January Monthly Review

January is always project heavy because I'm on holidays from my school job and I can work late into the night with long daylight hours. I am now back at school and it's been a particularly fabulous summer holiday break. I completed so many projects, you can catch up on my part one review post about cards HERE! 

We started the new year with a week away in Akaroa and Christchurch. So blessed to live in this gorgeous country and so hard to pick highlights so I will just share the artistic ones. The Giant's House in Akaroa - a garden of international significance. Created by artist Josie Martin, it's a sculpture mosaic garden. It's colourful, beautiful, quirky, inspiring - we spent a couple of hours here and this is a tiny taste. 

Christchurch had a massive earthquake in 2011, and the city has been remaking itself since that event. We went to the Earthquake museum and I was reminded of the initiative of Hearts for Christchurch. People from all over NZ and then the world created stuffed hearts and sent them to Christchurch. First they were used to create an amazing exhibition and then distributed to people affected by the quake. 

These were mine : March 2011. I even received a photo of a wee girl receiving one of the hearts when they were distributed 💜

And now to my creative joys this month. I had to stop all my other creativity from Christmas til mid-January so I could make this quilt for my sister-in-law's 60th birthday. 

See more detail about it HERE.

I spent most of January on my "Advice from the Sea" deck and starting my new weekly card project. Sorry I have to share another photo - I just adore these projects so much!

Erin Bishop of E B Mixed Media has released a class called Fabulous Florals. Free for a limited time HERE (no idea when the limited time ends but current as I do this post). 

On the last weekend of my holiday, I finally got a chance to explore her lessons and now have this beautiful floral fodder to play with. 

Such fun techniques. And even when you think they're not going to turn out, somehow the line work followed by fussy cutting makes magic. Highly recommended. You might also like to check her demos out on Youtube and I am always inspired by her Instagram account.

Looking towards February and beyond, I know I won't have as much to show you because I am back at work, but I am hoping that I might finish my journal which I started as December Daily-ish and get back to working in my JIYA Journal. There are a few reasons I am hopeful for this. I made good use of birthday money last year and now have a lovely supply of Megan Quinlan's Art Foamies - I have so many ways I need to explore these. Check out her YouTube for free ideas. 

And I was very excited to get my stencils from Leaca Young at the end of the year. I ordered them Wed 29/11 and they arrived on Thurs 21/12 in time to be a Christmas gift. Very impressive for postage from Alaska to New Zealand.  

As well as those things, Wendy Solganik is running a cohort for all those who have previously enrolled in "Love your (Imperfect) Letters". I signed up when she had a special on this class in March last year and while I did the drills and found my alphabet, I never finished all the lessons to experiment with gorgeous lettering. I managed to do some drills while on holiday 

And am hoping that I can share more work from this class soon.

Fav free inspiration this month - Roben-Marie offered a tutorial making these gorgeous neutral papers

I can't pick a favourite read this month - everything I've read in January has been great. 

And since this blog is about all of me, I'm finishing with an introduction to our 3 new family members living at our house. Meet Oscar (tabby), Obi (ginger) and Arthur (golden retriever puppy). We haven't had pets for a while and although a lot of work, they bring great joy and help us to slow down and be present 💜

You can see why I decided to split my January review in two! You won't hear from me as often now that term has started,  but I will continue to try and post here monthly and more regularly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page. 

January review : Cards

January is always project heavy because I'm on holidays from my school job and I can work late into the night with long daylight hours. Decided that I would pop in with this card review post so my general January review post tomorrow isn't so big! 

I finished my last card from the 12 backgrounds I made back in August. 

They served me well and I thought it would be fun to see all the bases and then completed cards as a collection (scroll back through this link to see my card posts with them larger)

I also had some leftover card from making the bookmarks for my librarians

Combined with floral fodder from November that gave me another 7 cards to choose from for early January birthdays.

It really pays to be creative with what you have. I had some that I had to cut smaller than I usually would, but I actually like them framed with more white showing. Always making new discoveries. 

I then wanted to try out a new background idea and recycled collage fodder from old calendars.

As is my usual practice, I created a couple of base master sheets that were then cut down and stitched to card blanks.

I also went rogue and tried one new stencil from Leaca Young.

I am well set up for the first few months of the year. When I need to make more I may experiment more with this stencil idea.

This month's tutor in Fodder School 3 was Megan Quinlan with a wonderful project of Affirmation decks. See my full post about my deck of "Advice from the Sea" HERE.

I LOVE creating art cards and that project inspired me to create my own 52 Cards 2024 challenge for the year. Read about the beginnings HERE. My own rules : I must include stitch, the colour turquoise and a word. 

I have posted details about the meanings as I share them weekly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page.
Be back tomorrow with my review of what else I've been up to in January. 

Advice from the Sea

This month's tutor in Fodder School 3 was Megan Quinlan with a wonderful project of Affirmation decks. See a wee flip through on her Instagram.  My deck is called "Advice from the Sea". I first created backgrounds and collage papers

My cards measure 6.5 x 4" because I could cut 6 of this size from each of my base pages to fit in the box I altered. I began with deciding on my quotes and printing them out so they were there for inspiration as I created my cards

I altered a recycled box using some of my collage papers. It's very handy that it has a magnetised side closure.

Back view of the box face down

Used my typewriter to type the quotes onto one of my collage papers, then I cut out and inked the edges before gluing down.

 

Backed with oceans and seas from a map book

Stitching the edges and adding a little glitter in just a few places completed my cards. 

I really love them

52 Cards 2024

In the past I have loved doing a weekly year-long project. In 2020 it was Journal 52 - I responded to prompts from Effy Wild on jumbo playing cards

In 2021 it was 52 tags - a weekly challenge with Anne Brooke

In 2022 I did a monthly journal which included responses to new journal prompts from Effy Wild. I completed the journals but only 42 weeks of the journal prompts. Still a good effort, but I miss being able to flip through the cards as they are included within the pages of the journals. 

Last year I didn't do anything weekly. I missed having a weekly creative goal, and believe I struggled to create generally because of that.
This month our Fodder School lessons are inspiration card decks with Megan Quinlan. See a wee flip through on her Instagram. It got me hankering to do another 52 cards. Last year I was gifted a large number of journaling cards - they are all from different sets, but all measure 4"x 6" (10 x 15 cm). This time I'm setting my own challenge : to create a card that reflects the past week (ending Sunday). I must include stitch, the colour turquoise and a word. 

Week 1 : 

Our Summer holiday in Akaroa and Christchurch.

Week 2 : 

I finished this quilt for my sister-in-law's birthday (the 2 fabrics on the left of the card are from the background blocks and sashing), her party was on Saturday, and on Sunday 2 new kittens moved in at our house

Each week I'll choose a card that will become the back for journaling - adding the date with thoughts/highlights/events. 

I am so excited about this and will share progress in my monthly review posts on this blog, and weekly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page.