April review

April has been a lot of time at home with school holidays. I am very lucky to work at a school so get good breaks and no longer have small children so I can be more flexible with my time. After a week of holidays, I was feeling a bit torn about my lack of finished creative projects and thought I would share some of an email I sent to a friend about this: 

I am still being creative but it seems to be a slow process and I'm not posting much completed stuff at the moment. I seem to be able to keep going with my stitched roll project - lovely to have something small and achievable each fortnight - and recently there was a special deal so I joined Wendy Solganik's Love your imperfect letters class which I am enjoying but there is a lot of ground work to do before it ends up in my journal. I am currently on school holidays so have been socialising with extended family and friends and getting some housework catch ups done (cleaning the oven, deadheading roses for final autumn flush), as well as some time for reading. All good stuff but there are only so many hours and we have to make choices. I sometimes feel despondent when I scroll on Instagram or FB and see others creating a lot. It's a tricky balance to be inspired rather than tipping the other way.

A top tip from me is to take photos of your creativity every day so that you notice that you ARE doing something and save them electronically to look back at. I have a folder on my computer where I keep a record of what I'm creating, reading and watching each month. Creating this monthly review on my blog also helps. We can be so hard on ourselves and some of the stories we tell ourselves - "I'm not being very creative" - are just not true. I've addressed this topic a few times on my blog in the past. There's a good summary of my philosophy here and I even have a link to all my posts on this topic if you want to explore more:  Finding time to create. Recently I've been re-inspired by Gretchen Rubin

Scheduling blocks of time in your day means you can make time for what matters to you. I hope you understand the dance of creative seasons and can give yourself some grace if you are not creating or finishing as much as you would like. 

I decided to use some of my holiday time to work on the altered photo project with Jane Chipp from March. See my full post about this project here. These are a couple of sneak peeks.

And I was also very lucky to have a play day with a couple of friends where we revisited some techniques from the lessons with Liz Constable in January. Still a lot to explore from her book too. 

You can still join us in Fodder School (that link will take you to both 1 and 2) plus there is going to be a Fodder School 3 and you can already register for the Free Fodder challenge 2023 event which introduces us to all the teachers in July. 

Progress on my stitched "Down the garden path" roll. This is a free youtube fortnightly prompt and demonstration. See the entire playlist HERE. One of the early prompts in January was Garden Gate. I did mine and then had to wait until I was inspired for something to go behind it. Inspired yet again by Jane Chipp's lessons, I decided to do a fabric transfer of my mum in her garden. I used a laser copy (reversed the photo) glued face down to a fabric serviette.

Left overnight so completely dry and then sprayed with a little water and gently rubbed off the paper layer leaving the image.

You need to keep letting it dry and then removing the rest of the paper gently. It will show up white once dry.  Inktense pencils, beads and stitching to finish.

April's prompts have been A Garden Seat or Bench and a Pond. I'll have to share the Pond next time since I've had a headcold for the last few days. I am very happy with my Garden bench and the extra visitor ♥ 

I hope there's lots more creative joy for all of us in May. 

Fodder School with Jane Chipp

Our March lessons for Fodder School were with Jane Chipp. As always, the lessons released at the beginning of the month are to make the fodder, and the second (released mid-month) are to use the fodder. Last month was all about altering photographs and then making an album for them. I decided to honour my lovely dad who passed away at the beginning of 2018. I managed to make a start with some of the techniques in March

I loved adding the beads to the wedding bouquets of my maternal grandmother and my mum

And this one makes me smile - added a map of the area mum and dad went on their honeymoon

This month I've thankfully had school holidays (not always thankfully for parents with small children but I work at a school so get a break ♥) and I was able to do some more photo alteration and layering techniques. I was lucky to find some writing of Dad's and once photographed and printed on some old paper it makes a nice backdrop to the tractor photo. Also thrilled that I managed to print on tissue paper through my home ink jet printer

And then I made my altered photo album. Mine has my own mixed media additions sprinkled through and I love it. The front cover is at the top of this post. This is the back cover

Inside front cover

Some of my favourite spreads

And here's a video flip through.

Jane has a book about altering photos - available to order here including PDF format. I borrowed mine from our public library.

You can still join us in Fodder School where you'll get the full experience of how to make the album.There is also going to be a Fodder School 3 and you can already register for the Free Fodder challenge 2023 event which introduces us to all the teachers in July. 

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.