January Review

Had lovely long school holidays but I'm back at school now and the challenge is to continue with a mostly-daily creative practice...I started January with the Artsy Marathon Meetup which I shared here and then made a couple of envelopes later which were inspired by Leaca Young

and then I moved straight into Junk Journal January 2025. The YouTube collaboration playlist for that challenge remains up here - you could use it for any month of the year. My accordian book started by looking like this.

When I completed the first side of the accordian half-way through the month I posted here. 

Here's the other side.

These are some of my favourite pages from the second half of the month, because I was able to play and learn some new techniques. 

Prompt 16 : Unfold. YouTube instructions here (see also how I made the faux aged yellow tape below)

Prompt 26: Movement - a waterfall card effect. YouTube instructions here.

Prompt 28 : Sealed - made a vellum envelope and then my own seal from embossing powder and a heat gun - lucky me already had a stamp that looked like a seal. YouTube instructions here.

And now the completed journal looks like this. 

And here's a flip through on YouTube: 

I loved Megan Quinlan's JIYA journal class and shared my first finished one here. While I love it, by the end I'd pretty much moved away from her concept which is to create journal spreads ready for writing so I decided I should try again. I thought it would be a bit more junk style, but when I was thinking about colour schemes I thought I'd like to go lemon yellow and apricot and do it the same as the original lessons so I have space to write. 

I find yellow quite a hard colour to work with but when I took the photos, the background paper looked lavender so when I made the cover I added purple as well and now I have a colour scheme I'm very excited about. I chose Yellow because it seemed great for a journal started in Summer and I was actively seeking something to get me away from my usual Paua/Turquoise scheme.

It is a little smaller than my first journal and the spreads measure 26.5 x 19cm (10.5 x 7.5 inches). I was surprised to read in the instructions that Megan’s are only 10 x 6.5 inches. I did some gatherings of collage imagery and stencils in those colours, and then realised that the point is to have a colour story as the base and then explore combinations of colours to see what looks great with them.

Here are some pages prepped ready for me to write on 

And here are some so you can see them after writing - nothing fancy - just a record of my life for me to look back on.

This is now my written daily-ish journal which will hopefully last/be used up by Autumn when I would like to make another.

I was very lucky that my Aunty gifted me this bracelet recently because she said every time she wore it she thought of me - these words often appear in my work. I hope I can use these in a special project this year.

Fav free online inspiration this month :  I found a YouTube explaining how to make my own aged vintage tape with transparent tape and alcohol inks. How did I not think of this myself?! I loved this video because she keeps the process very simple and uses Adirondack Butterscotch on wide tape. I had that colour and a couple of others to try which may be a bit bright, but you never know til you have a go. 

and I added it in my junk journal. This is the butterscotch colour and it looks great with these vintage papers

Looking ahead to February : You may have read about my idea for Creating a Book a Month with the Mini Marks '23 and '24 courses here. I numbered the projects and then used a Random number generator and I'm excited to say that my February book is going to be inspired by Autumn Moon's Circle Journal (sorry you can no longer sign up for this class)

I wanted you know that The 100 Day Project is starting again this year on February 23rd. Roben-Marie Smith has participated in this project since 2017 - check out her projects here. She is so enthusiastic about getting others involved (she's not affiliated with The 100 Day Project, just loves doing it and want to encourage others to as well) that she has created a workbook and tracker to help you stay organized, motivated, and inspired every step of the way. 

Read all about it here - you can order a free online digital version. Let me know if you're going to have a go. I think I have enough on my plate but many get involved in this as a way to help them to stay motivated to create daily-ish. It doesn't have to be more than committing to 5 or 10  minutes a day. 

I was reminded recently to share my method to create a little and often with micro-movements which I share here. This is the summary : you use every 5-15 minutes you have to do just one step towards a creative project - gather your materials, arrange your work space, thread your machine, add a layer of paint, add a layer of collage, find the mask/stencil, add another layer of paint, cut out found words....The effect of the micro-movements idea is 2-fold. Firstly, 5 minutes here and there can quickly build to 1/2-1 hour in a day, which is 7 hours in a week....Secondly, if I feel in a bit of a creative slump, I can trick myself by saying "I'll only do this for 5 minutes" - often after that 5 minutes, I'm sucked in :-) Once you light the flame, it's going. 

It you want to see what creating and calling it done in 5 minutes looks like, The Ugly Art Club host a 5 minute challenge a couple of times a year. Read about their most recent one here and you can be motivated by their demonstrations by using this playlist on YouTube.

Have a fabulous February. I post more regularly on my Instagram and Facebook Artist's page.

March review

To be honest, I've been struggling this month. I have been feeling flat, tired and unmotivated. It's a combination of living with regular migraines and sadness that we are heading towards winter with less daylight hours to play. As always - this monthly review post is a great reminder that I am still being creative, and have lots to look forward to in April. 

I had thought that the #100 day project was just too much for me but then I thought of trying #100daysofstamps and I was inspired...for a few days! I've let go of this idea, but as you look through this post you'll see I've had stamps on my mind. I managed to create a little collage fodder with commercial stamps

and I had a lovely creative weekend with a friend 

where I was able to finally have a play with our fodder school lessons from last month with Lucie Duclos

Fodder school in March has been with Jane Chipp. I've made a start and will share more detail in another post when I've done a bit more.

I've been working a little in my JIYA Journal. I used some of my own stamps to do this page 

And I did this page too 

No supplies purchased this month, but I would like to add lettering with more confidence to this journal so I signed up to Wendy Solganik's Love your (imperfect) letters class when she offered a 3 day special. I like to support artists I love and Wendy's classes are life-time access and always packed with information.

I've made progress on my stitched "Down the garden path" roll. I'm keeping up with the fortnightly prompts and loving how this is evolving. This month our prompts were Pots of Flowers and Garden Creatures or Visitors. Another use of stamps : since it's a New Zealand garden I stitched over stamped images of a fantail and a bee

I've seen this free online event come up again for its sixth year: 

The initial release of workshops was from March 20 - April 1, with 2 new sessions released each day. After that you can able to watch all the sessions until April 20th. More information about the artists involved and sign up HERE.

Our first lot of school holidays start from Easter and I am looking forward to finding more motivation and creative time. I see there are less visitors to my blog and I think many people use the quick instagram fix now. You can find me there and on Facebook with more regular updates but I will continue to blog my main projects and a monthly review because it's a nice record for me.  I hope you are finding time and enthusiasm for creativity where you are. 

Free inspirations for February

A few Free art inspirations available this month. Laura Horn has created a 5 day free challenge HERE. 

While the challenge ends on the 14 Feb, you will have access to the content until the 2 March 2021.

And in case you missed enrolling first time around, The Painted Paper Project is available again HERE. 

Shared again for Valentine's Day, this Kindness Project, with the simple message of SPREAD JOY, has thousands of creatives making “heart bundles” to share with others. Featuring a number of artists, the doors are open to new sign-ups for a limited time.

And if you're looking for an extra challenge to make art every day, you can still join the 100 Day Project. It seems very daunting to me with an already packed schedule but Roben-Marie Smith shares her tips and tricks HERE if you're keen. She's doing #100daysofswatchesmyway. Check out her Instagram feed here to see them

I'm actually tempted to try joining a couple of my fav instagrammers for #100daysofcollagefodder. It was Wendy from Willa Wanders who had this idea - check out her stories on her Instagram. Follow her College Fodder account HERE or her Willa account for highlights.

You can find Megan Whisner-Quinlan HERE and more specifically #megsfodder2021

I am tempted by this as a way to follow-up and expansion on my Stitched Elements for art journals which I shared in July last year. 

I'll let you know if I join in....