Happy Easter

Hope you have a lovely Easter weekend. I'm taking a blogging break for a couple of weeks while I spend our school holidays with my boys. See you sometime in May

Watercolour Calendar Journaling

You get a whole spread from the journal for the last 2 weeks because it took me a while to get going. Felt a bit blah and only managed Monday last week, and 3 days later I'd only managed this thanks to my gelli plate play that you saw HERE. 

Then I reminded myself that I'm working in my watercolour journal and started playing with laying down watercolours, pen work and adding a cut-out of the flax flowers made on Friday at school. 

And just like that the page came together.

We got lots of rain this past weekend, so began Monday of this week adding some grey watercolour and splatters....and then the sun came out again on Tuesday :-)

The gelli print that wasn't inspiring me was transformed with some pen work, and I added another line of stitching to the edge of the page that was also highlighted with a little pen treatment.

In the end I didn't have a lot of time to spend on the page this week, but my colourful pens make me happy and my backgrounds will remind me of our very changeable weather this week

And here's a quick pic of the entire spread.

You can see all my calendar journal pages in my flickr set HERE.

Inspirations for your week

Things in progress, but nothing to share except these flax flowers I made last week.

Really enjoyed trying something new. Here are some lovely bloggy links for you to inspire the middle of your week : 
Ingrid Dijkers has sparked ideas for my art journaling with her doodled ransom-style lettering 
LOVE this storybook gown constructed out of recycled children's golden books

Check out the process photos of this HERE on Facebook

and I am now following the Facebook postings of the Embroiderers' Guild of Victoria 
I am in love with every stitched piece I see by Gentlework

Check out the amazing artistry of Irene Hardwicke Olivieri

"Beloved and Bewildered" by Irene Hardwicke Olivieri

and I just can't get enough of the doodles of Hello Angel

"Big Bunny" by Hello Angel

Now, go and do something creative....

Combining plates...I'm not in the kitchen!

Recently I got a great deal on this set of 6 rubbing plates.

I didn't actually buy them to do rubbings, although I hope I'll get to that eventually.

I wanted them to use for printing with my gelli plate. 

When I was watching Creative Jumpstarts at the beginning of the year, Louise Nelson did some very cool videos showing gelli plate printing just using white paint. I have a black-paged journal that needed some base pattern on some pages. 
I brayered white paint onto my gelli plate and pressed down with a rubbing plate to make the pattern impression. First I printed the wet paint left on the plate to a couple of pages

I got 2 prints because of the size of my rubbing plate relative to the size of the page

I then proceeded to print several pages from the gelli plate

Used paper mask to get a nice clear journal space

Paper removed = second print

I applied more pattern, but not more paint

Then kept lifting prints until the plate was clear

This was 3 pulls from the edges of the plate

A couple more plays with white paint

then I wanted to see what metallic paints would look like on the black

Bronze print from rubbing plate

2 pulls from different parts of gelli plate

Gold print from rubbing plate

Gold print from gelli plate

Combination of second pulls from rubbing plate and different area of gelli plate

Silver

And lastly cream 

Masked to create a frame

Mask removed, second pull

Fun times :-) If you're new to my blog, click on the label GELLI PLATE PRINTING, below, and you'll see all of my Gelli experiments.

As an aside, I feel like I'm always saying "I got a great deal" when I show you a new purchase this year. I am being truthful, and it's all because of my year of being thrifty. If it's not a great deal, or I feel like "it" will maybe just sit in the cupboard with other supplies that I'm just not getting to use, I'm not buying.
Hope you have a fun weekend

Watercolour Calendar Journaling

A new page in the journal started with a new month. Began the page with a prompt from Alisa Burke's new online class Sketch into Spring...obviously I'm sketching into Autumn here in New Zealand :-)

And then I added some stamping with my new (very thrifty!) $2.50 stamp

Enjoying the gorgeously sunny days while they last, and notice I added a line of running stitch to the edge of the page 

Making sure I note down the best books and movies I'm reading/seeing. Because I'm working at a school library now I'm catching up on some classics

And I LOVED this feel-good movie

Here's the full spread - you can see the details of the left hand page HERE. And you can see it closer by clicking on the photo.

You can see all my calendar journal pages in my flickr set HERE.

I am still quilting...

Going to those quilt shows last month really got me enthused again about quilting. By reminding myself to get out to my studio instead of spending time on the computer and by utilising micro-movements between working and family demands, I've managed to make some quilting progress on this quilt top that was completed in September last year

I've completed quilting the background squares and have made a good start on the branches, and some of the leaves and fruit. Here are some peeks - click on the photos to see them closer up. 

Block fused before quilting

The applique pieces were fused to the background squares (as seen above) and I am attaching the applique and doing the quilting in one step. 

Using this method I am stitching through all 3 layers at once so you see ALL the stitching on the back of the back of the quilt

I'll show you the quilt when it's finished...not predicting how long that will take me though! Hope you have a happy and creative week.