Art Journaling Calendars

This month will mark the end of my 2nd year completing monthly Art Journaling Calendars ala the wonderfully fabulous and talented Kate Crane. 
I always split November into two parts - the first leading up to my birthday and the second from my birthday onwards. The first part marks my goodbye or ending of that year of my life and the second part is usually a hopeful look forward to the future year. Here's November 2015 part one:

The female image is a Carabelle Studios stamp, I love how she is looking up.

November is stamped onto tissue paper and Mod Podged onto the page. 

Letter stamps are Indigo Blu

The lovely star stencil is Seth Apter and I used Cosmic Shimmer texture paste

The quote is from a Walt Whitman poem "The Clear Midnight"

This quote I took from an old book of poetry I have. 

I've had a difficult year and this just summed up how I felt about certain things.

I used the blue to symbolise the night sky and saying goodnight to my 37th year.
Now onto part 2 - saying hello to 38!

I wanted to use colours for a pinky purple sunset to symbolise a new day

The large letters are an Autumn Leaves stamp set

The gorgeous female stamp is Carabelle Studios and again I love how she looks up.

The days are a Paperartsy stamp which I thoroughly enjoyed stamping and cutting out and I will be using it again - maybe cut in half?!

All pages were created with Dylusions acrylic paints then carious stamps and stencils helped to build up the backgrounds.

So I look forward (cautiously) to my 38th year - may it bring peace, joy and lots of creativity!

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Kate Crane & The Secret Swappers

Meeting people off the internet is never my favourite thing to do as I'm a shy, nervous person and feel I can be more myself on the net than in person but that didn't stop me meeting my friends the Secret Swappers who have supported me and been there for me for the past few years and I'm so glad I did because they were all lovely! And funny! I also made LOTS and LOTS of art journal pages including 5 in a class with Kate Crane, an additional bonus of the weekend at the beautiful Foxhill in Frodsham. Here's the pages I made in the Kate Crane class first of all:

And here's the pages I made in my own time:

Hogservations is a page about my youngest doggy, Henry who we have nicknamed Henhogs, shortened to Hogs. I got the silhouette in the second image from Silhouette and it looked so much like Henry that I had the idea to write some Hogservations, how Henry sees the world. I cut out his head and stuck it on a body from a magazine

Another image from Silhouette which made me think about what I would do if I wasn't afraid:

Two much darker pages in my Raw art journal. The images are from the internet/pinterest and I didn't want to do anything with them other than surround them in black and add a typed quote.

Another page from my Raw journal, this page is quite emotional as the lyrics from an Evanescence song, Snow White Queen remind me of a time when I had a breakdown as a new carer to my husband who was sectioned only months into our marriage. I printed the image on normal printer paper from an inkjet printer and used mod podge to do an image transfer, I like the way it comes out grainy as it suits the emotions I feel when I look at the page, ghost like and broken:

I LOVE this Rebecca Sinz image called Despair. I always imagined it on a darker page but I just started dabbing titan buff with paperartsy Moonlight and really liked the effect. I coloured the image in with promarkers and stamped the edges with a Tim Holtz stamp then added the typed quote

The next three pages are for an online Christy Tomlinson class I'm taking called She Had Three Hearts. A simple background created with paint dabbers, three pages the same but the first with writing outside the heart to describe the heart I share with the world, one with writing around the heart to describe the heart I share with my family and one with writing inside the heart to describe the heart I share only with myself

I was inspired by the lovely Gill and her gorgeous vintage ledger journal to journal straight into a music book I have, previously used to tear pages out of and use as backgrounds. This was one of the first page I completed at the Secret Swappers meet up and I gave myself permission to create art freely, without restrain or judgement, using a Finnabair image:

I started painting on the page opposite so I've included it here but I'm still working on this...

A page in my mini District Market Journal using Kate Crane image Angel Squared

 So I felt it was a very productive weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Yay! Roll on next year! 

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Goodbye to another year...

I've been creating monthly Calendar Art Journaling pages thanks to the amazing Kate Crane now for almost two years. I'm not always a person who sticks to things so I love that this is pure enjoyment for me. I love diaries and I love art journaling and this way I can enjoy both worlds.
Each November, the month of my birthday, I create two separate pages, one for the days prior to my birthday, and one for the days afterwards - it's my "new year" - when I say goodbye to those things I no longer want in my life and look forward to welcoming all the things I want and need.
This year I chose to use my two favourite colours to represent 36 and 37. Age 36 has been a very dark and difficult year, struggling with my own depression and ME and trying to cope with my husband's personality disorder and all the darkness and pain that can bring. I'm literally tired of struggling and so I'm saying goodbye to that with this page - in purple.

The main image at the top holds a deeply personal meaning to me, she is my struggling soul to whom I'm wishing good-night.

"November" was stamped onto old book paper with Darkroom Door stamps. The quotes are from Lisa's Altered Art on Etsy

I used Mod Podge to roughly transfer this printed image, to me it is a ghostly apparition of a lady with her back to me and it says, "softy, I end my song". This represents the ending of Song/Year 36 wrapped softly in purple velvets and put down to sleep.

And soon I will move into my 37th year. I used turquoise to represent everything about this, turquoise is my idea of freedom, soaring through the air, the ocean - alive, free and able.

The quotes say, "My art is the song my soul is singing. This is my song" - Song 37. The Stampotique figure here is a representation to me of someone not conforming to social standards of "beauty", someone being themselves and having every right to exist no matter how they look/who they are.

The metal numbers are Finnabair, the quote Capture the Magic was from a quote sheet on Etsy and the main image it sits on was a piece of scrap I had in my drawer from years ago from practising ink blending and stamping.

The gorgeous glitter is Cosmic Shimmer Texture Paste, the flowers are Prima and the metal embellishment is Finnabair again.

These pages are deeply personal to me, I don't know that anyone else will understand them, but as long as I do that's what matters :o)

Thanks for looking

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Junk Journal 3

The lovely Rebecca has set up another Junk Journal swap so here's my third attempt at creating one:
The cover was made with gelli prints, paints, texture paste, stencils etc...

Altered tag...

Scrap...

Scan of a vintage ledger:

Painted page with gold texture paste and an image that I had that seemed to match it!

Scrap... 

Dina Wakely inspired painting over scrap paper

Scanner didn't want to scan entire pages but I collaged book pages and painted randomly on watercolour paper here:

random doodling on watercolour paper...

 

it didn't want to scan this one!

piece of my favourite paperartsy paper that sadly they don't make any more :(

More paint, stamping and texture paste

more Dina Wakely inspired pages, painted over some black and white paper I had...

Scraps...

Large piece cut down into four. Created with paints, stamps, inks, sprays, stencils..

and finally - the back cover...

Can't wait to see what I get back

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