My 2016 Ta Da! List

At the end of every December, I like to take a moment to celebrate and share my completed creative projects from the year. 

Art Journaling has been a major focus this year. I began with a second-hand art book to alter and use for the Life Book 2016 projects along with Documented Life 2016 and daily journaling. I wanted to see my artful journey in one place, and also incorporate other art along the way.  This is how my art journal looks today : 

Go HERE to see every spread I've completed in 2016. I still have pages to continue the journey into 2017 and I am very happy about that. This is my latest spread for 2016 :

See my previous 2 blog posts for details of these pages.
The recent work I've been doing in classes with Effy Wild continue to inspire me to dig deeper, listen to my inner whispers, think about what I really want to do with my art : sometimes it's just to create something pretty, but I'm enjoying the self-enquiry and affirmation aspects more and more. And "doing the work" ie. creating every day, leads to more creativity. I especially enjoyed the Facing Forward II class and seeing how my faces are developing. I will definitely be completing the other 5 faces from this class and sharing them finished in 2017. The above spread shows my most recent from that class.

My word for this year has been TRANSFORM. While I didn't meet my expectations in some areas, I transformed in unexpected ways...Read all about that HERE. My word of the year informed the first page of my art journal and many more after

The above page was my first of my Life Book Projects this year. Check out my review of Life Book 2016 HERE. All my Life Book project photos are HERE.

I stayed focussed on my word with monthly prompts via Ali Edwards' One Little Word class. This was my March vision board

As well as these projects that lasted the year, I made a number of other things. In February I was back to work at school with a new diary cover.

In March I had a play day to celebrate a friend's birthday, and made these paper mache teacups

I finished my "Wild Women don't get the blues" quilt in May and won a merit ribbon for it in October!  

For my birthday play day I made crepe paper flowers : 

and made a quilt top - on the "to finish quilting" list for 2017....

My nephew and his fiance had a baby girl in August and I made them this quilt: 

In September-October I did lots in my art journal. And did my first face for Effy's Facing Forward II class

In November I taught 3 mixed media art classes - loved these. 
From Past to Present Artfully was a 2 hour class for Local history week at the public library

Mixed Media Fabric banners

Star Books

At school I took a craft club in the 4th term and made a christmas quilt - the children made felt decorations to hang on it

I've continued to make birthday cards : 

At the end of the school year my student librarians received handmade bookmarks from me as a thank you for their work

Then it was December and time to make some festive cards

and then my main batch of Christmas cards

I love to see all my projects listed like this in one place. And I'd like you to think about what you can celebrate creatively this year. How have you developed on your creative journey?

Now's the time to look ahead to 2017 : What choices are you willing to make so you can create art?

Wishing you Creative Joy in 2017

December Memory Keeping

As we end the year I decided I just had to do one last memory keeping page. December was jam packed, so not so much an artful page but it captures this last month and reminds me why I didn't get so many pages filled in my art journal ;-)

Still more pages left in this art journal to continue the journey in 2017

You can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads from the year HERE. 

FFII : Week 4

Effy's 8-week online class Facing Forward II : the things we need to hear was fabulous. I loved seeing everyone's work and I was so inspired by every piece. I watched snippets of the videos for each girl, but didn't have time until this week to work on this face which brings me to half-way through the course. Although I wish I had worked through with the others, I am happy that I delayed doing this one because I wasn't sure that I'd like to do one without facial features, but turns out she is perfect timing for looking ahead to 2017. Here's how she happened

Used lots of metallic paints/pens to add shimmer to her

And here she is done. Click on the photo to see her larger.

See all the blog posts about the faces I've created in this class HERE. See my Flickr album for all my art from Book of Days and Facing Forward II classes with Effy HERE. 
This class is open indefinitely so you can still sign up HERE.

Life Book 2016

I've enjoyed doing Life Book 2016. Even though the last piece I created was in October, I actually made more art than I did in 2015 which was my first year of this amazing year long offering. The online community is wonderfully supportive and I've connected with some special people across the miles. One of them is Zsuzsa in Great Britain. She blogs at InkyDinkyDoodle. We decided to do a wee parcel swap in December and both arrived in time for Christmas. This is what I sent her - with a taste of New Zealand in many of my choices 

In return, this was the pile of goodies I received. I am so VERY lucky.

While I LOVE everything I was sent, and it makes me smile that we have got to know each other quite well through our art, I was especially touched by the very special concertina book she made celebrating some of our Life Book projects. These are our different interpretations of the same lesson. It's wonderful to see them together.

My art is on the left, and hers on the right

Go here to see all of Zsuzsa's Life Book posts. If you've never done Life Book before, I encourage you to have a go. I have learned so much from the different teachers and grown as an artist in so many different ways. There is something on offer EVERY week - which can be daunting, but is also wonderful - there is always something new to inspire.
Here are a couple of screen shots of my Flickr album of all my Life Book 2016 projects. Click on the photos to see them larger, or click on the link to go directly to the Flickr album. See all my Life Book 2016 posts here.

Sign up for Life Book 2017 HERE and there's a 20% off coupon anyone can use this year!

Discount if you sign up before14th January 2017.  

My word for 2016 : reflecting on Transform

In January I shared my word for the year : TRANSFORM

I'm sure you know this quote "Always aim for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars". This was true for my year. I didn't meet my expectations in some areas, but I also transformed in unexpected ways...Here I review my intentions from January

Transform physically - Although I'm getting better at healthier eating and have increased my gym habit, sometimes stress has overcome my good intentions. I haven't lost heaps of weight, but despite this, I HAVE succeeded in transforming my perceptions about my body! I now feel very happy with what I see when I look in the mirror - I value what my body can do, and how I look when I get dressed. I recently saw the movie documentary Embrace and I want to continue to live like that. I've struggled a bit with the onset of menopause this year - a not so easy transformation....but I'm feeling happy with my strategies for dealing with this. I know that I am set for 2017 with good plans in place for a healthful life. 
Transform relationships - I've definitely made new connections this year and deepened some existing friendships. I'm very proud of the way I've supported my family in stressful times this year, and the extra closeness that we have as a direct result from this.

Transform creatively - I made a lot of art in 2016 that included my word and/or butterflies. See my Flickr album for my OLW art HERE.

I've made good progress in transforming an old art book into my lovely art journal and generally feel like I've made more art this year 

and I've used Effy Wild's idea of an Ultimate notebook to transform my experience of what I get out of online art classes. I've transformed some fabric into quilts, continued to blog about my art, and have loved my first forays into teaching mixed media art. I've been very proud of my progress with Faces this year and look forward to seeing how they continue to develop in 2017. I've also got a better recognition of how different times of the year present different challenges and my art productivity is cyclical - I'm kinder to myself about what I'm managing to achieve.

Transform my soul/spirit - I've continued the journey I began in 2015 of being open to meditations, talking to myself more kindly and working on transforming limiting beliefs into liberating beliefs. I've enjoyed the classes that have assisted in affirmation work through art (Particularly through many of the Life Book lessons and Effy's Facing Forward II class).

Transform our living spaces - I was more active in taking steps to get quotes and focus on some home improvements, and we now have new curtains and renovated bathroom and toilet with lovely tiling. I have a plan for what to do next....

Ali's One Little Word class has definitely helped to keep my word more present through the whole year. Although I didn't complete every month's prompt, it was still great to have her email arrive and remind me about my word every month. Register for her 2017 Class before December 31, 2016 to receive her early-bird price of US$26. After December 31st the price is US$31. 
I've got a new word for 2017. Share it here soon

Merry Merry

Wishing you and those you love a special time of love and laughter together. Travel safe xo

Christmas Cards 2016

I usually make a couple of sets of Christmas cards. You may have seen my first lot of festive cards HERE - they were mainly used for work mates, and friends I've seen personally earlier in December.
These are the cards I've mailed. I began {again} with stenciled bases

and I still had some of these from when I made my birthday cards earlier this month

I started by tearing and applying a lovely serviette in small pieces along with some lovely star printed tissue

And then finished the cards in various ways - most included metallic machine stitching to add a bit of Christmas sparkle

Here's a few closer up

I shared these tree ones in my previous post about mini gelli plates.

Only 4 more sleeps....