Fun Free Stuff for January

Happy New Year or New Year's Eve to those in the northern hemisphere! I said I wouldn't be posting here again until mid-month, but I just wanted to share some awesome inspiration which will be useful for me to find all in one place. These are all cool things for you to explore this year. Some are January-focused but could easily be done later. 

Caylee Grey of Get Messy has a Release & Return workbook. This was shared through her newsletter so make sure you do that too - sign up at the bottom of this page. 

Focusing on your creativity, reflect on 2023, release that which no longer serves you, and return to your true self as you prepare for 2024. Make a plan for bringing things into your life that your heart wants. This was in my pre-Christmas December review post but I didn't manage to do this in December. Thought I might print and take it on holiday with me.

In the past I've also done Susannah Conway's "Unravel your year" and "Find your word" offerings. Grab the link to get these sent to your email HERE. 

Rae Missigman has released a new stencil line and her tutorials on how to make these gorgeous tags might get you creative for an afternoon. 

See her video on YouTube and stills from that on the Stencil Girl Blog. I'm not buying new stencils, but I will be trying her techniques out on tags. Even if you're not into the floral work, I recommend watching her video for ideas of how to use the gelli plate. She is a wonderful teacher.

Erin Bishop of E B Mixed Media has released a class that is called Fabulous Florals. Free for a limited time HERE (no ideas when the limited time ends). Make beautiful floral fodder and stash for future projects. 

You might also like to check her demos out on Youtube and I am always inspired by her Instagram account.

Also shared previously but useful to have gathered in this post : Junk Journal January. This is a collaboration and hosted by megjournals in collaboration with Get Messy (from above)

This is the same concept as when I did Junk Journal July last year. Each day throughout the month, watch a new video from 30 different creators on YouTube. Some fabulous artists to watch. 

Thousands of artists also participate in The 100 Day project every year. 

It's happening again in 2024 - starts Feb 18, and Roben-Marie has shared her intentions and a free workbook and tracker for 2024 HERE - her 8th year of doing this!

It always seems a bit overwhelming to me, but you could maybe try working on a small substrate like a tag or mini-journal - you could start with the Junk Journal January prompts. I've also seen people complete this as a weekly challenge - be fun to make a master sheet on the weekend and then use that for the week ahead...So many possibilities.

Note to self : You can do ANYTHING, but you can't do EVERYTHING!

Wishing you a happy and creative year ahead. 

My JIYA Journal

I bought Megan Quinlan's class Journal into Your Art in October last year and it re-inspired my monthly journal practice in November and December. 

See her video on Youtube about this class here. I had decided not to continue with a monthly journal practice in 2023, but I've been missing documenting and writing to support good self-care. My experiences in those last 2 monthly journals last year were trying out ideas on file folder bases. This time I've made a proper JIYA journal sticking more closely to the lesson plan. 

I am so excited to have started working in this journal. 

Megan provides some formulas so that you can create pages with enjoyment and freedom instead of wondering how to start. 

It's also a really freeing experience because she gives us permission to jump around in the journal instead of going from first page to last and I can just do the next thing I want to do and not have to finish a page until I feel moved to. I love this punched circle giving a glimpse into the page beyond.

I'm including focal images cut from old calendars and magazines 

and want to include more faces and female forms in my work so I've been thinking about how I've done that previously and I'm linking here to the relevant blog posts for my future reference : using magazine collage, silhouettes of figures and faces, 

magazine makeovers inspired by Alisa Burke, using image transfers, making paper dolls, 

and using stencils. With gifted Christmas money I treated myself to these stencils by Leaca Young. 

I figured since I had to pay international postage I might as well make it worth my while. Not sure how long they will take to arrive from Alaska but I'm very excited for when they do! She has a cool technique where she uses her face stencils on the gelli plate and that also got me thinking about using the gelli plate to transfer magazine images. I'm sure this will be one of those journals where more ideas come as I work into it so I'll share more progress in my monthly reviews. 

Bookmarks

I work at a private school in Palmerston North, part-time librarian and part-time administration support. As part of my library role we have student librarians who help throughout the year. Since 2015 I've been making bookmarks for them all as a thank you. Every year it's VERY busy at this time, and every year I think it's important enough to create for my special helpers. These are my process photos and what they received this morning

Spray inks through stencils over an original stencil on watercolour paper from several years ago. Look really different once you cut them apart, curve the top edges and punch the hole

I thought I would have to add more but once I put the ribbon on, they are really cool. 

And I purchased a custom-made stamp for the back 

Especially lovely to hear some of them say they still have their bookmark from last year 💙 Check out my other postings about bookmarks from previous years here. 

New cards and fodder school with Laura Dame

I watched a gelli printing technique with alcohol ink markers with Kate Crane and it gave such lovely ethereal print results I thought they would be perfect for my next lot of card bases. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work! Then I used isopropyl alcohol to do some cleaning up on the stencils and the plates and this is my pile that 'didn't work'. There really aren't any failures using a gelli plate!

Our instructor for Fodder school in May was Laura Dame. Lots more fun with stencils and gelli printing - I learn something new from every teacher we have. It was especially great to be reminded to get out my spray paint cans again and have fun creating patterning with stencils over papers that weren't finished or didn't feel right for whatever reason. I worked over some of the papers above and a few others.

These are some of my favourites

That last one was on some uninspiring scrapbook paper. Everything is fair game.

Dig into Laura's YouTube channel for free instruction and a taste of her teaching style including using coffee and paynes grey on book pages and using coffee, stencils and watercolours to make collage papers. I have yet to try these but don't Laura's look delicious? 

I needed to make some more cards and decided that some of the lovely sprayed backgrounds above would be just perfect. 

All with some fodder school focals added and I have a few spares that can have words added as the occasion arises. A pink background was also perfect for my Journal 52 Week 22 prompt.

I am really enjoying my new Pink monthly journal for June. I shared the cover here. 

Tagged, Sewn, Connected workshop

I am not going to enrol in more classes this year UNLESS they are by teachers I adore, are attractively priced and I can see they will feed my creative soul. Enter Tagged, Sewn, Connected with Kristi Nazzaro (Soul Positive) and Kristin Peterson (Altered States Studio).

I love found words, tags, mixing fabric and paper with stitch...this workshop ticks all my boxes and it's so nice to support artists I love. I purchased this course as soon as it was available and watched all the videos, but it's taken until now to have time to make my own version. 

I am trying to use what I have without spending money if I can help it. I could have purchased a packet of shipping tags at the recommended size for around $11, but instead I went to our $1-$2-$3 shop and purchased an A5 Board pad for $4.50. It has 25 sheets of white card (tag weight). I printed onto some of them with Kristen's technique using alcohol inks and then tried this technique from Tiffany Goff Smith using isopropyl alcohol to get the ink off and get more prints. 

Make sure you are working in a very well-ventilated space but I'm loving that all of this is from one pass of adding alcohol to stencils on an A4 size gelli plate. I cut them into large and small tags and felt excited by how cool they look. 

I cut a few more from leftovers in my stash so I can create a book just using this colour theme and then I started playing with what I'd use for the pockets and dug through my stash of sari ribbon and I'm in love with how I can get beautiful variety

These are the large tags with their pockets

Small tags for inside the pockets. I'm sure you can spot some of my collage fodder making an appearance. Especially happy with how my handwriting on clear tape appears here.

And then it was time to join them together to make an accordian book.

I'm sure you'll enjoy this class. It's so reasonably priced at US$22 - you can get it here.