Looking ahead

A few different things on my mind this week with March just around the corner:
On my current "to do" list - a couple of friends having babies in March...at least I have made a start on a small quilt

I've been working on my Calendar pages - call back on the 1st to see how my base Feb pages turned out and what's inspiring me for March

I'm going to participate in 30 days of lists this March - details of the base pages in this post - and have completed my cover in readiness

Loving my new white uni-ball signo pen. The butterflies were stamped with white acrylic paint - quite like that ghostly effect.
I'm in the process of shifting creative spaces in my house....more soon

And some inspiring blog loves  for your week::
Sea Angels - lovely images
Ros Lymer - creative textile works
Check out Anni's latest gorgeous book creation
Dylan Reavely creates beautiful sprayed and stamped pages -- check out some of her pages and products here...she was also videoed at CHA 2012 demoing a page....it's great to watch her in action and pick up some new tips for spraying and constructing pages -- enjoy
See you in March :-)

Workshop Thursday : Groovy Grid Lines

Lesson 8 of Letter Love has been fun...like every other lesson on the course :-)
This time it's another kind of handmade grid - creating your own lines out of different media to write over
My first was lines pulled across the page with Copic markers - different colours and different width markers

Then written over (again with copics) to  mix up colours and try out lettering styles

My second was with my lovely caran d'ache neocolor crayons and new water brushes.

Have to say that although I hesitated about buying these for some time, thinking I could do just as well with a brush and container of water, these earn their keep in their portability for making art whenever you may be away from home. Also a fabulous idea for kids cos they don't tip the water container over! Love having the 3 brush sizes too - good value pack.
This is the page with just the watercolour lines :

The colours made me think of summer, and since we are nearing the end of our NZ summer, I decided to capture some of the things I love about this wonderful season. Used a red zig pen, a purple copic, and one of my fav sakura glaze pens.

I highly recommend this course...you can start any time and can work at your own pace - there is a lesson posted to a class blog every day in February. Given  that I have only just finished Lesson 8 you have lots of time to join in...and I figure I am just extending the pleasure....you never want a good book end do you?!
I do have some other projects in progress which I hope to share in a few days.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone

Remembering

Wish I hadn't had to make sympathy cards, but am happy with how they turned out. Hope they will give some comfort.

Remembering Uncle Graeme

10 Nov 1927 - 13 Feb 2012

Too many titles

I could have called this post Workshop Thursday : Coptic stitch, or Creating a book a month : February or Happy Feet or 30 Days of Lists in March!
Yesterday being "Workshop Thursday", I joined with a couple of friends to have a go at Coptic binding. Coptic binding allows your pages to lie completely flat when open, and gives a lovely visible effect on the spine.

Having someone show you how makes it easy. This is my book spine - the stitching isn't perfect, but happy for my first effort

Onto my personal challenge to create a book a month. I started by joining black & white pieces of paper together with glue and stitch.

They were then folded in half and bound into the cover above.

I bound in 7 folded pages, so including the 2 inside covers I have 30 pages....

which brings me to 30 Days of Lists in March.

Looks like fun - cheap to sign up to - and looks like lots of freedom to keep the lists any way you want....From last year check out Bonita Rose, Monika Wright, Krystyn, Collage Diva and My Life as a Teacup

These black and white pages will form my base, a list per page, but I'm sure you'll see some colour from me, and some stitch, and some lettering....I will post shots of individual pages before and after list as I go. Tune in on 1st March for that.

I intend to turn my completely blank cover into something lovely too so that will hopefully appear in a post in the not too distant future.
And we'd better end with my happy feet....my latest purchase ;-)

Okay - this post could also have had the title Black & White !!

Whimsey Grid

Created by me yesterday - valentines wishes for myself :-)

Thanking Joanne Sharpe every day for her wonderful online course and inspiration

Happy Valentines Day

I'm not into the whole commercial aspect of Valentines Day...but I do love hearts

so from me

to you

Happy Valentines Day

Black & White

This weekend ::
Created some more letter love

Started stitching and gluing some papers together for a new project

Reading

I promise the next post will be in full colour ;-)

Loving Lettering

Workshop fun this week - Just completed Lesson 5 of Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love 101 - can't recommend the course highly enough...having fun, learning lots, and excited by my latest creation....wonder what I'll be able to do by the end of the course?!

Click on any picture for more detail

Initially in black and white

- in LOVE with my black PITT artist pens

Big Brush and Fine Tip

Some fav words

and plenty of room for swirls

and hearts and butterflies...and my words for 2012

I actually loved the page in black & white so you will probably see that featuring in another project soon :-)
But I did follow the lesson, and went ahead and added colour.

Joanne demoed Pan Pastels, and they looked great, but I already own these chalks.

They gave me a look I am happy with, and I don't really need to be adding to my supplies stash!

I will be doing more of this technique....
Check out some of my classmates :
Lori Bradford
Cuchy 
and Kimmer's fab pen charts
And, of course, Joanne Sharpe - the teacher :-)

Tags from the Garden Accordian Book

I shared about this book in January,

and promised I would share more about the tags.

I used a few different but quite simple techniques which I thought I would capture here for future reference.

Serviettes are an easy but pretty option -- I tend to put gel medium on the tag and then place the serviette down on top and smooth around to the back - don't worry too much about wrinkles

These were created using painted fusible - for other ideas see this post. The fusible was simply ironed onto the tag, and then I have glued on paper casts. These are some other examples of paper casts I've made on stamps, glass bowls, and indian wood blocks.

They are fun to do - I first discovered the technique from an article by Maggie Grey in a 2007 Cloth Paper scissors (still available digitally).

You use water soluble paper over stamps/wooden blocks/cast metal (this link is a simplified version of the technique) and I'm pretty sure I've had success also with toilet paper for this technique!

I also love my microwave flower press - the pansies on the left are applied with gel medium, and the one on the right was done with wax.  Have used sari ribbon stitched on tags as an embellishment and also on others as the ribbon top.

Always like to use old book pages and sheet music - these were sprayed with colour, and the tags simply made by gluing 2 pieces together and cutting the shapes after dry. Recycled postage stamps are also great fun additions

If you can find a collection of paint swatches they may be actually in a tag shape as these were...I always keep the paper doilies I spray through for future embellishment use.

Hope there's some ideas there for you to use.

Letter Love at last

Hi everyone - it's been a long weekend here in New Zealand and at last I've got caught up on the first 3 lessons of Letter Love....only trouble is, we've been away so now I'm 3 more lessons behind! Guess I will have more fun over the next few days ;-)

Front Cover

The first lesson task was to make a cover for our working examples/inspiration journal. Included some lettering papers for the collage and the lips and tape hearts seemed appropriate given the course title.

Back cover

Lesson 2 was to take all our pens and markers and start making some alphabets in different styles. This was a really useful exercise in a few different ways. Firstly, I know I need the course because it was quite difficult for me to think of ideas for different lettering!

The exercise is really useful to see how different styles of pen perform. After the 1st alphabet page, I just used the exercise to write the name of each type of pen.

This is going to be a useful reference for the future. Also I'd never looked that closely at some of my pens - who knew that on the Zig calligraphy pens you get a 5.0 and a 2.0 end, but the Zig calligraphy metallic ends are 2.0 and 3.5!
Lesson 3 was a reminder to practice and have fun playing. We needed to make a sign of Play, Pratice, Write, Repeat. I've mounted mine inside the front cover of the above book to remind me to keep going.

The rest of my long weekend was spent camping.

Bushwalking through Totara Reserve

Listening to lovely Tui and Bellbirds, and spotting lovely fat Kereru (our gorgeous native wood pigeons)

And lots of rock throwing in the river

Hope you have a good week