Fun Flowers

Another fun creative jumpstart came from Catherine Matthews-Scanlon. She showed 3 different techniques for working in your journal and you can see the examples she created here.
I had a go at the first where you blend a variety of watercolours and then see what you can see. Here's the start with my initial flowers drawn in.

And here's my completed page. 

I'm too much about colour to shade out the background with gesso as she did, and I like my resulting page. The colour details were added using my inktense and graphitint watercolour pencils. The Jumpstarts are great to inspire and see where you can take them.
See Catherine's Jumpstart from 2012 here on vimeo.

7 more sleeps!

Only 1 more week of the holidays to go and the boys will be back at school. We've had a lovely break together, but are all ready to be back to normal routines. 

Thought I would show you a few more background techniques from Creative Jumpstarts. They're not very exciting in themselves, but one of the ways I use my blog is to capture my experiments and techniques for future reference.
These are all by Natalie Kalbach. Check out this Youtube video of her demonstrating some other brayer and acrylic paint techniques.

Acrylic Brayered Background that was the beginning of the above page

Layer 1 Paint  speckle effect

Layer 2 - you can see some of the pink and original gesso peeking through

She also demonstrated Gesso on a transparency - you can cut the resulting page into shapes for embellishments too. Here's my transparency pieces laid on the orange page so you can see the effect. 

And then I actually made a page on the orange background, capturing our summer holidays.

 I trimmed the circles above to be triangles and they become the bunting.

Fabric Fun

I've been missing fabric and stitch, so was thrilled to have a couple of ideas from Creative Jumpstarts that work on fabric.
The first comes from Christine Delgadillo who showed how to make a transfer to fabric and clay using an acrylic sealer. Here's her blogpost with pictures of projects she made from the demonstrated jumpstart. I decided to have a go on fabric with Crystal Kote Fixative....my photocopies were quite old, but still worked fine!

Then thought about adding some colour. I used inktense pencils. 

I've been watching all the stencil and spray inspiration with great enthusiasm, and when I saw this post by Jane LaFazio it reminded me I could try the techniques on fabric too.

I used starburst sprays - Golden Rose of Texas and Delphinium Turquoise. 

And here's a new piece on pelmet vilene that  I've done with sprays and stencils. It will probably become a book cover.

The leaves were stencilled using pebeo setacolor paint, overlaid with the gold glitter finish, and I liked that so much I added the glittery heart too.

Letter Cutouts and Bands

When I had my blog break last October, I didn't know what to do with these backgrounds.

Solved when I got back to my Letter Love lessons recently - I've really been spinning this class out...first post was in Feb last year! She has a new class starting this Feb which I'm pretty sure I'll be taking too. These are the resulting pages from another 2 lessons.
Lesson 21 : Letter Cutouts

Lesson 22 : Colour Bands

Having fun....hope you are too

Can't resist

Lots of the Creative JumpStarts this year use stencils and/or sprays. I LOVE this since they are 2 of my favourite art supplies.
Louise Nelson demonstrated a really cool idea for a crackle effect with modeling paste. Since I don't have a crackle stamp, this is my take on the technique. Click on the picture to see the detail properly.

Modeling paste impressed with stamps

This is how it looks with sprays added - some of them were starburst sprays which give a wonderful shimmer.

Nathalie Kalbach (the organiser of the Jumpstarts) has demonstrated several techniques with different mediums.
This is a foam stamp combined with a stencil

Like the idea, although not enthralled with this initial trial. But I do like the completed page.

And thanks to her, I actually CAN resist ;-) ....this is gel medium through a stencil

and here's what happens when you spray and rub over the top. 

A very successful trial I must say.

More stencilling and washi tape

Having fun with the Creative Jump Starts. They are quick wee ideas that I can manage to achieve in brief moments snatched during the school holidays. I also love how I've got something out of every demonstration video, even if I don't want to copy the whole project.

Heidi Swapp used masks and sprays on her own scrapbook paper background. I liked the effect of having text showing instead of starting with a blank page so glued down some background paper before I started.

Stencils again, and a bit of stamping this time.

The tag was an idea from Sharon Lakkonen - covering it in washi tape. I had an old tag to recycle and I really like the result.

Similar tag to recycle on the left. Covered with washi tape on the right.

Sharon also made a tag using glass bead gel through a stencil. I don't have that product, but I do have modeling paste ::

Brushed over the raised areas with chalks to good effect. More play to share soon.

First Jump Starts for 2013

Are you doing this too?

This year they are sharing "3 Ways to...." help you jump-start your creativity in 2013.
First technique :: double-sided tape and embossing powder with Natalie Kalbach, the organiser of JumpStart. Cool for borders or journaling lines - you can see some of it used on the book covers in this post (scroll down to the book covers). And this is my experiment 

Journal page before

Journal page with embossed tape lines added

I used Tim Holtz distress embossing powders so they're not shiney (apart from the Ranger silver) :: milled lavender, weathered wood, and antique linen. Click on the picture to see the effect properly.

Second up was Julie Fei Fan Balzer - cool stencil techniques using distress ink pads, spray inks, and acrylic paints. 

First layer - distress ink pad

Layers of distress ink pad (border + butterflies),
spray ink (flowers) and acrylic paint (film strip + journal lines)

Cleaning off the stencils makes the beginnings of another background

Completed page : my resolutions for the year

This was a good reminder Jump Start for me. If you are a beginner, take Julie's FREE Stencil 101 class. Great even if you have some experience - I picked up some useful tips. 
This page is the first in a sweet journal made for me by a creative friend.

The shoes and dancing match well with creatively jumping :-)
Have a happy weekend

Word for 2013

My word for this year is COMPLETION. I've had a word other years and although I sometimes lose sight of it towards the end of the year, I do find it a helpful way to start. 
My main creative focuses for this year are going to be STITCH (quilts and mixed media fibre art) and HANDMADE BOOKS AND JOURNALING. I love mixing paper, fabric and stitch, so if I can make some projects combining those things together I'll be in my happy place.
As well as the new classes from yesterday, I already have a number of classes which I would like to continue exploring (see my workshop headings on my sidebar) and some incomplete projects which I would love to see finished.
I read about Hanna's idea of #365 in 2013 and was almost tempted until sanity reigned moments later! I then toyed with the idea of "52 things" - 1 creative thing a week for 2013..then I realised that if I just complete all the pages in this journal, that will be 52 things on its own!

I've already done 2 more pages and we've only had 2 weeks of the year so far so I'm on track ;-)

Before journalling

This is my Plan :: Most of the things I listed in my last post were paper focused. To make sure I get some stitchy things done as well, I have decided to focus on a different media each week. I will rank my 'to do' list and focus on one project at a time for a whole week. Hopefully I will see some real progress, and even some completion of things. 
Will be practising micro-movements each week as well as trying to stay off the computer and focus on creating when I get the chance.
So this is how it will go each month:: 
Weeks 1 & 3 : Books and Journals
Weeks 2 & 4 : Stitch or Quilt
Week 5 : an occasional bonus week so focusing on the project I most want to complete
I still intend to have Workshop Thursdays - most Thursdays I will put other things aside and devote the hours of 10-2.30pm to a particular project or playday. Other days will be whatever time I can snatch around other commitments.
All this to start properly in February - the boys start back at school on Monday 4th.Working on Creative Jumpstarts when I can until then.
Wish me luck for COMPLETION.....

Classes anyone??

January is wonderful for summer holiday fun, but frustrating for me. I get an overload of wonderful creative ideas from others starting new projects and announcing new classes, and little time to create myself with boys on holiday until February.
There IS time to plan, however, and I thought I would share the classes I am thinking about for the year : 
January :: creative jumpstarts

- loving watching these lessons and have tried a few techniques which I'll share in later posts.
Thinking about whether to join Joanne Sharpe for a new letter love class in February

LETTER LOVE-201 New class preview! from joanne sharpe on Vimeo.
30 Days of Lists - starts in March - registration from Mon 4th Feb
I really enjoyed the book I made last year

and I'm thinking I could use this one for 2013.

I want to investigate 21 secrets from Dirty Footprints Studio 

- it starts April and has some awesome tutors

Saturday 4th May is our annual Quilt Tote & Gloat show. I would love to get some quilts finished to show, and I may be able to take a machine quilting class with our speaker Cindy Needham
Last year I also did a Strathmore Online workshop with Traci Bautista. This year in September Jane LaFazio & Joanne Sharpe are taking Artful Cardmaking Techniques. Loved Joanne's original Letter Love class and always admire Jane's work so this is a definite for me.
And I so enjoy Mary Ann Moss's classes I am hoping I will have time to take her Stencilry AND Stitched and Stenciled Classes available as a package for US$40. Mmmm - looking at my other months highlighted this might be good for my birthday in June :-)
Of course I already have a number of classes which I would like to continue exploring and some incomplete projects which I would love to see finished. 
Will share in my next post how I plan to get everything done!!

Baby Quilt

While on holiday I delivered a quilt to another baby who has been welcomed to the family. My niece loves the combination of black, white & green so I made a quilt in those colours.

Wanted a simple design to showcase the fabrics. Found the pattern for this on the Oh,Fransson blog.

Love the freshness of it...and the birdy fabric to back it was perfect - it's an old Valori Wells design.

Welcome to our world Hunter.