December Daily-ish 2021 : Week 1

On Monday I shared some December Daily free class inspirations, my gatherings, and my almost blank journal. 

I'm using the inspiration from Kasia Avery's #Care December and Michelle & Tamara's #artjournaladvent2021. Links to them in my original post HERE. I was wondering if I had totally unrealistic expectations of doing any pages, but wanted to give it a go as an act of self care and I've started! First up was to create a colour palette - Kasia has just shared a very useful blog post about how to do this easily if you've not tried it before. 

Then I decided to make my cover (in the photo above the only thing attached was the tape)

As I use various embellishments, I'll add leftover pieces either elsewhere in the journal or to my box of gatherings. It will add to continuity for the project.

AJA 1 : Here and Now. Had to include the poem by Victoria Erickson which finally inspired me to do this project. I want to try and include words from the prompts on my pages and the words are right there in the poem 💜

AJA 2 : Movement. I have helped classes at school make fabric bunting this year and bunting is festive. I made this from washi tape. Keeping it simple

AJA 3 : Glitter and Glamour. I have a lovely Christmas tree stamp which I stamped using an embossing stamp pad and then an Opal embossing powder. I love to use machine stitch in my work so attached the very sparkly ribbon with that and added a star brad to the top of the tree. I was then able to glue my background paper down. 

Here's a shot of my spreads so far accordian style. You can see I'm carrying elements across onto the following page. 

I've decided to share weekly on a Sunday through December with no promises or expectations on myself about whether you'll see seven pages or one! This coming week I may be too exhausted to do anything, but this weekend I did some work in hourly blocks broken up with rewards of short breaks for some art time. Setting a timer for both the work blocks and the art helps me focus. And it's felt better than looking at screens. Hoping you are able to fit some creative joy into your December.