Farewell

EDIT - if you've entered my blog at this post, you need to know that I started blogging again on July 9th...click on that date or "Newer Post" at the bottom of the page and read why I couldn't stop after all!
I have been blogging for almost 4 years now and have decided it's time for me to stop.
It's not a sudden decision for me. You might remember that in February I blogged about Trying to get to where I want to be. From that post :: 
BEFORE YOU PLOP DOWN IN FRONT OF THE TV OR COMPUTER - GO TO YOUR {PLACE WHERE YOU STORE YOUR CREATIVE STUFF} AND REMIND YOURSELF WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO BE DOING

This is a pretty wordy post, considering I could have just posted my first sentence, but I've loved blogging so much, I might have to come back and remind myself why I've stopped!
I spend a lot of time creating my blog (taking photographs of my creative steps, cropping them, composing the post, loading the photos, editing, adding labels, linking to other posts) – that’s all time I feel I'll be happier spending just creating.
Often I finish a smaller project to be able to get a blog post done instead of working on a larger project where my heart really is. I know that’s not what I have to do, and others don't work like that, but it’s what I've felt I needed to do to keep my blog interesting.
Given the above, at times it can be disappointing to create a post and then get no comments – I didn't start the blog to get an award or 20 comments a day, but it is nice to know when someone has called by and liked what they saw. Sometimes it's hard to blog when you don't think anyone is interested. I've moved on from feeling disappointed about no comments. Stats show that people visit regularly. When I get comments they do give me a buzz, but they are not the reason I blog.

When I started, my reasons for blogging included I want to have a diary of my art experiments/projects; a visual record of what I am watching, reading, seeing, thinking.

My daily calendar journaling practice will now take care of that need.

I've met lots of lovely people in blogland, and I will still call in occasionally and catch up on what you're doing at your online place. 
And I find it both nice, and ironic, that what I shared in my second blog post back in July 2010 Note to Self is now a really good place for me to finish ::

Journal of our South Island Holiday

Spent our autumn school holidays at the end of April touring the lower half of the South Island, and thought I would share our journey by showing you through my travel journal. We flew to Christchurch and then got a camper-van and toured for 2 weeks around the lower South Island. 

Started with a black-paged book from Trade Aid.

And now that I'm done it's chock full of goodness

You saw some of the base pages HERE when I did some gelli printing like this : 

And when we were on the road, I added pen work in the form of pattern and words about our days, and left gaps for photos to be printed once home

This past couple of weeks, I've been gradually printing out photos on photo paper in various sizes, and putting them in the journal - some as extra fold-outs. Here's some pages within my completed journal.

This next photo is the same page as above with photos flipped open.

If you clicked on the photos to see them larger, you would have seen some of the stunning scenery we enjoyed. New Zealand is such a beautiful country - click HERE if you would like to see other photos I've taken on gorgeous NZ holidays.

Back to Watercolour Calendar Journaling

Last time I showed you my calendar journal was in April before I had my bloggy school holiday break. The last page had machine stitching down the side

We returned from holiday on Friday 2nd May to a busy weekend, and then the reality of being back to school and work. On top of that I had a cold, so it wasn't until Sunday (Mothers' Day) that I was gifted some time to catch up. I started with this

My last entry in the journal (top) was that we were packed and ready to leave on Good Friday. Although I kept a travel journal while we were away (which I am working on to have finished to show you by the weekend) I felt I needed to include some of that experience in this journal. I glued in a photo that I had printed but not been able to include in my other journal, and then wrote briefly about our experience. This journal was also a good place to include some of my arty purchases

The butterfly and peacock feather are Balzer Bits - small masks (with a small price tag) that I love. I may be falling for more of these in my future! It's been nice to get back to using watercolours and distress inks and to have a white page base (my travel journal has black pages). As I've been entering photos in my travel journal I've been adding tag inserts, so used that technique here to include the labels of some stencils that I bought,

Both these Teresa Collins sets from Rubber Stamps by Montarga
- also available for online ordering

Also on the tag is my new tape, word stamps, and lovely fantail stamp (also featured on the Mothers' Day cards of my last post). 

As I moved to the adjoining page I kept adding more of my new stencils...so loving using them and when I look at this page in the future, I will remember my Christchurch shopping day. The word stencils were a great way of me covering a week in short order as I looked back from Sunday.

On Saturday I made the Mothers' Day cards, so on Sunday I decided to include the watercolour bloom technique here 

Love how this page turned out

and here's the entire spread finished. Feeling I'm back into my calendar journaling rhythm now.

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

Mothers' Day Cards

Once again inspired by Alisa Burke, I tried her very cool technique to make watercolour blooms

watercolor blooms from Alisa Burke on Vimeo.
Need to try this again because my colours didn't spread as much as I would have liked (maybe need better quality watercolour paper?) but was happy with how the page ended up once dry.

Then I cut it to make 2 pieces that would become cards, added my doodles, and my new favourite fantail stamp.

The backs

Having a happy family day with my boys, my mum & dad, and my in-laws. Hope you have a happy Mothers' Day wherever you are.

Inspired by Quilts

Last Saturday our quilt club had their annual Tote & Gloat show. Here are my favourite quilts. Click on the photo to see them in closer up detail

In awe of the quilting. Created by Erilyn McMillan



Love the colours and simplicity of this one. Created by Barbara Pritchard

Again, love the colour combo and the stitching is divine.
Another quilt created by Barbara Pritchard. 

There were 2 club challenges this year. The above 3 quilts are from the "Modern Quilt" challenge, and the the below 3 from the "2 colour" challenge.

Clever layering and lovely colour combination. Created by Sheryl Meech

I just love how the colours move in this one. Created by Liz Gates

Just love this - the curves, the quilting, the flowers.
Ellen {don't know last name} - new to our club

Click HERE if you would like to see all the prize winning quilts.
There were also quilts on show made in the last 12 months. 

Lovely painted quilt with gorgeous stitched details.
Again - don't know who to credit for this one?

Gorgeous piece of fabric used to fabulous stitched effect. Created by Dianne Southey

And these were my favourites from the Aotearoa Quilters Blue 12"x12" challenge exhibition

"Summer Holiday" by Shirley Sparks 

"Tibetan Poppy" by Kathleen Burford

"Loose End" by Sue-Ellen Saundilands

Winner of the challenge this year "Blue Girl" by Mary Transom

Our speaker was Dale Rollerson of the Thread Studio. She was very entertaining and I loved looking at her work up close afterwards.

I've been preparing a post to share our recent South Island holiday explorations so that will be up next time. Have a great weekend