"Accidental" journal page

The background paper for this page was used as a backing while I was spraying tags and another page. I liked the colours on it so I added a little more to it.

Secret Santa pressies

This week at school we had our Secret Santa. The first three days were to be little gifts that had no cost. The first day I took a small posy of flowers from my garden, the second day I found this cute orange ornament at the local shop......and at $2 it almost cost nothing lol!!! the third day I made some Christmas gift tags. The last day was a bought present and I bought her a photo album with the title "My Gorgeous Grandson."

Christmas Card

this morning I was up early and have made a card with the card patterns sketch 143   and as I have just started making Christmas cards I decided that another Chrissy card would be in order! I think I will be using this sketch to make a few more too.

changing a page.....

this week I did the design team challenge at Lets Scrap  It was to use found objects on your page. Eventually I decided to use pages from a notebook, stamped and inked to make a flower. Here is the result

I was happy with the flower but after loading the page to Lets Scrap I began thinking the placement was not right and the page was looking as though it needed more. So.......I moved the photo and the flower, added some stamping to the border, turned the patterned paper strips around the other way and trimmed the edge, made two smaller flowers, then covered a manilla tag with stamped, inked notepaper and wrote my journalling.
I think I am happier now......what do you think?????

some tags

Lately I have been busy playing with acrylics, watercolours, spray inks, stencils, stamping etc etc on tags. I don't know what I will use these for yet so when I decide, I will add finishing touches and text to suit. It has been soooo much fun playing!

another page finished!

art journal page or scrapbook page??????......I don't know but it doesn't matter anyway as I am happy with it. At present I am working on individual pages all different sizes and will probably bind them together into a book at some stage.

PS......so far this month I have been doing something art related ALMOST every day LOL.

stencils!

Julie Balzer is running competitions on her blog to win some of her wonderful stencils. All you need to do is leave a comment answering the question What is a stencil design that you wish existed? I would love to have a stencil of gum leaves possibly with some gum blossoms as well. This is an example of what I mean....I hand cut the leaves and glued them to this layout.

Having a stencil would open up the possibility of endless variations!

some art journal backgrounds

while on holidays I have been finding some time most days to play with painting backgrounds. I have been following Julie Balzer's free stencil class and my head is bursting with new ideas. I also recently bought her DVD. It is so much fun to just play!

I used a corner of this one to make this card from a Let's Scrap sketch

 

the orange in the one above is actually a little more yellow. The other colours are quite accurate. It needs more doing to it yet.

this is one I am loving!

I painted over this as I paint flowers like this all the time and I am trying to do something different. However when I do a suitable background I may put some of these on top.

Texture Tuesday

I have missed doing my textures lately....just so busy. I decided to try a different type of image today and am pleased with the results. I used Kim's Autumn Burst texture on multiply @93%.



and this is the original

my first finished art journal page

for the last couple of months I have been signing up for Julie Balzer's art journal every day   Until now, signing up has been as far as I have got! I have started four pages and today have finished this one. Hopefully the first of many.....

anything goes

Anything goes is the theme this week at Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday I chose a photo of one of my original paintings and have used all three of Kim's Magic textures.

 and here is the original

what a day for a daydream......

The theme for Texture Tuesay this week is Dream and this is my effort. I used 1 layer of Kim's dream using multiply at 82&%. Then a layer of canvasback.....overlay at 54%. Also made hue and sat adjustments.

and here is the original

texture and pink

pink is the theme for this week's Texture Tuesday    I love my pink begonias and couldn't resist playing with them. I have used Kim's Mayzee at multiply 100% opacity then a layer of granny's cupboard at hard light 86%. I have also adjusted the levels and saturation. thank you Kim!!

and here is the original....

Texture Tuesday

things have been so busy lately and no time to do the things I love BUT I found a few minutes to play with textures from Kim Klassen
I have used canvas back and warm sun.....love them!!! I also played with the levels and saturation.

more texture

It is very cold and bleak here today and I have been playing some more with texture and decided to have a go at Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday  This time I have used 3 of Kim's  gorgeous textures....love, stained linen and porvous. This is becoming quite addictive LOL

and here is the original photo. I love how texture creates an entirely new mood to an image.

using textures on photos

for quite some time I have been collecting textures, mostly from Kim Klassen but I haven't really done much at all with them. However the other day I played for a while before I went to work and this is what I did

This is the original photo taken at Yuleba a couple of years ago just before we moved.



May sketch at Handmade by Suzanne

and here is my take on it. Another opportunity to practice my free motion stitching from my course with Julie Balzer

a mini quilt

I started on my dress quilt.....only mine is a poppy quilt......yesterday and finished it today. I found the free motion quilting on fabric much easier than my last effort on cardstock. A lot of the stitching is still uneven but I think it is slowly improving. It was fun to paint on fabric rather than canvas!

Sew Easy scrapbook page

Our latest Sew Easy lesson was a scrapbook page using our (hopefully) newly acquired free motion sewing skills, painting and 2 kinds of hand made flowers. I had some yo-yo's in the right colours so I used them instead of Julie's folded roses. Some of my free motion stitching is terribly wonky, especially where the cardstock hit the side of the sewing machine and caused the stitching to go crazy....Julie did warn us of this! Luckily the flowers came in handy to cover the worst of it! All in all I am VERY happy with how this has turned out. I have used this April sketch from Handmade by Suzanne


And this is my page....

my clutch is finished!

here is the painted canvas. After painting I stamped it with the same foam stamps I used on the cushion cover.

and here is the finished clutch.

another Sew Easy project

I have just finished my cushion cover. It was fun to make as I stamped the floral pattern onto calico and gave my new sewing machine a good workout! This morning I am going to paint some canvas to make a clutch bag....the next project. Unfortunately I am behind and with everyone coming home for Easter I will not have time for sewing. Never mind....it will be fun catching up later!

the front of my cushion

and here is the back

I love it and will be making another one as soon as I can. I am also considering making some yo-yo flowers to stitch on.

a heart and 2 more tags

I don't think I was careful enough cutting out my heart which is a shame as it turned out a little wonky and I have no more of that cute fabric.

I dyed the lace for the first tag with ink and was very pleased with how the gold paint really brightened it up.

For the second tag I cut strips of patterned paper, used a border punch, added a little paint splattering and ink then a sentiment.

Let's Scrap sewing challenge

the member's challenge this week was to use fabric and stitching on a page. I simply had to do this one as I am doing the Sew Easy course! Today I am off to look for a new sewing machine. My old one is 24 years old and veeeery well used!

Sew Easy Tags

we did 3 different tags with Julie but so far I have I have only been doing variations on the fabric tag. Each time I do one I get ideas for another......it is so much fun! I also made a flower to go with one of the tags.

and I have just finished this one with some hand painted circles on it.

painting paper for It's Sew Easy

the first project in the Sew Easy course was to paint our own patterned paper then punch shapes and sew them together to make a banner....so much fun! Julie punched butterflies and as I only have one small butterfly punch I used my craft robo to cut butterflies.
Here is a page I have painted but not used as yet. I used a sketch pad with 150gsm paper. It worked very well and flattened sufficiently for my robo to cut with only one pass.

These are some of my butterflies....and circles

and a close up showing some of the butterfly details

and circle details





a page for White with 1

this is my first time at http://whitewith1.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-ww1-challenge.html....and as I love white, and pink too.....it was fun doing this one.

some of my paintings

I am booked in to do the It's Sew Easy course with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/online-classes.html#axzz1HZqRV1Sp
starting on Monday 28 March. I thought I would post some of my paintings so Julie and the other girls can see some of what I do. Can't wait for the course to start!

This painting is of poppies using acrylics....these flowers are one of my favourite subjects.

and a landscape in oils....I love painting trees and water.

acrylics again.....some daisies......