bore you too much ha ha. After each one is finished I've been trying to give it a name. Sometimes it comes easy and sometimes I can't for the life of me think of what to call it. Suggestions are always welcome :) Click the pictures for slightly larger versions.

Zentangle (no name as yet)

I quite like this one as I managed to use a lot of different patterns.

Butterfly Dreams

Another Zentangle that I'm pretty happy with. I'm actually not sure if it is correct to call something that has a definite form (i.e. butterfly) and that has been coloured in, a Zentangle. I've seen some people doing it so thought I'd give it a go. It was fun. I drew the butterfly first, filled it in with patterns and then added the rest of the patterns to the page. I decided to try some colour but didn't want it to be bright or overly noticeable. I used Mont Marte Pastel Pencils to colour it in. These pencils are wonderful as you get the all the effects of soft pastels in the form of a pencil. I also used blending sticks and a kneadable eraser. These pencils are a bit like hard chalk in the form of a normal pencil. You just need to colour in a bit here and a bit there and then use a blending stick to drag the colour where you want it. Of course there are other ways you can use the pencils (i.e. you can colour in with them just like you would use a normal pencil although you will find bits of coloured dust will get all over your page) but for colouring in very small areas I find that just adding a little colour and using a blending stick works great.

Portal to the Edge of the Universe
(OR Portal to the Centre of the Universe ... I haven't decided which one to call it yet ... like it really matters LOL)

My Thought of the Day

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Toilet paper wet embossing technique

2010-05-23T06:08:00.000+08:00

Make your own embossed paper embellishments

Seriously, this is such a cool technique and it's cheap and fun. I've only tried it the once but will definitely be using this technique often.

You will need some toilet paper (or you can use tissues or kitchen towel), a rubber stamp (or something that is patterned with fairly deep impressions), water and a piece of cloth.

Separate the toilet paper into single sheets. You can use as many as you want. I decided to use kitchen towel and think I used three sheets.

Wet each sheet thoroughly. It's a good idea to completely immerse each sheet in a bowl of water. Lift the toilet paper out of the water and lay it upon the upward facing stamp or patterned object you are going to use. Repeat with as many sheets of toilet paper as you want. The great thing about this technique is that it's cheap so you can play around with it until you figure out how many sheets is best for you and it won't cost you a fortune to do so.

Use a piece of cloth, kitchen towel or even your fingers and press the toilet paper into the stamp, making sure it goes into all the crevices etc. I used an Italian script stamp and love the way it turned out. Stamps with deep, bold patterns would probably work the best but play around and see what works for you.

Now carefully lift the toilet paper from the stamp and lay it on a towel or piece of paper to dry. Before removing the toilet paper from the stamp I tore the excess paper from the edges as I wanted a raggedy edge.

Once dry, if you want to colour it I would recommend chalks. Paint will just re-wet the paper and you will probably lose the embossed image. I made two of these and used both light and dark brown chalks on one of them, ending up with a lovely antique look. I would have scanned it but it's disappeared. Don't ask me how that happens but occasionally things tend to just up and leave my scraproom and I have a feeling that my cat Moxie has something to do with it.

Once it's completely dry it's not as delicate as you may imagine and I think it would stand up easily being added to a card or scrapbook page.

NOTE - You could try getting creative and using different colours of toilet paper and placing thin fibres or pieces of string between the layers. Glitter would be interesting. You could also try dripping some watercolour or acrylic paint betweent the layers.

My Thought of the Day

All art requires courage.

~ Anne Tucker ~

2010 Art Journal - Zentangles

2010-05-23T04:28:00.001+08:00

Here's my latest 2010 Art Journal page. Considering the fact that over the last three months I have become totally addicted to drawing Zentangles, I thought I should devote a page to them.

(Click the picture for a larger image.)

My Thought of the Day

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

~ Pablo Picasso ~

Zentangles - Bookmarks

2010-05-21T19:43:00.000+08:00

Brian asked me to make him a zentangle bookmark with just a hint of colour. This is what I came up with. I quite like the look of using just one colour as it doesn't overpower the design but does add a little something to it. He's not into tassels so I'll just be laminating this one. Click pictures for larger, detailed images.

When Jade saw this zentangle she asked if she could have it as a bookmark. I'm going to laminate it and then add an eyelet and some fibres or tassels.

My Thought of the Day

I Wonder what would happen if you stuck The Mad Hatter in a room with Edward Scissorhands and Jack Sparrow?

DVD's and ramblings

2010-05-20T17:05:00.000+08:00

It's been a while between posts. We've had a few things going on and I've had a few things on my mind. Things seem to be starting to sort themselves out now though so I thought it was time for a little post to let my friends know I'm still alive and kicking and my blog is still active. These are just my ramblings ... merely stuff that I don't want to forget and probably nothing of interest to anyone but me. I'm not typing in the order that things have happened, just in the order that they flow out of my mind.

Avatar

Well, what can I say? We finally saw it and yes, it was good. I can't help but think I was expecting a little too much though. I had heard that it was pretty close to the Pocahontas story and what I'd heard was spot on. I want to watch this movie again in a few months as I'm sure I'll get so much more out of it then. There won't be any expectations and I can just sit back, enjoy it and take it all in.

New DVD's

For Mother's day, Jade ordered me a copy of True Blood, Season 2. Well it finally came in and she gave it to me yesterday. I can't wait to watch it. It's a series that Brian likes as well so we can watch it together. And, to make things even better, it was a special edition that came with a t-shirt (yes, I'm a total dork) :)

While they were picking up True Blood, Brian noticed that Deep Space 9 was on special for a very good price. He had bought me season 1 a while back so he picked up season 2 for me. Boy oh boy, was I thrilled (further confirmation of my dorkdom). We don't get each other gifts very often, basically because we just can't afford it, but the stars were aligned and he was in the right place at the right time and so now I have a heap of DVD's to watch :) To be sure, life is grand!

Fluff Friends

This is my favourite to play online. It's more than a game to those involved though. It's a place where friends get together and keep in touch. Well the powers that be decided to completely change the user interface and there are a lot of very unhappy fluffers around (yes we call ourselves fluffers, aren't we cool ha ha). They have been frantically working to fix things and make the interface a little more use friendly but it still doesn't look or work the way it did before. Why do corporations love to try and fix things that aren't broken and refuse to change the things that are. Baffling...

Jade and Brian

As always, Jade is making us very proud. She has some fairly bad health problems but continues to strive on. She is seeing a doctor regularly and having tests etc. and they are trying to find out more about her problems. I won't say any more but just wanted my daughter to know that we think she is awesome. She's doing really well with her Psychology course at Uni too.

Brian and Jade got togehter with Brian's side of the family a couple of weeks ago and they had a lovely time. My brother-in-law gave us an amazing surprise and it meant so much to us.

Brian's health isn't good at all. Each day I watch as he seems to get worse. I wish I had more to say. I wish I had answers. For now I shall just keep praying and leave things in God's hands. He has always helped us in the past and I know he will help us now.

Artsy Stuff

I must get some scanning done. I've been Zentangling quite a lot and I've also got a new art journal page done. I still haven't scrapbooked in ages but it will come back with time.

Well, that's about it. Exciting? Not! But it's my life and it's all I have so I shall smile and be thankful for the little things. I'll be back to blogging (practically daily) just as soon as I get my scans done.

My Thought of the Day

Nobody is normal because everyone is crazy, but if everyone is crazy then we are all normal. Ah never mind...there is no normal.

Zentangles - yes I'm still at it

2010-04-22T00:32:00.001+08:00

I'm still having fun with my Zentangles. Here are a few more that I've done. Mum bought me five black gel pens today as I've already gone through two of them. She loves looking at them so I think that's why she made sure I had enough pens to keep me going LOL

I needed to add some white to the "pipe" in the top left hand corner so used a white gel pen. For some reason it scanned light blue but it's white in real life.

Three smaller Zentangles (click for larger image)

My Thought of the Day

Learn to master the moment of decision and you will live

a life uncommon

~ LDW ~

My Own Idea Books

2010-04-21T23:48:00.002+08:00

I really do have close to a hundred idea books and journals (and dare I say it, I may even have more.) I go through them so fast, always jotting down ideas, sticking pictures I find into books etc. I love my idea books and journals and often flick through them and use some of the ideas I've either found or come up with myself. It's fun to see how much my ideas have changed over the years. I have different books for different things, some of the categories being

Clippings
Sketches for layouts
Ideas for scrapbook pages
Poems and Quotes I like
Doodles
Diaries (for jotting down quick notes to help with my journaling later on)

The list is way longer than this but you get the idea.

I thought I'd share some pictures of just a few of the ways I use my books. Maybe it will inspire you to keep idea books and journals yourself. I hope it does :)

Journals and Idea Books

A tiny sampling of some of my idea books and journals. I occasionally used lined journals but on the whole I prefer Windsor and Newton Visual Diaries. They have black covers and the paper is acid free. If I'm bored and feel like doing something artsy but low key, I'll cover a visual diary :)

Covered Idea Journal

This is a Windsor and Newton Visual Diary that I covered and stamped with Making Memories foam stamps and black acrylic paint. The words Create and Art are also stamped.

Covered Hand Lettering Idea Book

I love to come up with different styles of lettering. It's been a hobby of mine for years. I use this journal to come up with titles for scrapbook pages, art journals etc. When I write the words I'll do it in an artsy sort of way and I find that I often refer to my lettering books to see different ways of writing words for titles.

Poetry Book

This is a smaller Windsor and Newton visual diary. I usually use A5 journals but this is one size smaller. I collaged the front in a vintage style as it holds poems I come across that touch my heart or have special meaning to me. The vintage style just seemed appropriate.

Idea Book - Shabby Chic

I usually used lined school books for these sort of idea books. I cut out pictures that I like and glue them inside the book. This particular book holds things that have a shabby chic style to them. I'm a huge lover of this style.

Idea Book - Patterns and Colours

This book is the same as the one above but it holds pictures that show bright patterns and colours.

Idea Book - Colours, Patterns and Advertising

One of my favourite things to do is to find a nice advertisement or a display picture from a catalogue, cut it out and put it in these books. After all, companies pay so much money for these adverts so why not take advantage of the colours and patterns that are used in the advertising. I particularly like bedding as they usually use solid and patterned materials that work so well together.

Idea Books - Writing

Yep, I even collect pictures of nice writing LOL I love grungy t-shirts and the way they have writing all over them along with patterns. You can get some great ideas this way. Also look for company/shop names, product names etc. Don't copy and use anything as that's illegal but try and get ideas from them. Most of these things go unnoticed until you start looking for them and then it's amazing at how many different things you find. Heavy metal magazines have awesome titles to their articles. Fashion magazines are great as you can gather so many ideas from the logos and names of perfumes, make-up and fashion brands and catalogues are my favourite way of getting ideas.

Idea Journal - How To Do Things

I often come across things that I know I'll never remember how to reproduce so I usually make a quick sketch and take some notes. Although, it may look like it from these photos, I don't always use a separate journal for each type of thing I've mentioned. I'm not that organised! I do however try and be a little organised as there is nothing worse than trying to find something you know you have but need to thumb through tens of books to find it.

More from my How To Do Things Journal

Lettering/Word - Ideas for Cards

Some Ideas for Christmas cards. This is from my hand lettering book

Just more ideas

The next two pictures are from a couple of my very first scrapbooking idea books. They contain a mixture of scrapbook page and cover ideas, types of scrapbooks I can make and quotes. I seem to remember getting a scrapbooking book from the library and finding a lot of ideas in it so I made some sketches in my own idea books.

My Stamps

I know so many people who own thousands of stamps. I have a rather small amount compared to that :) Most of my stamps are either foam ones (and the picture of each stamp is on the box I keep them in) or I have mounted rubber stamps where the picture is on the wood. Then there are my unmounted rubber and acrylic stamps. It's not always easy to remember what I have so I use this book to stamp the images. On the facing page is the information about the stamp. This book really comes in handy when I'm looking for the perfect stamp to use in a project I'm working on.

And that my friends, is it for now. I hope this has been of some help to you and you have got a little bit of inspiration from it.

My Thought of the Day

Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures

Heritage Layouts - Various

2010-04-15T20:14:00.001+08:00

A few heritage style layout.

This is about a french exchange student who stayed with us when my brother, sister and myself were just little kids Click the layout to read the journaling.

My mum and two of her sisters. From left, Peggy, Mum, Annette. Annette and Peggy have both passed away now. I get such a lump in my throat looking at this photo.

I used brown and cream floral material on this layout along with a handmade tag.

Mum and her sister, Annette

Lace and flowers just seemed to suit them :)

Mum standing outside her childhood home in Ireland

Two Mother's Day Cards

2010-04-15T19:31:00.000+08:00

With Mother's day just around the corner I thought I'd share a couple of cards with you.

This is actually one of my favourite cards. Mum loved it when I gave it to her.

I chalked around the title box with brown chalks. The word treasure and the mother and child picture are from the Collections Range (love their products) and the papers are from 7gypsies, Anna Griffin, and K&Co. It's actually a super simple card. I placed strips of patterned paper onto the background and put the title, picture and word on top. Easy!

I made this card quite a few years ago. It was around the time I started using embossing inks and a heating gun and I went a bit crazy embossing everything in sight.

Pink roses are vellum paper which I attached to the background using copper brads. I tore some script paper and added it to the other corner. I tore some cardstock into a square, inked up the edges with clear embossing ink and covered it with copper embossing powder. I continued heating till it became bumpy (which is the look I was going for.) I then tore a slightly smaller piece of clear vellum, wrote the word "Mum" on it and attached it to the embossed cardstock using a brad in one corner and some pearl beads in the other corner. I folded the edges inwards to give it some dimension and then I used some foam tape to attach the title square to the the background. It's hard to tell from the picture but it does sit up from the page a little bit.

Thought of the Day

All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.

~Walt Disney~

Clear embossing ink and chalk technique - handmade card

2010-04-12T02:01:00.002+08:00

HANDMADE STAMPED CARD

Here's a little technique that I love to do. All you need is a clear embossing ink pad (I like Versamark) or a clear embossing pen, some chalks and something to apply the chalks with. You can use stamps with the pad or hand draw your images with the embossing pen.

Stamp or draw your image onto some cardstock. I find that white works best and then, using a cotton wool ball, dip it into your chalk, blow off any excess chalk and dab it onto your inked design. You can swipe it across the ink too but do it very lightly.

I like to use Craft-T chalks but any artist chalks will work just fine.

Below is a page from my Junque Journal. I taped off a rectangle using masking tape, dabbed my Versamark ink pad onto the rectangle, making sure I covered it completely with ink and then started swiping chalks across the ink. Personally I love the look of it and it actually looks much better in real life. This would be a great technique to colour in the background of tags too.

Play around with how lightly or darkly you use a particular colour as variations look good.

NOTE - If you want to make sure the chalks don't lift off the page or smudge onto another page, you need to burnish it into the paper. To do this, place a piece of scrap paper over the chalked area and rub very hard. This will push the chalk into the page.

Give it a go, it's easy, fun and looks great :)

My Thought of the Day

You're never too old to play with chalks

Zentangles

2010-04-10T07:28:00.000+08:00

I've become a Zentangle maniac. I love making them and love the sense of peace I get while creating each one. I have scanned quite a lot of them but will spare you all and just upload a few for now. Click for larger pictures.

This is about a 6 inch square and goes right to the edge of the cardstock

Another 6 inch square piece of cardstock but the zentangle doesn't go right to the edge.

6 inch square of paper. I tried shading parts with a pencil. I must do that more often as I like the way it looks

Three small zentangles. Each is about 2.5 inches.

Layouts - Making layouts about yourself

2010-04-10T05:47:00.001+08:00

I don't have many photos of myself and apart from my journals, I don't have a lot of layouts about myself either. So now and then I make a layout that's all about me. Nothing big, nothing fancy, just an easy layout about what I've done on a particular day or my favourite colour etc. I'll share a few of them with you.

I find that when I'm out of inspiration, these sorts of layouts are a good way to fill in the time until you feel like scrapping photos again. You and your children will find them interesting in years to come and the best thing is that you don't need to put a lot of thought into them. You don't need a photo (though of course it would be great if you do use one) and you can simply write about something easy, for instance the things that made you smile today.

I'm not sure if I've posted these on my old blog but it's an interesting topic for scrapbookers so I'm going to post it here.

Another big thing that a lot of scrapbookers get involved in is something called a BOM or Book of Me. You devote an entire album to yourself and there are many places online where you can find questions to answer in your BOM (everything from where you were born, your parents, memories, jobs you've had etc.). Just do a search for "Book of Me" or "Book of Me subjects" and I'm sure you'll find a heap of things that will help you. As always, click images for a larger picture.

TAG

The tag above was something Brian asked me to make him when he worked. He wanted a picure of me to put on the corkboard next to his desk so I made him this and he loved it :)

100 THINGS ABOUT ME

These layouts were all the rage a few years ago. You write down a hundred things about yourself including things you like/love etc. You could do such a layout every few years as I'm sure a lot of things change. After I made this one, Jade made a page about herself and I just treasure it. It's so much fun to read what she wrote back then and see how different she is today.

THINGS THAT MADE ME HAPPY TODAY - 27 JAN 2007

A FEW THINGS THAT MADE ME SMILE TODAY - 12 DEC 2005

A LAYOUT ABOUT MY FAVOURITE COLOUR - GREEN

THE BLUE CREW DESIGN TEAM AT SCRAPJAZZ

GIFTS AND A HANDMADE ALBUM I RECEIVED WHEN I RETIRED FROM THE BLUE CREW DESIGN TEAM

I always smile when I look at all the things my friends sent me and I love to look through the handmade book they made and the messages they wrote to me in it.

TEN THINGS THAT JADE AND BRIAN LOVE ABOUT LYNN

This layout was done quite a few years ago and it's nice to look back on. I simply asked Brian and Jade to write down ten things they loved about me and I printed them out. Easy layout!

As you can see, there's not a lot of work or embellishments put into these layouts yet they are precious to me. If you're a scrapper who doesn't take much time to make layouts about yourself, do give this a go. Your family will love looking back and seeing the person you were.

My Thought of the Day

If I am not me who else will I be?

A couple of great, fun sites

2010-04-09T05:46:00.001+08:00

It's been a while since I blogged. My mum lost her sister a couple of weeks ago and I just haven't felt like blogging however now I do :) I see that a few of my friends have updated their blogs and I'll be by to read your posts in the next day or two.

I was bored a while back so I did a search for the best sites on the Internet as well as the top 100 and top 10 sites. Well, I have found something that is highly addictive and AWESOME! It's an online game which I'd class as a logic/puzzler/riddle type of game and believe me when I say it's pretty HARD. About 80% of the time Brian plays it with me and it has sure made us do a lot of thinking.

FIRST SITE - NOTPRON

It's called NOTPRON and it is supposed to be "the hardest riddle on the Internet." So far, I would have to agree LOL

Here's the link - http://www.deathball.net/notpron/

We have been playing it for around 9 days (I think?) and are only up to level 21. At the start I promised myself that I wouldn't cheat and I'm proud to say that I have only cheated on one level and that was level 18. After finding out the answer I doubt I would have ever gotten the answer without cheating. I spent two days on that one and got nowhere LOL I hope I don't have to cheat again but if I can't solve a riddle in 2 or 3 days I guess I may have to.

There's a great forum where you can get hints but there are no spoilers. It's the official NOTPRON forum and the guy who invented the game moderates it.
The link is - http://notpron.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=527
I've gathered that there are heaps of levels. Levels 1 - 82, then levels 0 to minus 44 and then another 14 levels so I guess I'm still a baby at this game.

I do urge you to give it a go. You may tear your hair out at times and want to throw your computer through the window but when you solve a level it's such a great feeling.

If you do decide to play, please don't ask me for hints, advice or answers. If you really want them you can find them by searching Google. I don't regret the one cheat I did otherwise I wouldn't have been able to move on but having said that I really love trying to get through games and puzzles on my own steam. The forum should be able to help you out with hints if you need them and I'm sure there must be other places that give hints but no spoilers. You just need to search for them.

Good luck if you do play. Feel free to comment and let me know how you are going with the game and if you are enjoying it. I love to play it with Brian as it helps to have two minds trying to solve the riddles. Why not get your friends together and try and solve it that way?

SECOND SITE - FAILBOOK

Jade told me about this site a couple of days ago and I had a look at it yesterday. It's funny. The site is called Failbook and basically it finds the funniest posts and statuses from Facebook and puts them on the site. You can then discuss them at your leisure. Some of the posts had me laughing so much.
The link is http://failbook.com/ There are links to other funny things like "look-a-likes" etc. but I haven't ventured there as yet.

I'll be going through the top sites again sometime soon and will post any really good and fun sites I find. If you have found a really great site feel free to post a comment and leave me a link and I'll check it out. If I love it I'll put a link to it on my blog. But please don't use this for promoting your own site (unless it really is a fun site ha ha.) I'm not looking for art or scrapbooking sites as I have lots of those but rather sites that are a bit different, fun and interesting. (Oh, and no dirty sites, I'm sure people can find those themselves ha ha).

My Thought of the Day

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell,

a hell of heaven."
~ John Milton ~

Rest in Peace

2010-04-09T04:20:00.000+08:00

Rest in Peace Aunt Peggy

My aunt Peggy who has been fighting a battle with cancer, passed away on Sunday, March 28, 2010. She was an amazing woman who battled much illness over the past years. I have heard nothing but good things said about this amazing woman and she will be missed by so many. Our heartfelt condolences to Peggy's immediate family, her brother and sisters, her extended family and to all her friends.

My mum didn't take Peggy's death very well. We were all so worried about her. She has lost three other family members in the last two years. Her sister Annette died on February 21, 2008, Annette's husband Dick died three months later on May 11, 2008 and her brother Geoffrey died on August 2, 2009. Mum was still grieving over their deaths and then Peggy died. It hit her so hard. For a week we really didn't know what was going to happen to mum and then she started pulling herself together, thank God. Everyone in Ireland kept in contact with mum and I have no doubt that this is what helped her the most.

Thank you so much to all my family who kept phoning mum and keeping her updated on what was happening. I know it was so hard for her to be so far away from you all but your calls helped very much.

I hope and pray that you are all coping. When mum visits us we usually end up having a chat about my Dad, Brian's mum, Annette, Dick, Geoffrey and Peggy, and all those we love who have passed away. Sometimes we remember the funny things and sometimes the sad but most importantly, we do remember and we always will...

My Thought of the Day

As long as we remember them, our loved ones will always remain alive in our hearts and our thoughts.

Doodles

2010-03-29T03:59:00.002+08:00

I'm feeling very sad because my aunt hasn't got very long left to live. I kind of feel lost. It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep and need to do something so I thought I'd upload some doodles I've drawn lately.
I try to spend only a few seconds to a minute on most of them. They are not supposed to be good, I do them to get some sort of creativity flowing and this is a great way to do that. While browsing the Internet I have found that lots of people do doodles and post them so if it's something that interests you, do a Google search.

Click any of the three sets for a larger image.

My Thought of the Day

Please say a prayer for my Aunt Peggy and all my family. Thank you