Calendar Challenge-on time!

Hurray! I am actually posting this on time-1st May!

I was so late with my April page last month I didn't even bother to link up over at Kate's blog!

If you don't know what this challenge is about check out our host's blog, Kate Crane.

Here is my completed April page



And here is May!

I used Dylusions paints and sprays, Mr Hueys white ink spray and some stencils.

Thanks for looking

Sami x

March Calendar Challenge and Rocking your World Friday

My Rocking your world post is after the calendar challenge photos-thanks!

Hello! Its March already, how is that possible? The weeks just seem to be flying by.

Here is my completed page for February

                          

And here is my March page. I used Dylusions paints and sprays, crafters workshop stencils and stamps and I drew the girl in the corner. I am still keeping with the theme of a positive statement or affirmation for each month, that way I can read it everyday when I fill my day in! I don't know who to credit with these wise words but know they are used a lot in Reiki and yoga.

Why don't you pop over to Kates blog and have a look at everyone elses calander pages?

Hello, Friday Rockers!

Time again to find the positives for the week and I must say by doing these posts every week I am finding it easier and easier to see the positives in my life. Things I probably would have missed before in the chaos of everyday life are now easier to see and appreciate.

* On Saturday we had a film night as Blockbuster had sent us some free vouchers. My daughter was at a sleepover so Stu, Caleb and me watched Captin America and Change up and had popcorn and Jellybeans!

* On Sunday it was my sisters birthday so the whole family went to a lovely little village pub for lunch and then back to mine for birthday cake.

*On Monday I bought a new purple diary for work, I have had my eye on it for a while but couldn't really justify it but on sunday the closure strap on my old one broke so I thought what the hell! Not very interesting for anyone else but I love purple and I love stationary and I spent a happy hour re arranging the pages and filling things in! (Sad,..?probably!) 

* On Tuesday I had the dentist for root canal treatment...you are probably wondering why this is on my rocking list?! Well, only a few months ago I was so terrified of going to the dentist. My husband had to have time off work to take me as I just couldn't get the courage to actually get there by myself,  I would hyperventilate in the waiting room and then when I actually got in the chair I would just start crying and my whole body would just shake, so much so that my legs would not hold me up when I got out of the chair! Then my sister started working as a receptionist at a new dentist's in town and I managed to get on their books. I was put with a lovely woman dentist and my sister explained to her how terrified I was when I went for my first check up. My sister was allowed to come in with me and hold my hand and the dentist was so understanding. She told me she wouldn't do anything that day but look in my mouth and before she did any treatment I could just come in every week and sit in the dentist chair to get used to it. I have had several appointments now and each time she has been so gentle. I managed to get to the dentists on my own on tuesday and even though my sister still came in and held my hand I didn't cry this time. The dentist managed to complete the root canal treatment and although I was still quite shaky in the chair and had to sit down in the waiting room for 10 minutes afterwards to calm down,I didn't feel anything and have had no pain afterwards. This is a huge achievment for me, so my lovely dentist (that is not a phrase I ever thought I'd say!) has rocked my world this week.

*On wednesday we had a really lively womens health session at the friendship group. I invited sexual health in to talk to the women aout the importance of smear teats and breast screening amongst other things. Because of some of the womens cultures this can be a sensitive subject and many women don't attend for their smear tests. The two women that came to talk were great fun and the big blue penis in the contraception kit ensured lots of hilarity and left everyone feeling relaxed about talking about sensitive issues!

*On thursday we spent some time at the friendship groups new allotment. We have just taken this on as part of our culture kitchen project and are looking forward to growing our own food to use in cooking sessions with different groups around the Island. The sun was shining yesterday and it was really warm and just so nice to be able to see the possibilities of what we can achieve with this allotment.

So, that was my week. Not very interesting but lots of lovely positive moments. Why dont you pop over to Virginias blog and check out everyones rocking posts?

TFL

Sami x

June Calendar Challenge

Here is my June calendar page for the year long challenge over at The Katherine Wheel
I had completed last weekend but blogger has been playing me up so much I have avoided it all week! So sorry if I have not visited your blog!
I focused on Midsummer as my background for this page. I used Dylusion paints and sprays and made a sun stamp out of a potatoe to randomly stamp across the page. The words are from a poem I found on line, unfortunately no author was given.
I didn't cut out squares and stick them on this time as I didn't want to cover up the big sun in the centre. I drew each square on and then shaded around one edge to give each square a bit of depth.

Here is my completed May page if anyone wants to be nosey!
I am really enjoying this challenge and can't believe I have kept up with 6 whole months! Make sure you check out the other pages using the link above.
Thanks for looking,
Sami x

Thoughts

Yesterday at our monthly crop, instead of scrapbooking, I worked on a new canvas.

This is the doodle that inspired the canvas

'Thoughts'

Mixed media on canvas

I used water colour crayons, acrylic paint, Dylusion sprays, stamps, ink. The circles were cut out of white, text and music paper coloured with watercolour and then stenciled on using spray inks and then doodled on with black pen. I stuck them on with gel medium.

I have had a lot going on the last few weeks and this painting represents all the thoughts that are swimming around in my head all the time. When I can't sleep because I am worried about things I try to imagine each thought as a bubble and set it free out into the ether so I can get some rest....sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't!!

TFL

Sami x

A Fishy tail

Hello! I haven't been about in blogland lately as life is just so hectic at the moment! Commitments are keeping me from my art work, I just cant seem to find 5 minutes!

I managed to do this journal page on the Saturday after Good Friday but have not had time to post it.

This is a new A4 journal I bought a few weeks ago as it was half price.

I could not get a good photo of this page as I used lots of silver glimmer spray which just keeps reflecting back at me! I also used Dylusions paints and sprays, twinkling H2o's crumpled up tissue paper and text paper for texture, embroidary thread, glitter, TH tissue tape and some net material. I cut the little fish out of a magazine page which was a photo of the sea.

I promise it looks better than this in real life! You cant see all the texture in this photo or the depth of colour as the flash has washed it out, but when I tried to take it without a flash it was all blurry!

I hope to catch some time over the weekend to be creative as we have our monthly crop on saturday.

TFL

Sami x

May calendar pages

Time is going so quick this year, we are already into May and for once, I have managed to do my calendar page on time! Check out everyone else's pages at The Kathryn Wheel.

April's finished page

May's page

I used Dylusions paints and sprays, stencils and stamps to create my background. I painted a maypole on a white sheet of paper, cut it out and glued to the page. Then I painted ribbons hanging from it and stamped flowers around the top. The verse is an old folk song.
Beltaine (mayday) is one of my favourite celebrations of the Pagan year. I was up at 3.30 am to climb up to the Longstone in Mottistone to watch the sunrise. The Men of Wight Morris dancers do their first dance of the season at the Longstone on Beltaine morning and there is always a big crowd gathered.Yesterday afternoon I celebrated with friends and we danced the maypole. None of us know how to do it properly but its always such great fun getting in tangle! The Maypole is a phallic symbol that represents the God and the crown of flowers at the top represent the Goddess. Dancing the maypole and weaving the ribbons symbolises the union of the God and Goddess. The God comes to the Goddess at Beltaine and their union brings summer back to the land.

On another note... my friend Dawn has just started writing a poetry blog. She is new to blogging but has been writing poetry for many years and has been published in a couple of poetry books.
She has a lovely style and her words are beautiful and very inspiring, so if you like poetry please go and check out her blog and maybe become a follower of first light poetry

TFL
Sami x

Truthful Journal

I managed to complete two journal pages on Sunday morning. I did these in my truthful journal, which is a journal I handmade (you can see how I made this journal in this post) to use for 'truthful' journal ling...whether good or bad, its honest, how I feel right at this moment, journal ling and art.

For this one I used Tim Holtlz tissue tape as a border, a grungy background stamp, Dylusions paints and sprays and a stencil. Once I had done the background I could see a face in it so I drew it!
For this one I used an old map as the background. (little tip: Don't tell the staff in Oxfam that you want to cut up the old map you are buying!! I had picked up a selection of old road maps they had in there and didn't realise the price on one of them was £15!! I said I didn't want that one as they were only to cut up for art work...I didn't think she was going to let me buy them, she was horrified!!)
I used Dylusions paints, stamps and tissue tape. I used a letter stencil to spray through which gave a nice effect. The layering came out a little heavy and covered up most of the map so I drew on some more map lines. I cut out a person from a magazine and stuck it down and painted over the top then removed it to get the silhouette.
TFL,
Sami x

Paige's dream

Here is a little something I finished last week. I couldn't post until now as it was for Paiges birthday which we celebrated yesterday at our monthly swap.

This canvas was inspired greatly by the work of Tam over at willowing.org. I have done a couple of her courses and they have been fantastic.

The canvas was A4 size and I used water colour crayons, acrylic paint (Dylusions), water colour pencils, Tim Holtz tissue tape, stencils and stamps. 'Paige's dream'

Thanks for looking,

Sam x

Spring swap

I have not posted all week because everything I have been working on is for other people! But my spring swap partner recieved her gift yesterday so now I can post it. I was paired with Carolyn and I spent ages looking through her wonderful blog, deciding what to make for her. I was very lucky as we seem to have lots in common so I decided to make an altered art wall hanging.

I started off with some thick carboard that I cut into four pieces. I covered each piece with old text and music pages before using gesso over the top, rubbing off the excess.

I did the first layers of paint (Dylusions) and added some Tim Holtz tissue tape.

I built up the layers using more paint, dylusions spray inks, stencils and stamps.

The houses were stamped onto sticky back canvas that I painted in the same colours and then stuck onto each piece. I made the flowers with circles of the canvas, added the chipboard letters which I had painted and stamped and the metal embellishments.

I stamped my favourite stamps all over some kraft wrapping paper so that Carolyn could save the paper and use the images for her art work, included a little note and sent it off. This is the first swap I have ever taken part in and I really enjoyed it. I have done paintings for friends and family but have never sent my art off to someone I dont know, I was really nervous about how it would be recieved, but I had a lovely message to say thank you!

I am looking forward to doing more swaps so if you know of any let me know!

TFL

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

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

A new challenge for 2011

I have embarked on a new challenge for 2011- a calender art journal.

I follow Kates blog over at http://thekathrynwheel.blogspot.com

and have loved looking at her calender pages throughout the year. She has decided to do the challenge again this year and I thought I would give it a go. I don't know whether I will always be on time with it but I am definately up for it!

Here's what Kate says about it:

"All you have to do is complete a calender page each month, and if you like, leave a comment on my blog at the start of each month so that others can visit your blog and take a peek. Don't forget you can also upload to Flickr too."

Here is my January page.

I have used Dylusion paints and sprays (that I got for Birthday and xmas-Yay!) and a range of stamps from Paperbag studios, invoke arts, We R memory keepers and my minds eye.

Kate has an article in the Jan Craft Stamper magazine showing you how to complete the Jan page and I used this as a base for my page as I was unsure of how to start! Now I know what I am doing I will be able to do my own designs for the other months.

I am also doing some freebie courses with Strathmore and considering Tam's new course over at Willowing.org- How will I fit it all in?!

TFL

Sami x