Please be patient!

Hello everyone!

I will be moving house in two weeks time. We are having to move out of our house for about 3-4 months as we have rising damp that needs to be sorted out. The whole thing is a huge pain in the bum as I have to pack up my entire house and move to a tempory house which is only two bedrooms and half the size of our house. Most of our stuff is going into storage as there is no room at the new house. I was told yesterday we have 2 weeks to move so I am going to be super busy packing and moving everything I own! I don't know how soon I can get my internet reconnected at the new house so after I move I may be without access for a while. Please bear with me, I love following your blogs and I have not deserted you, I just may be absent for a while!

Sami x

Quickie M3 post

Here is what I have done so far on Tam's Magical Mythical Makings course.

First I chose a Goddess to paint and wrote about it in my art journal.

We are doing paintings inspired by Gustav Klimt so I printed some pictures of his work to stick in my journal and practised some of his 'doodles'.

Then I practised my front facing portrait.

Then I did a page of what I hope my canvas will look like and explored the themes we were given this week.

I then started on my BIG canvas-20x30 inches-scary!!

TFL

Sami x

Maiden, Mother and Crone

This is what I have been doing today.

It started as a sketch last night and I was pleased with how it turned out so decided to paint it today.

' Maiden, Mother, Crone'

I used Caran D'ache watercolour crayons and acrylic paints.

I just wanted to say thank you for all the lovely comments about my son. He has spoken to his year head and has to fill in a form from student services and then the year head will deal with it. Hopefully it will get sorted, if it doesn't I will go to the school. I want to give him the chance to sort it out himself before I step in!

TFL

Sami x

Quickie WCC challenge post

I keep getting in trouble for not posting this weeks challenge LO!

The Wight Craft Circle, Scrap with us prompt was

6 things you love right now

I used October Afternoon papers and stickers and a range of thickers for this one. My 6 loves are, 1-Art journalling, 2-Dylusion spray inks, 3-Dylusions paints, 4-The big bang theory (soooo funny!), 5-Jacob from the twilight films, 6- Nassi Gorring (Indonesian fried rice).

TFL,

Sami x

Protection

I wanted to share this page, even though its very personal.

I know I am extremely biased, but my son is such a wonderful child! He is kind, caring, loving, compassionate, has really high moral standards, extremely bright (9.6 grade average and he's only 13!) and just generally a great kid! Everyone that meets him thinks he's wonderful, which is why I find it so hard to understand why he's bullied.

He was bullied so severely at age 5 that he had to see a child physciatrist. It took a long time but he came through the other side of it, not the person he was going to be, but maybe a better person?

He is the reason that I started a support group for parents of children that had been bullied, which I ran for 5 years. I hate bullying, it takes so much from you and makes you vunerable.

Since starting at high school there have been a group of kids who bully him on a daily basis, calling him names, hassling him on the bus on the way home and videoing it. They have been spoken to and parents have also been told but it doesn't deter them for long.

Caleb has been so strong, he doesn't let them see that it's upsetting him, but when he gets home it all gets too much for him.

I have taught him to put up a protection bubble around himself. I have told him that bullies are cowards, they know that they are inadequate and they take their insecurities out on other people. I've told him he is the better person in all this and to try and ignore them. I have also told him that because I was bullied I know that nothing I am saying helps.

I am so cross that he is hurting and I can't help him. I did this page for him this morning. I have scanned it and printed it out small for him so he can keep it in his wallet, knowing that its there and what it says will help him to visualise his bubble and stay strong.

The words read:

You are safe, you are protected, nothing can harm you. You have the Goddess' love and the best protection of all, my love, a mothers love is the most powerful protection there is. You are better than them Caleb, you have a true heart, a kind and loving heart. You are powerful, you have strength, compassion, honour and truth within you and no one can take that away. Stay strong, stay true, safe in the knowledge that you are loved. Let their negativity bounce off your shield, don't let it touch your heart. Keep this bubble of protection around you, it will cloak you from their hurtful actions and keep you true to yourself. Let your aura shine so bright it dazzles them into submission. I love you.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings,

Sami x

Truthful journal!

I have decided that the art journal I made at the weekend will be my 'truthful' journal!

It won't be about pretty pictures or art work,it will be about capturing a feeling and reflecting truthful emotions. I am not going to be precious about what I draw or how it turns out and I am going to be honest with the journalling. As such I probably won't share as many pages from it as I do my other journals, but these two are not too personal!

The phrase for this bottom page was coined at The Wight Craft Circles monthly crop on Saturday! We were all talking about how we felt we put everyone else's needs before our own.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sami x

Binding my own Art Journal

I bought an old book from Oxfam a while a go with the intention of altaring it in some way and using the inside text pages on art journal pages.

I had intended to take the covers off the book seperately and re bind using webbing to hold it together as I had seen in the Wildfire book by L.K.Ludwig, but the only webbing I had was to big. I went on Youtube to try and find another way of doing it and found this video.

I thought this was a much easier way of doing it as it left the covers attached to the spine.

I made four signatures, each with 6 pieces of paper. I used a mixture of papers-cartridge, watercolour and coloured. (I didn't remember to start taking photos until I had bound the book, but the video shows you how to do it!) I then bound the book using the instructions in the video.

This is the spine showing the binding

This is the inside front cover

Some of the pages showing the stitching. I didn't have any waxed linen thread so I doubled up some hand quilting thread and ran it through some beeswax (left over from my quiltmaking days!).

I wanted to decorate the front cover, but not all of it, so I used masking tape to mark a square off in the centre. I then gessoed it.

I used my heat gun to dry the gesso and then covered the square with a thick layer of texture paste. I then stamped a dragonfly image into the wet paste. I used the heat gun again to dry it...which took a while!

I removed the masking tape when dry and painted the image. I used Dylusions paint and twinkling H2o's.

I found a Zutter perfect closure which I have been saving for ages(I've had it at least 4 years!). I painted the leather strap to match the book and stamped tiny dragonflys on it before attaching it to the book.

I attached the tiny key that came with it to a piece of sparkly thread and added a little gold heart and this just hangs off the strap.

And this is the inside front cover and the first page.

I am really pleased with how this book has turned out and will definately be making some more!

This is my WK 42 LO for The Wight Craft Circle Scrap with us challenge-a review of 2010. It is a straight copy of Paiges LO (which she scraplifted from someone else!) I have no mo-jo for scrapping at the moment so Paige was nice enough to let me just copy her!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Sami x

New art journal pages

A few more art journal pages done over the holidays.

I did this one yesterday as part of the January art journal over on the Milliande site. I used the given circular template of the zebras, which you then fill in with zen doodleing and then cut up to make a journal page. I enjoyed the zentangle doodleing even though it took ages! When I cut the zebra heads out they reminded me of merry-go-rounds, hence the page!

A whimsy of my daughter and me! (this ones not quite finished!)

Inspired by the Taking Flight book by Kelly Rae Roberts that I got for Xmas. An amazing book, I recomend it!

I added sequins and sparkle to this one.

A test page using my new Dylusions spray inks.

A background done with my new Dylusions paints. I liked the background so much I dont want to add anything else to it!

If you havn't checked out the video below of my sketchbook project journal, please take a look!

TFL,

Sami x

Sketchbook Project 2011 (post for Carmen!!)

I have now finished The Sketchbook Project journal and sent it off to America!

Carmen mentioned that she would love to see a video of the finished journal, and as I have no technical knowledge what so ever, Paige (please hop over and take a look at Paiges blog, she is a very talented scrapbooker, mini booker, card maker and now, video editor!) very kindly agreed to do the video. Paige videoed it last week and has spent the WHOLE day today editing it for me (I was there but wasn't much help!), putting all the poetry verses and music on. She has done a FANTASTIC job and I can't thank her enough!!

So, this ladybird production video is for you Carmen...enjoy!!



or view it here at YouTube

For this project I wrote two poems to help inspire my artwork. I have done one verse per double page, so that is what the scrolling text is because the verses are not that easy to read on some of the pages.

Big Hugs Paige x

Thanks for looking,

Sami x