Happy as a pig in mud!

Hi everyone :)

Warning:  There are a LOT of photos in this post so you might want to grab a coffee LOL

Remember how I said yesterday that I wanted to get into my craft room and get creative?  Well after doing some school work this morning I decided to have some ‘me time’ and I got into my craft room and I’m as happy as a little pig in mud!

When Mum and I went to Creative Escape Downunder I was pretty thrilled with Donna Downey’s class… so many cool techniques… but for some reason my art journal just wasn’t working for me.  I wasn’t sure what it was and so it’s been sitting on my craft table looking a bit neglected… until today!

I finally figured out what wasn’t working for me and there was a super simple solution!  It turns out that what wasn’t working for me was the way the signatures were held with ribbon in my book… so I got out my book binding stuff and had a look through it and hey presto… problem solved!

Here’s my book with the original signatures taken out of it… all I had to do was undo the ribbon:

I made three sets of signatures from kraft cardstock and then used book binding thread to sew them all back into the original cover:

Now they fit really well and the whole thing opens like a ‘real book’ which really works for me.

Then I started taking apart the original pages I did with Donna and putting them into my ‘new’ art journal.

Page 1

Here’s how it looked in the original book:

I used some cool rub-ons I’ve had for ages to decorate the heart:

I decided that I quite liked Donna’s idea of ‘dating’ her work so I grabbed out a date stamp that I’ve NEVER used (it’s been in one of my drawers for years) and put the date of the class when I started the page and then today’s date since that’s when I finished it.

Page 2

The next page was one where we just painted the background using a variety of techniques.  I loved the colours so I trimmed it up and got started.

I did a whole heap of stamping… added a photo (from my One Little Word album) and punched out some circles from old dictionary paper.  I also got a bit creative with Indian Ink… love that stuff!

The quote reads: What if your FEARS and DREAMS exist in the same place. Would you still go there?

Then all I had to do was add the page to my journal… easy as pie!

Page 3

This page was even easier than the first two because it was the one page in my original journal that was pretty much finished.

All I did was trim it up… add a stamped quote and the date tags and I was done!

Here’s a close up:

Page 4

(and the final one for today!)

This page took quite a while because basically all I had was a background of texture… no paint, no gesso… nothing!

I got it into my head that I was going to paint a tree… mostly since I’d just found an owl that I’ve had stashed away for ages!

Then I dried it and decided it needed some more detail using charcoal pencil and watercolour pastels:

It was at about this point that I had a ‘hissy fit’ with myself because it wasn’t working… and when all else fails I just bring out my ink sprays and hey presto… happy!

After I dried it off I stamped an image in the centre between the two ‘tree trunks’ but the background was too dark and you couldn’t see it… no problem I just added some paint for the ‘moonlight’ LOL

The quote reads: The world of reality has it’s limits but the world of imagination is limitless.

Then I stuck the page into my book:

It has been a highly productive afternoon… and I’m really thrilled with how my art journal is taking shape.  I’ve still got a few more ‘Donna pages’ to work on before I start any new ones but it feels GOOD!

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of part of my table this afternoon… just to remind myself that this is IMPORTANT to me!  I’ve re-discovered my creativity and I’m feeling really good about it!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and I’ll catch you back here again tomorrow with my Project Life update.

Happy Saturday xx

Happy Mothers Day :)

To all the mothers out there I hope you have a wonderful day :) I know that I've got an awesome breakfast coming my way (because I've seen all the wonderful goodies that Krystal has been buying at the supermarket)... but I'll have to wait until the girls wake up LOL

While it's lovely and quiet here I thought I'd try and catch up on my blogging. I've got lots of neat things to show you today.

During the first week back at school I did another bookbinding night class. This time we made a journal with leather binding and I really LOVE it! In fact, when I got home Miss Mikayla - who generally says: That's 'nice' actually came out with: Wow that's cool... can you make me one?

Here's the book closed:

The spine is leather, the front and back covers are fabric and it has a leather tie with a paua enclosure. All the pages inside have torn edges so it gives the journal quite an old feel. The signatures are all sewn into the spine and the leather smells divine :)It's quite a fat little book! The spine is 2 inches wide - it kind of reminds me of a spell book from Harry Potter.

For the inside cover I used handmade paper because it gave such a good feel and colour to the book.

There are also inserts of handmade paper scattered randomly through the book... looks really cool when it's open.And finally the binding. The book is made using hand stitched binding... and trying to find the holes in the leather was a bit of a mission but totally worth it! I had a great time at the class and I'm planning on making a few more of these in the future :)

Moving on now... last weekend I was away teaching a Distress Ink class in Katikati (forgot to get the camera out!) and then I went to my sisters' house for the night. My wee niece (3) was really excited about me coming to see HER! When I arrived my feet were so cold that I put on my new socks... don't you just love the colour???

Miss 3 came over to me and said: "You've got 'pluppy' socks Auntie Shelley". I was a bit confused until my sister said she meant 'fluffy' LOL Then Miss 3 looks at me with big SAD eyes... flutters the eyelashes and says: "I haven't got ANY pluppy socks". Oh yes, the heart did melt!!! Was one of the cutest things ever!!! So Auntie has been shopping and bought her a pair of her own 'pluppy' socks LOL

Later on in the day Miss 3 was sitting on my knee having a cuddle and I was wearing a new top that had rhinestones on it. Miss 3 started trying to pick the rhinestones off so I said to her: "Don't pick off Auntie's bling"... and her response was LOTS of giggles followed by "You've got blingy boobies Auntie". The things kids say!!!

On the Monday Miss 3 went to her kindy and was so excited about the whole weekend that she had to tell her teachers EVERYTHING... but it all came out in a rush!!! When my sister went to pick her up they asked what had happened on the weekend and when she asked why they said: "All we can make out is that Auntie CHARLIE had pluppy socks". Talk about funny!!!

Meanwhile, getting back to Sunday, I taught a paper bag album for the Waihi Beach Young Artists group. I've never actually taught a kids scrapbooking class before... in fact I've avoided it like the plague... but I have to say that I had a REALLY good time and the kids (aged from 5 to 12) made some awesome albums!

Krystal had pre-made all the albums to save a bit of time (which turned out to be a fantastic idea!) All the kids chose their papers and my sister cut them all to size while I got on with showing the kids how to glue their papers into their albums. Then we had a 'buffet' table brimming with embellishments. We had the 'MUM' letters pre-cut in a range of colours (the theme was Mothers Day) and then they chose: buttons, ribbons, stickers, punchies, foam letters etc to decorate their books!These kids had some fabulous ideas! Lots of them made tags to go into the 'pockets' of their albums and they put a lot of thought, time and effort into what they were making. Thanks kids for an awesome morning!!!

This last week has been really stressful at school because we've just had ERO (Education Review Office) in our school. It's one thing to know that you're doing a good job and teaching the kids well, working together as a team of professionals etc... but it's quite another to have people who don't know you, the kids or the school, come in and observe everything that you're doing... including going through the kids books, your planner and assessments etc. We'll find out next week how we did but as lovely as they were it was nice to see them leave on Thursday :)

Yesterday we had our firewood arrive!!! We've had a little bit left over from last winter along with some wood from the silk tree that Mum and Richard cut down last summer... but now we've got heaps of wood stacked up in the garage. The girls gave me a hand and we managed to stack 2 metres of wood in about 20 minutes!!! It was great team work!

Last night I had a Scrapbook Dreams night class here and we made journals. At our school we have to do Reflective Diaries in relation to our teaching which is not my most favourite thing in the world... so instead of using the 1B4 I was given I decided to make my own journal with the hope that it would make me want to write in it:It's worked pretty well too because I've already filled about 5 pages!!!I was showing a couple of people at school and the next thing I know we've got a class organised so last night 3 people from school came over and they all made their own journals.

Sharon chose some My Minds Eye paper and also decided to use the 'cut off' strip as an embellishment... very clever idea!

Lavinia got into the whole paper tearing and inking theme along with some Kaiser paper:And Annette chose some Basic Grey paper for her journal. This was Annette's very first attempt at anything to do with scrapbooking and she LOVED it!She added some ribbon, stamped a wee bird and hand painted it before popping it up on foam dots and then she added some bling to highlight the pattern on the paper.

The final photo of this post has to go to poor old Tequila... he really does seem to get picked on sometimes (no wonder he has 'issues). Miss Brandy (Tequila's sister) never has anything silly happen to her!!! Tequila was just lying in front of the fire minding his own business when the girls did this to him:

I must admit that it was quite funny watching him trying to get the 'T' off his head... and even funnier when it got stuck to his paw!

Well it's been a long post and it's still very quiet here (even though it's now 9am!!!) so it might be time to get those girls up so they can wish me a Happy Mother's Day LOL... actually I better ring my own Mum first!

Happy Mother's Day everyone and I hope you have a great week!