My 2017 Ta Dah! list and Creative plans for 2018

I ♥ being creative and I try and do something every day - as I've said over and over here on my blog, it's an essential part of my self care that helps me to SHINE and I also want to encourage others to add this joy to their days. BUT remember

You can do ANYTHING, 

but you can't do EVERYTHING!

At the end of every December, I like to take a moment to celebrate and share my completed creative projects from the year. This year I'm going to reflect on these projects and where I'm headed next year as well.
Art Journaling has been a major focus for this year and will continue to be so in 2018 with a slightly different focus. I worked in 4 journals this year and filled 3 of them!

Starting from the top : 

I followed the weekly prompts from the 2014 Documented Life project together with the Life Documented 2017 Blog and FB group - see all my posts HERE and my Flickr photos of all my spreads HERE. 

Although I've loved this project and adore the look of my completed bulging journal, I'm not going to continue with a weekly challenge next year. I want more freedom to choose what I will focus on each week. If you are interested for 2018 - the FB group has been updated HERE.
This year I decided I needed a journal to focus on written responses, and Inner Work was started mid-January. My first was completed in March so in April I started my second : 

I don't share much from here because a lot of the writing is personal, but I have found it invaluable and will be continuing in 2018 - see my post about creating the new cover HERE.

In 2016, 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. I didn't finish in 2016 and this year I kept it just for my main art journal lessons from BOD. Go HERE to see every spread I've completed in this journal in 2017, and HERE for my posts about Book of Days. I didn't complete as many lessons in here as I would have liked (but given the rest of this post you'll see I've had a good reason!). This will be remedied next year since I've only signed up for Effy Wild's discounted bundle of her year-long offerings for 2018 : Book of Days and Moonshine (early bird pricing ends 31st Dec 2017)

These classes should finish filling this journal and will also contribute to how many Inner Work journals I use next year. I also hope to do a gorgeous cover to celebrate when I finally get to the end of this journal.

I have a great affinity with Effy's art and teaching style and her building of community suits me very well. See my Flickr album of art inspired by Effy's teachings HERE. 
My word for this year has been SHINE. That concept informed many pages in my Inner Work journal, and once again I participated in Ali Edwards' One Little Word class.
I celebrated our 25th Wedding anniversary and my 50th Birthday with Shine ♥
I've had a wonderful time exploring and I'm not done with it yet...I'm continuing to embrace SHINE in 2018. 

Read more about that HERE : Share, Healthy, Inner Work, Nourish, Enjoy
As well as those 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

I managed to do things with fabric this year. In April I completed my Disappearing 9 patch quilt

At the end of July my Mixed Media fabric lap top case and accessory bag were delivered to my niece - this was an aweseome project which she loved and I didn't want to give away

In August I completed my Klimt in the Garden mixed media collage box

and also made some gifts of handmade stitched paper books inspired by Stitch*Bookery with Mary Ann Moss. Book 1

Book 2 

Book 3

I finally managed to make one for me in October. I am hopeful there'll be more of these to share in 2018.

My brother's birthday was in October, and I framed some of our great grandmother's lace for him

This proved so popular in my family that my mother and Aunty received their own versions for their birthdays in December

I also taught some classes this year, including lunch time craft club at school and 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 time to make my Christmas cards

I love to see all my projects listed like this in one place and if you're a new visitor to my blog you've now got an idea of what you can expect when you visit next. I've had a creatively busy 2017 ♥ As I look towards 2018 I'll continue my art journaling as described above, and I want to include lots more stitch generally in my projects. There'll definitely be more mixed media projects and when I run short of ideas I described my concept of project jars as my inspiration in this post

What can you celebrate about your creative journey this year? AND what choices are you willing to make so you can create art in 2018?

Wishing you Creative Joy and plenty of SHINE in 2018 ♥

Daily Journaling Week 52 THE END!

For the whole of this year I've followed the prompts of the original Documented Life 2014. Week 52 : Document your family holiday tradition AND from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE : 

Prompt: Work small - create a small card or tag that can be inserted into your art journal

Technique: Use paint, markers, collage, stamps, etc. to layer – this will add depth and variety to your small piece

I collected together some cool Christmas paper and tags that that I had been gifted and want to keep, and printed off a few photos of our lovely Christmas day to finish the year. 

Our family holiday tradition is to put up our tree and decorate the living areas of our home the first weekend in December 

have presents as a family on Christmas morning

and then gather as many extended family as possible for lunch and the rest of the day. 

My colour scheme was set by my papers and I really enjoyed exploring the prompts of working small and creating layers

Paint through a small stencil, a small sticker, bits of tape, photos printed small...

layers with paper, and also with gift tags. The little star brad enables me to secure a card I want to read in the future by turning it, and reveals another lovely wee tag layered beneath

Small papers edging this stenciled area = a perfect space for words

This year it was our turn to host our extended family and it was a hot and beautiful day -  we ate delicious food at tables outside, had time in the swimming pool, and there were lots of smiles and love ♥ I found the perfect words in an old Christmas card. I know not everyone is as lucky and am full of gratitude for my lovely life.

So this is my last Life Documented 2017 spread

This is the end of this journal - and the end of this project for me. I want to have a bit more freedom next year without being tied to a weekly challenge but I'll probably miss it and especially the lovely online FB community that goes with it. It feels fantastic to see this journal finished and BULGING! 

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album with all the spreads from this journal HERE. Thanks for all your lovely support of this project and your comments here and in the FB group.
Hope you'll keep checking back in with me. Looking forward to sharing lots of new projects next year ♥

Decorating covers

This year I'm taking Effy Wild's year-long bundle of Moonshine and Book of Days 2018. My main art work will go in my altered art journal which still has a few spreads to go

I will decorate the cover when I am finished the journal. As well as that I'm going to have lots of notes in our Moonshine class which need to go in a binder, and I also need to have a new Inner Work Journal (part 3). Decided to decorate both covers together. My Inner Work journal is just an A4 notebook with a hard cover which already had some lovely butterflies on it and I am recycling an old binder. 

I decided to start with paper collage to cover some of the original binder cover, and to just apply a layer of clear gesso over the butterflies to make it easier to apply other media.

Then it was time to start applying colour - cheap but lovely coloured acrylic paints and some modeling paste through a stencil on the binder. Then I added sprays and drippage

One of the reasons I love to keep this blog is that I can look back on projects and see the steps I took. This time I referred back to the cover I made in January

and remembered how much I enjoyed using the serviettes. I liked them on the binder
with lovely Pebeo iridescent blue black 

Then it was time to add gold for shine and some Lumiere Halo Violet Gold just to tone down that pink a little ♥

I'm loving this and need to add a bit more pink around - new stencil and that Halo Violet Gold - also on the journal cover

I'm in love with the binder after this and calling it done. Click on any photo to see it larger.

Need to tone down the pink on my journal cover so adding a glaze and some iridescent turquoise through another old fav stencil

And now I'm happy that my journal cover is complete. I'm continuing to embrace SHINE as my word for 2018.

What a change from before to after!

Now I'm all set with my journals for 2018 - can't wait for the new classes to start