Feast or Famine...

...or like buses when three come all at once. No posts (bad blogger that I am) and then a looong one tonight so grab a cup of coffee and a biccie or two and relax - lots of pictures and not too many words so not too onerous!! Lol!

For the start of the year I devised a project where the girls could make their own art journal over the course of five or six weeks learning new techniques along the way.

I had done this myself last year as part of Kate's 365 day challenge which they had followed with interest - they were so excited...

I will put some of the fabulous pages the girls have made when I remember to photograph them... So here's mine for 2011....
January is spritz, snip, stencil and create ...

splash and splatter for February's heart banner...

weird doodled letters and stippling through offcuts in March...

Loads of painty fun in April...and some 3d writing... flying high with a spot of punching and doodling in May...

Showing the girls styles that they might not have come across in June...

introducing another art style in July... August with flipflops and long cool drinks... over resist Last night the girls were absorbed painting September's page...

September and the leaves are changing colour ...

the spooky October page... The ribbon technique explained with a real piece of ribbon for November... and December and dry brush (or rather dry Dabber) technique and masking... the "All about me" page...except I haven't yet worked out how tall 5 foot 3 inches is in metric...

and the back cover says it all.....Bye for now

Sue

Let me explain why I have been away for so long. I'll set the scene, shall I.
Busy lawyer daughter and army son in law in UK need a few days r and r with totally-in-need-of-a-rest-Mum and golfed out Dad. Just a quiet adult family Christmas, reading, playing cards and generally relaxing. Sounds like a good plan you say.

Shop closes at 2pm on 22nd December and at home the decorations are out ready to decorate the tree. Really looking forward to having nothing to do for 10 days.

Colin pops out to take my Mum to meet her friends for a meal (she is 86, 6 stone 9 and lives on her own in a 1st floor (no lift) apartment opposite the shop where she can walk to all cafes, seafront, hairdressers, etc) - you with me so far. Totally independent - works at the charity shop two mornings a week . She sees him and promptly falls over breaking not only her hip but also her shoulder. No flesh there to soften the blow. One ambulance to Denia hospital and a hip op later and she is ensconced there for the duration of Christmas. In Spain, nurses do the medical bits and the family do the rest - you get the picture!

Meanwhile, at home the builders finish the extension to our new bedroom on the ground floor at 5pm on Christmas Eve so Colin and I are busily relocating furniture and clothes and stuff up and down stairs (the reason I need a ground floor bedroom is difficulty with stairs) so that daughter and son-in-law can have somewhere to sleep.

As she is so healthy Mum's hip heals quickly and they discharge her to our care within days... except that she has a broken shoulder so she cannot use crutches or a zimmer frame and needs help to walk or rather shuffle. Trips to the loo are a nightmare as her shoulder is too painful to touch and Mum cannot get up without help. Luckily, Colin has a relaxer chair and Mum is settled in there for day and night.

The lady in charge of the charity shop comes to visit on Saturday 1st January and says Mum should have not have been released and needs convalescent care and she arranges for Mum to go into a nursing home for a month where they have all the facilities we don't have at home. Mum went there happily on Tuesday and has now had a shower - a little thing so easily taken for granted.

So my longed for rest and that of my family came to naught. The Christmas tree doesn't need packing away as it never got put up. Victoria and I escaped to the shop for a few hours on the Saturday to scrapbook her and John's honeymoon and we all had a meal out on New Years Eve as you'll see below but that was it.

It wasn't all gloom and doom though....
Colin has a plate of leftover turkey.....you would never think it looking at this photo now would you!!!

On New Year's Eve we managed to settle Mum and then pop out for a couple of hours to the pre-booked meal at the President Bar on the Arenal. It was raining so unlike other years at midnight the place outside was deserted. Normally, at midnight,while the fireworks burst overhead, everyone is outside and greeting friends and the atmosphere is electric but this year was a real damp squib. Inside we tried to make the best of it though Lol!!

I have been keeping a 365 day challenge journal for most of last year - I say this even though I did lapse a couple of times when things in life just got too hectic - ie, moving shop in April and Oct/Nov/Dec when the shop was just sooo busy. It was the idea of the lovely Kate Crane who started this idea last year and is continuing over on her blog The Kathryn Wheel - see on side bar.

This year I intend to carry the idea on but in a new way. With Mum now being taken care of I have premade all -well almost all - the months pages in advance as that is how I fell behind so the new project to start this year off is a journal. It is on quite a heavy watercolour paper so ideal for watery, painty, inky stuff to be added. .

The front cover... inky January...

splattery February...

stipply March...

painty April...

dabby May...

scrubby June...

and July... a touch of Dina Wakley here...

that's all I have done so far but the rest will happen - having made it into a class it has to now doesn't it??

The lovely Becky working on her journal cover yesterday morning.,,

and last but definitely not least the adorable Yaa, my Saturday girl with Elsa who lives in Madrid. Elsa came to my classes all through the summer and is here visiting her Grandparents and came to see if there was a class on - there wasn't - so she could make something. She went away very happy with a star book made with Yaa's help.

So that's it.

Bye for now.
Sue xx

3rd week of SSSS challenge

For those of who who do not know what the SSSS challenge is I suggest you visit simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.com and see for yourself - it's a newish challenge blog just overflowing with great ideas and artwork. It's a site for people who love Tim Holtz, Wendy Vecchi, 7 Gypsies and Graphic 45 and all things vintage. Each week a challenge is issued and anyone can put a photo of their artwork on there and each week some lucky people win prizes - this is my way of doing something for myself. I make so many things to demonstrate techniques for my classes I need an outlet just for me to be me and this suits me down to the ground.

The theme this week is Anything Tim Holtz inspired - and I remembered he made a quilt out of grungepaper so thought I would try to use that as my inspiration. This started out as a 4 x 4 book cover - I had too many images and ideas so I then decided to use the 7.5 x 5 Bind-It-All covers and ended up with the 8 x 8 ones!!

This is the back and front cover unbound as I haven't yet decided what to do with the inside pages. I made the tag to go on the inside front but liked it so much I decided it would be good on the back cover instead. The tag has been inked with Distress Inks over Tim's mask, stamped, the edges distressed and some alterations attached and ribbons added.

On the front cover the grungeboard heart has been crackle painted and distressed over, the grungeboard wings have been Dabbered and sewn with wire, there is some stamping with Tim's stamps and some texturing with Tim's texture fade dies, the top right corner is a fragment glossy accented over stamping, the 13 was textured faded, distress inked with glossy accents over, the FLY letters were cut with a Tim Sizzix die called Vintage market alphabet I think, I added some paper clips to hold the typewriter key letters and a few staples and the rest has papers from Tim's paper stack and some embellishments from- yes you've guessed it , the man himself Tim.

I was a little panicky at first as I thought I was very low on Tim's bits and bobs but I needn't have worried - I had plenty.

Thanks for looking and have a go yourself - its good fun

Bye for now

Sue

ps just looked at the blog and think I might put some cinammon stickles on the crown tomorrow.

my art journal

I have been working for a few weeks now on an art journal project that I started with the Wednesday girls two weeks ago. It's "My Life from a to z". I asked them to write down words that applied to them and it was interesting that they were so short of ideas and what they did come up with eventually with a little prompting. Food featured heavily and there's not a spare ounce of fat between them!!

Eight of the tiles on the front cover are heat embossed in various forms and the ninth is crackle paint (Ranger of course).

Anyway, here are a few of my pages, some finished and some in progress.














I am now off to have some supper and then I will be back with more workshop samples so
Bye for now
Sue x