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 ♥

Decorating covers

This year I'm taking Effy Wild's year-long bundle of Moonshine and Book of Days 2018. My main art work will go in my altered art journal which still has a few spreads to go

I will decorate the cover when I am finished the journal. As well as that I'm going to have lots of notes in our Moonshine class which need to go in a binder, and I also need to have a new Inner Work Journal (part 3). Decided to decorate both covers together. My Inner Work journal is just an A4 notebook with a hard cover which already had some lovely butterflies on it and I am recycling an old binder. 

I decided to start with paper collage to cover some of the original binder cover, and to just apply a layer of clear gesso over the butterflies to make it easier to apply other media.

Then it was time to start applying colour - cheap but lovely coloured acrylic paints and some modeling paste through a stencil on the binder. Then I added sprays and drippage

One of the reasons I love to keep this blog is that I can look back on projects and see the steps I took. This time I referred back to the cover I made in January

and remembered how much I enjoyed using the serviettes. I liked them on the binder
with lovely Pebeo iridescent blue black 

Then it was time to add gold for shine and some Lumiere Halo Violet Gold just to tone down that pink a little ♥

I'm loving this and need to add a bit more pink around - new stencil and that Halo Violet Gold - also on the journal cover

I'm in love with the binder after this and calling it done. Click on any photo to see it larger.

Need to tone down the pink on my journal cover so adding a glaze and some iridescent turquoise through another old fav stencil

And now I'm happy that my journal cover is complete. I'm continuing to embrace SHINE as my word for 2018.

What a change from before to after!

Now I'm all set with my journals for 2018 - can't wait for the new classes to start

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 ♥