Daily Journaling Week 48

I'm following the prompts of the original Documented Life 2014. Week 48 : depict gratitude in a creative way And from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE : 
Prompt: To create an abstract piece
Technique: To apply the colour wheel and freedom!
I have just had a wonderful creative weekend away with a friend (see my last post). It made me think about all the things I am grateful for : 
My friendships, and that I live within half an hour of the beach

for roses - their colour and their perfume

for the gift of creativity, for my gorgeous family, for sunshine and the coming Summer holidays and for online community sharing like this Life Documented project ♥ I decided to use that list to depict gratitude in a creative way in my abstract spread. Here's how that happened. 

Gorgeous hot colour sprayed freely through stencils (apply the colour wheel and freedom). I am grateful for the love of my family and friends : 

I am grateful for roses - I love the depth of colour of this (below) and part of the quote from my weekend where we saw abundant roses and enjoyed their fragrance in the sunshine

I am grateful for the beach, and for sunshine and the coming Summer 

I am grateful for the gift of creativity and the inspiration of the Documented Life project over the years and the supportive online community - the butterfly is a recurring symbol in my art. I am grateful for my artistic growth.

I know I have a few elements that are not strictly "abstract" but the finished spread makes me very happy. 

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE. See you in December!

Summer Loving

I ♥ Summer - I'm a New Zealand blogger and know many of my followers are living the opposite season. It's very hard to believe that some of you are thinking about staying in from the cold and your nights are getting longer... 

My boys & I had our first swim after school yesterday - we are lucky to have a pool at our house and it reached over 28 degrees celsius yesterday (82.4 Fahrenheit) so we were in = Bliss. 
I have just had my ideal weekend away staying with a friend at her Mum & Dad's in Otaki. So relaxing before tackling the busy of the next few weeks. We began Saturday with a visit to Trinity Farm - highly recommended. It's the perfect time of year to see all the roses in bloom, and she has some lovely beds of flowers and some sweet garden features as well. Here are some of my favourite shots (click on any photo to see it larger)

Can't wait to include some of these beautiful blooms in projects inspired by Tam's class which starts this weekend ♥♥♥

So excited - you can still register on early bird pricing until Dec 1st HERE.
Then we had lovely creative time spread over both Saturday and Sunday

I'll share more about these projects when they are finished and gifted. It was such a lovely relaxing time. These perfect 'found words' were in a large print book.

We had a few breaks from our creative play with a lovely evening outing to the movies - this was sad but beautiful - loved it

and beach walks are my favourite place to recharge. First photo 8am  - perfect way to start the day with hardly anyone else in sight

I hope you are giving yourself plenty of quality self-care as we head into the silly season. Share with you again soon.

Projects for December!

By this time next week, December will be here! Have you got time for some creative projects now? If you can squeeze something into the end of the year, I highly recommend some kind of December Daily project. I've done a couple in the past : see my posts about my Stitched Paper Journal HERE

my December Daily from 2013 HERE

and from 2009 HERE

Susannah Conway has just released her FREE December reflections prompts. They would be fun to use for a December Daily. 

Find the daily prompts (a list of things to photograph and ponder) HERE. She is currently working on her annual FREE offerings by email : "Unravel Your Year workbook" and "Find your Word" - sign up to her email list to get these as soon as they're released HERE. 
If you decide on a word for 2018, Ali Edwards releases her One Little Word course sign-ups in December.
I'll be making Bookmarks for my librarians again this year - see how I made them last year HERE

and every year I make Christmas cards : 2016 are HERE

Online at Balzer Designs : #CARVEDDECEMBER2017 is coming. 

See all Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's  stamp carving posts HERE. 
I had decided I don't need to sign up for any more new classes BUT.....Tam has just released this : 

It's gorgeous faces, it's flowers, it's luscious inks and sprays, it starts Dec 1st and a class is released every week through to mid-January = my Summer holidays when I always have a huge burst of time and creativity = I already have the supplies, it's 7 full lessons + 3 bonus time-lapse and I know the quality of Tam's teaching - videos - PDFs means this will be great value for the money, it's on early bird pricing until Dec 1st....can you tell I am about to push the registration button HERE?! It's not technically registering for a new class in 2018 ♥
And from previous years, still available and FREE : 
Alisa Burke's Holiday Play HERE.

and Five Golden Letterings with Joanne Sharp HERE.

If you need other inspiration, scroll through ALL of my blog posts about Christmas HERE. 

We have just finished supporting our eldest son through his big exams for the year. Next up are our school break-ups and various night celebrations. I am so lucky that my work year finishes 15th December and I am looking forward to long hot Summer hols. Almost time to make Merry ♥

Daily Journaling Week 47

I'm following the prompts of the original Documented Life 2014. Week 47 : add a map of your town or country And from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE : 
Prompt: A doodle week in colour incorporating a tip in and tag.

Technique: Use any pens of your choice

Straight away I loved the idea of adding a map, so I began with that before thinking of what next....I have a really cool old book of NZ maps and I'm feeling the need to create a face this week so purposely positioned the Palmerston North (my home town), and on the opposite page chose a map that had pretty colours - part of that page had a chart that was very cool in its patterning, so that went on as well

I added a layer of clear gesso so that I could start my face with coloured pencils and then move to pens. I did my face very quickly using polychromos colouring pencils and a blending stump. 

LOVE her and decided I'm not touching her again....Now to consider how to tackle my other page and thought I'd treat it completely separately and go with pen fun. Started by laying down colour with lovely Tombows blended with water. 

Then time to doodle - I mostly used my moonlight pens for this since they are so bright and gorgeous. I'm dreaming of Summer SHINE ♥ 

Doodles inspired by what's on the paper collage and my own loopy lettering

So ended up with 2 separate pages to meet the challenges this week.

Happy with life and my creative energy....only 5 weeks of challenges for this year to go! You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE.

Pretty Decorated Jars

Recently I did a post thinking about what to sign up for in 2018 and came to the conclusion that I have signed up for sooooo many things in the past that I haven't finished (or sometimes started!) that I don't need to add much new to my list for next year. One idea I like is to have 2 Inspiration Jars which I can dip into when I can't decide which project to do next. One will be a jar that is fabric and fibre focused (including quilts, embroidery, mixed media fabric art, bags) and the other which is paint and paper focused (art journaling, canvas, lettering, wood, book making, cards). I bought 2 cheap apothecary-style food storage jars from The Warehouse - with a wide neck so I can get my hand in easily.

Then I wrapped them with suitable materials so they won't need labels. I used some of my Great Grandmother's lace for the fabric and fibre jar

The leaf pattern looks quite modern to me. And for the paint and paper jar I used a piece of tracing paper with alcohol ink pattern from a play day last year. 

It still has a lovely transparent look on the jar. I just used double-sided tape to attach everything. These are a fun idea for an easy present - decorate your jar and fill it with lovely baked goodies or special ribbons/washi tapes/crafty goods. 

Glass jars like these could also hold a candle. 

My pretty project jars are sitting on the shelf above my computer to inspire me to create instead of sit looking at others' creations! 

And if that idea doesn't work, they can be gifted or used for crafty storage ♥ 

Hope this post inspires you to go and create something this weekend.