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 ♥

Daily Journaling Week 51

Almost finished with prompts from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE : 
Theme:  Festive
Prompt:  To add 'Sparkle' to your page in whatever way you desire!
Technique:  Use paints and other supplies to make your page “sparkle”
Yay - sparkles!! I decided to do random ink blotting to see what came up for me

And because I've been doing a few faces lately, I saw stars and a face! 

I used this site to generate my ransom note style lettering. While others are considering a new word for 2018, I have decided to continue to embrace SHINE and carry it with me into 2018. 

I added stencil detail to the background (with metallic paints). I had this cute wee label given to me with one of my work gifts - it had extra glitter on it for shine as well ♥

I added sparkle to my pages with the tag, metallic paint, metallic pen, white pen and glitter paint

I thought I'd finished and would just accept that not every page leaves me 100% happy but as I looked at this photo, I realised that the stencil behind her shoulder wants to be a wing....and I feel like she needs a halo as well - so here's my finished spread with angel - and now I LOVE her : 

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE. 
Merry Merry - wishing you joy and love and shine for the coming week. I'll talk to you again after Christmas ♥

Daily Journaling Week 50

This week the prompts on the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE were: 

Prompt: Baby, it's cold outside

Technique: Use some thread (or fabric)

Anything but cold at my house, but thought I could do something with collaged papers layered with fabric and thread to give a bit of a December Daily flavour. I'm so busy both at work and socially I thought I'd create space for some more traditional daily journaling again to start my spread this week

Then I did a simple background on the facing page and worked on a piece of cardstock.

Used gold staples for the heart

and a variety of collage, stencils, tape and thread/stitch elements

Although I vowed to keep it simple and missed that mark (!) I like how it turned out

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE.

Daily Journaling Week 49

Almost at the end of this project. This week I've done a different take on the prompt from the blog for Life Documented 2017 HERE : 
Prompt: Make an envelope or envelopes
Technique: Print on them, gelli them, collage them, paint them 
and combined it with a response to a lesson by Effy Wild. 
Rather than make an envelope, I've made use of an envelope! I am always looking for ways to include more stitch in my work, so decided to stitch some small leaves with my machine - I have gone over the lines twice and tried out a couple of different designs.

Then I roughly tore around them. This is fairly easy to do since the stitching perforates the paper. The enclosed leaves worked much better than the swirls.

Effy had a tutorial recently about using photos to focus on what feeds your Soul to get you through her Northern Hemisphere Winter, or my Long Hot Summer. She started with a black background and used black and white photos. If you've seen my spreads in this journal lately, you'll know I'm all about colour!  I wanted to start with a base colour with enough depth to add gold highlights later, and to complement the colours in my photographs. Summer holidays are on their way - my boys have finished school this week and I only have another 5 days to go. Can't wait! 

I need the following to make my Summer holidays perfect : Water - drink lots of it, swim in it, walk beside it to recharge

Holidays means I have time to create - and I make sure I do that A LOT

Connection - I love to share my creativity with you here on the blog and in my various class FB groups

I want to have lots of outings with both friends and family - dinners, barbecues, wine, just hanging out together

but alone time is also important to me 

In my previous post, I shared links for finding a Word of the Year. I don't think I'm done with SHINE yet - all of these things enable me to do that

I am really happy with my completed spread. The lesson was a fun reflection on what makes me happy in Summer ♥

You can see all my posts about this project HERE and my Flickr album HERE.