Monday 29 March 2010

Award

I received an award from my cyber friend Rita.  This is my first ever blogger award and I'm really thrilled.


Visit her blog and see her wonderful creations.

Here are 5 other blogs that I like to read and who deserve a 'sweet blogger' award.  So I am sharing my award with these five amazing and talented ladies and hope they will share the award with 5 other ladies and link back to me.
1.   Nancy
2.   Scrapdolly
3.   Anneliese
4.   Jill
5.   Kate 

Catching Up

I'm pleased to say that I am almost up-to-date with all my creative projects.  Although sadly, I have not even started the Shimelle 'Something from Almost Nothing'.

Over the weekend I finished my entry for my own mixed media Circle Journal on UKS and posted it on time.





My CJ is called Once Upon A Time and each entry will be based on books I remember from my childhood.

My first entry is based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.


 
Today I completed four of the six challenges on Scrapbooking from the Inside Out.  The theme this month has been Nostalgia. 


The journaling is behind the photos and is about the choices you make.  When I'd written it, I was reminded of the film 'Sliding Doors' which looks at what happens to one woman based on the decisions she makes.  I think it makes an excellent title for this layout.   If I'd thought of the title before I stuck the layout down I would have made the doors slide instead of open like a hinged door.

I also did this one of me when I was very little and in the little envelope is a letter written from me to myself as a child.  The challenge was to: Create a LO where you 'speak' to your 'little girl'. What would she need to hear to make her life easier? What do you want them to know?

I made this with some of the kit I bought from Morag and Nicki and I used one of Morag's layouts as inspiration.  Thank you girls.

I've also started making an altered book.   I bought a hardback book from one of the local charity shops:
This is it before I started altering it.

Then I tore out the photographs, quite a few of the pages and then stuck the remaining pages together in clumps.   I've started painting over the pages with gesso or acrylic paint.

This book will take some time as I have to wait while pages dry - which isn't actually very long - but I go off and do something else and forget to come back to it!!

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Getting there

If you read my March 8th entry you will see that I had lots of deadlines to work to.  Not that deadlines meant much to any ideas or inspiration I got over the last week!   So although there are dates that all these projects must be finished by, I worked in a completely random order!!

The tags on the last entry had to be sent by 26th & 27th March respectively but were posted yesterday.

I finished my entry for the Twilight Circle Journal yesterday and then packed it ready for posting before remembering that I hadn't photographed it.  Anyway, the layout was about Forks which is the town where the Twilight series is based apparently.  I say apparently because I don't have any idea what I'm talking about having never read the books or seen the films.  However there's a really good website about Forks and the surrounding area, so I was able to find some really good photos.  That needs to be posted on 26th March.

The Twilight CJ was the one with the earliest deadline but despite that I had worked first on the All My Own Photos Circle Journal which isn't due until April 12th.   This is the cover of my 6½x6½" book.  It has chipboard covers painted with Claudine Hellmuth paint and then paper stuck on. 

The book will be about all the activities surrounding my 60th birthday and I have done the first entry about the champagne breakfast Denise organised for me.

And then each person who does a double layout has to 'sign in' on one of the tags at the back.

I started working on the Mixed Media CJ using a 9"x9" Bo Bunny Bare Naked Binder which I bought from Craft Island.  This was the first online site I ever bought scrapbooking materials from!  

I painted the front cover and then inked over it with alcohol inks.  I put cloud shapes on as masks before inking but most of the clouds have been covered up!  I cut flowers and houses from some Squiggly Ink papers and glued them on with gel medium and coated the whole front cover with the gel medium to act like a varnish.   Then I stamped over the top of that.   I double heat embossed the letters before sticking them on the cover.

I haven't decided what to do on the back yet or which of the many children's books I'm going to choose to interpret as my entry.   It needs to be ready to post on March 29th so I have a little time yet.

As for Shimelle's class ~ I haven't even started.  So I'm now 4 prompts behind!  And the 5th one is due tomorrow!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Tags and bookmarks

On UKScrappers I am taking part in two swaps.  The ongoing one is a monthly tag swap where we alter 6 tags according to the month.   This month is Spring and Spring colours.








I'm also taking part in a bookmark swap. 
This had to include a quotation.
The quote I used is a Chinese Proverb: 'A book is like a garden carried in the pocket'.

Saturday 13 March 2010

Blank Canvas

On Thursday I went to Artist Trading Post for a Mixed Media Canvas Workshop.  I love going to the workshops at ATP ~ Anneliese is such a great teacher and I get to meet people I wouldn't normally meet otherwise.  ATP is at least 50 miles from home and mostly the journey isn't too bad especially once I get past Lichfield.

Anneliese gave us a a 39x30cm blank white canvas to work on.   First we used Distress Inks all over and then some Claudine Hellmuth paints.




Anneliese demonstrated various techniques that we could choose to use on our canvases.   Then it was playtime.

I stamped onto the canvas and I stamped onto tissue paper which I adhered with melted beeswax.










I added some chipboard flowers and a piece of printed cardstock.                      
It was still looking rather too much like the clothes I was wearing in terms of the colour so I added some more blue paint.  I heat embossed the word Dream and stuck on some painted chipboard letters for BIG.


I also added some chipboard butterflies and smeared them and the flowers with Distress Stickles.   Underneath the word BIG I have handwritten 'dreams'


I still feel it is unfinished but I'm currently not sure what to add to it so I am going to leave it for a while and come back to it.


Anneliese took a photo of me working on the canvas.

Monday 8 March 2010

Can you have too much creativity?

Or maybe that's too much opportunity for creativity!  I have signed up to several Circle Journals and Swaps on UKS.   I already host one called Circular Journey.  Each person chooses a theme and my theme is Favourite Stamp.  As the book gets to each person they have been asked to use their favourite stamp for a layout in my book.  The one I have to do at the moment from this CJ has the theme of 'Twilight'.   Since I have neither read the books nor seen the films, I'm a bit in the dark!  (Excuse the pun!)

I am also hosting a new Circle Journal which is alterd art/mixed media.  My theme for that is Children's Literature and the book will be called 'Once Upon A Time, when I get round to making it.

The third CJ I'm in is called 'All My Own Photos' and you send the photos you want putting into the scrapbook and each team member does a layout around your photos.  My book is about my 60th birthday.  It is called 'sesenta' which is the name of the dog Andy & Naomi gave me for my birthday.  Sesenta is Spanish for 60.



The two Swaps I am doing are the Monthly Altered Tag Swap (March) and the Artsy Bookmark Swap.  These are both at the thinking stage.

In addition to all these I am also making a 2010 Minibook which has two page layouts for each month.  Here are the pages for January and February.


And then of course there's 'Something From Almost Nothing' that Shimelle's starting on Wednesday that I mentioned before!

I obviously have no self-control.  Perhaps it's hidden under all the papers, paints, embellishments, stamps, tools and all the other requisites for creativity!

Friday 5 March 2010

Stash Addict

My name is Bernice and I am a stash addict.  Not just pretty papers but blooms, flowers, brads, bling, distress inks, alcohol inks, embossing folders and plates, shaped 'naked' albums and lots more besides.

This is what the table looks like when I'm working


And this is what it looked like after I tidied up.



And like many of my scrapbooking friends I need to have the tools and the materials and the resources to be able to do whatever I need to do.   But in reality, it sits there and I stroke the papers and oo and ah over the prettiness of everything.   Then I buy some more!

And the thing about it is, that when I actually come to do a project whether it be a layout or a minibook, I haven't got the paper that I need for it or that matches the photo and so I have to buy some more.  

Somebody has to do it!!  How else do the scrapbooking shops stay in business?

I think the problem generally is that I buy paper in particular because it's pretty rather than for a particular project.  I would blame Cleo or Anneliese & Jamie but actually it's about my lack of self-control!!

And then of course, there's Shimelle!   She runs fabulous courses that I just HAVE to sign up for.   And I'm sure not to have the right stash for that.  Last year I collected Christmas stash all through the year especially if I saw it in the sale because I knew I was going to do Journal Your Christmas.  And what happened in December 2009.   You've guessed!  Yes, I bought some more.  And some stamps.  Oh, and then some more stamps because I was doing Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas!

And I rarely get to the end of Shimelle's courses.  I start them with great enthusiasm but somewhere along the line I get behind or, more than likely, distracted and start on something else.  So now I've signed up for Shimelle's new course: Something from Almost Nothing.  

It starts next week.  But today there's a pre-course challenge.   To blog about the stash.

So, there you are readers.  I've started with enthusiasm.  How long will I last?   The course is for 3 weeks starting next Wednesday (10th March) with emailed prompts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Should be possible shouldn't it!?!

Who will accompany me on this journey and keep me on the straight and narrow?