My 7th Bloggiversary

I started blogging in 2010 and here I still am 7 years later with post #893. I love the connection with creative soul-mates, the learning, the sharing, the record of my creative journey. One of the reasons I keep blogging is to share my process to hopefully encourage others to get ideas or inspiration to make creativity central to their lives and well-being. The other day I got such a lovely email that confirmed this is happening ♥ "I'm a newbie at art journaling. My journaling gave me an outlet to express my sadness but also appreciate my blessings.I'm not a very good artist in the mainstream view, but I love it. Your blog really encouraged me to at least try, and many ideas to implement in my journal. I can't speak for others, but I want you to know that your effort is highly appreciated by someone you don't know." This touches my heart.
The look of my blog has changed a little bit over time. This is a screenshot of my Blog header from 2012 :

And I updated it with new photos for 2016 :

I hadn't intended to change anything this year, but at the end of last month, my blog suddenly had a big icon hovering in the background from Photo Bucket. I was mystified since I couldn't remember ever having joined them, but eventually realised it came from my blog background above of the purple swirls. If you visit regularly you may have noticed that I sat with plain white surrounds for a couple of weeks. Luckily it's been school holidays and it's given me time to have a bit of a sort out. I updated the background, and while there decided to revisit the layout so now we have the list of labels on the left and there's more white space. I love the Tapa surround pattern and with the new template I decided to streamline my header as well : 

Hope you like the new look. I thought it might be fun to look back at my favourite projects from the first 6 months of my blogging journey :
Paris Book - gifted to a friend. Fabric cover, stitched papers

Lutradur Gift Box 

Hearts and Butterflies handmade cards

First experiments using sprays and stencils! - now one of my favourite and most used techniques

Stitched treasure box 

Fairy slippers made for my Grandmother's 100th birthday (Feb 2011 but had to add them here)

I also gave my first talk about mixed media fibre art in 2010 - little did I know that I'd end up teaching from this first foray ♥
Each year I've done a post where I look back on all my projects from that 12 months - click on the year to see those : 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
In case you're new here, I thought I'd also share my favourite projects so far this year. It's obvious that art journaling plays a much larger role in my creative life now and I'm doing 3 main journal projects this year. 
Life Documented is my Daily Journaling project. I loved decorating my cover.

I ♥ Book of Days - hard to pick a favourite art page - this might be it

or this

Or....See all my work from this class HERE. 
My word of the year is SHINE - read my post about choosing my word HERE. This is my Vision Board from Ali Edwards' monthly prompts :  

See all my work from the One Little Word class HERE. It was definitely my time to shine in June when I turned 50!

I have just had my lovely sewing machine serviced and am looking forward to more stitchy projects in the second half of this year.

I've already completed a quilt : Disappearing 9 Patch

and just started a new one that is a long-term project!

See my previous post about this hydrangea quilt. You know I'll be blogging about my progress - I hope you'll continue to follow me on my creative journey here or through my FB artist page. Talk to you again soon.