Samhain blessings!

HAPPY SAMHAIN EVERYONE!

Some photos from last year.

Our beautiful Cocker spaniel Willow, dressed as Dracula!

Scaring the trick 'n' treaters!

Have a great Halloween, however you celebrate x

Trick or treat?

Last night I ordered some digi collage sheets from Lily over at The Octopode Factory http://frillyunderwear.blogspot.com

They were sent to me by email within an hour, hows that for service!! Lily is a very talented young artist, go check out her blog and Etsy shop.

The three figures are from a set of 6 that I ordered from Lily...how cute are they?! I used my slice (it was so happy to be used again as it has felt a bit neglected since I bought my Cricut!) to cut out the pumpkins, house, tree, gravestone and bats then I coloured them with my watercouler crayons and stuck them on my background.

I am off out tonight with my hubby, sister and her partner and Paige and special boy! We are going on an organised ghost walk. We do this every year and it is so much fun, scarey as hell as there are people dressed up as all manner of things waiting to jump out on you, but great fun! One year we had to walk across this field with loads of scarecrows on posts. When we were halfway across we heard screaming and turned around. All the scarecrows had jumped off the posts and were chasing people, I nearly peed my pants!!
Anyway, have a great spooky halloween,
thanks for looking,
Sami x

Quickie post-new stamps!

Just a quick post, my new stamps by Dyan Reaveley http://dyan-reaveley.blogspot.com arrived today. They are so beautiful I had to play with them straight away! I also ordered some of her digital collage sheets as well.

This is the stamp set I ordered, hard just choosing one as I want them all...xmas is on the way so I think I will put a couple of sets on my wish list.

I ordered them from Art from the heart http://shop.afth.co.uk and heres what I did with them.

Thanks for looking
Sami x

My whimsy page

Here is my whimsy page, 2nd week of Tams course over at willowing and friends. I am not very happy with it. I drew the whimsies onto cartridge paper as I didnt have any watercolour. They looked really good on the white paper and then for some reason when I have cut them out and put them in the board book they look really washed out! They took me two evenings to do as well!!

Never mind, I enjoyed doing them and learnt new techniques!

TFL

Sami x

Practising whimsy

It's week 2 over on Tams free course, Art, heart and healing. I have been really impressed with the quality of this course, given that its free. Tam has put so much hard work and effort into it. Both weeks there have been over 2 hours worth of videos demonstrating the weeks project plus 2 PDF files each week. There is a forum to post your work and Tam is commenting on as many peoples work as she can. Given that there are over 1000 people signed up to this course I think thats an amazing effort on her part. Because there is a self healing element to the course and you are being asked to recall past traumas and negative impacts on your life, Tam has also started a forum for support for people who are finding it difficult to deal with, what an amazing women she is! Now that I have seen what an amazing teacher she is and the high quality of a free course I am tempted to save up and take one of her other courses.

This week was in two parts, both using an altered childs board book. Part one was to do an image transfer of a photo of yourself as a child. Then think of things you wish for for this younger you. If you had a bad childhood think of all the things you would have wanted, then print the words off and stick them on your page. I have completed this part but dont know yet if I am going to put it on here as it is a bit personal.

The second part was learning to draw whimsies. You think of a negative issue from your past and then draw some whimsy characters to show how you wish that situation had been instead. Then you add them to your board book which will eventually become a book about honouring yourself.

I have been practising drawing them first in my art journal. When I have done the page in my board book I will post it on here.

practising faces and eyes...having a real problem getting the eyes right!

Getting the skin tones right

And just thought I'd post a journal page I did the other day. The lady is cut out of a magazine, she was really funky so I have not changed her clothes or legs, she was already dressed like that!! The wording says; 'Happiness is where we find it but rarely where we seek it.'

Back to work on my whimsies now, thanks for looking,

Sami x

Celebration giveaway

Lily over at The Octopode factory http://frillyunderwear.blogspot.com is doing a fab giveaway to win some of her digital collage sheets and digital stamps. Check it out!

TFL

Sami x

JOY!

This year instead of JYC (journal your christmas) Paige http://ladybird-ladybird-paige.blogspot.com and I have decided to do JOY....Journal our Yule!

We are using ideas that we have done before from JYC and Dec daily but also adding the yule element. It's basically a journal of what we are up to each day throughout december and on the days when we havn't done much we are going to journal about Yule things such as, how to make yule incense, a yule log, the story of the sun king etc.

We started making our journals today. Mine is 6"x4 1/2". I have not put the title on the front cover yet as Im not sure where to put it.

I shamelessly copied Paiges ideas for the pages and the little number tags! On the back of each number tag we are going to do a thought of the day or lesson of the day.

Lots of pretty pages!

My birthday page!!

I had great fun today making this with Paige and my sister (Zoe was making an activities advent calender). Lots of laughter and wonderful pasta for lunch (even without the sauce Paige!!!). I have not done any scrapping since the retreat as I have been busy with the sketchbook project and Tams new FREE course (link on the right, art, heart and healing) so it was nice to get back into it today and make this JOY!!

TFL

Sami x