Journal 52 - Weeks 13 and 14

You may have noticed that I've fallen behind a little bit with my art journaling recently. The main reason for this was that I was finishing off my first sketchbook and samples for my textiles course.

Tonight I felt the urge to journal. I wasn't feeling the love for my crochet (mainly because I've run out of the yarn I need) and after a few rows knitting on my shrug, I'd had enough of that to. So I decided to journal.

Lots of paint and mess, and 2 hours later, I had completed 2 pages.

The first is based on the prompt 'how does your garden grow'. I've layered up acrylic paint applied with sponges, found objects and stencils. I even tried out bubble wrap taped to the outside of a cardboard tube to which gives a great effect. Once the paint was dry, I used coloured pencils to stencil big flowers on. I had to work through the messy to get to the effect I wanted.

The second page prompt was 'come rain or shine'. It just so happened that I had used up the paint left over from my garden page to make a stripey page just prefect for a rainbow (pure luck!) I kept the page simple, finding this fabulous quote on Pinterest and handwriting it onto paper before cutting it out and sticking it on. I tried writing it in both lower and upper case and was pleasantly surprised to find that I really like my handwriting in upper case.

Colour and Freeform Crochet

For once, I had a little bit of time to myself this weekend to try something a little new.  Last week, one of my students was asking about freeform crochet.  It is a technique I have seen before - I've admired it and looked at many images of it but I've never actually tried it because, well, I was a little bit scared and had no idea where to start.  She inspired me to do a bit more research and to have a go and, I can safely say, I have found a new addiction!

I began on Pinterest, pinning lots of images of freeform crochet that I liked and looking at the shapes used to build them (you can find my Freeform Crochet board here).  

Through my pinning, I discovered the beautiful Snovej blog with a whole series of  posts and tutorials on freeform crochet.  Her tutorials are very easy to follow and have photographs to help.  They are a great starting point for anyone wishing to enter the world of freeform crochet.

I decided to crochet my shapes and to join them as I went along.  I started with a paisley pattern I had and then a leaf pattern from an issue of Inside Crochet.  I made circles and then used the tutorials on the Snovej blog to make spirals and other exciting shapes.  I tried out the bullion stitch and found I need a lot of practise as this.  As I stitched each scrumble (the name for each shape you make) empty spaces where formed - I crochet circles, triangles and trapeziums to fill these and stitched them in, stretching where necessary to make them fit.  I even added some little pieces stitched behind the work.

I used hand dyed yarns in shades of pink, purple and red which fitted in nicely with this weeks Journal 52 prompt - Colour Swatch.  They are my favourite colours and have now become my latest page in my art journal.

I can't wait to start my next piece of freeform crochet.  I am thinking of making a small purse so will need to do a little bit more research - my next challenge!

Journal 52 - Jumping Ahead to Week 8

Despite not having even starting week 7's prompt yet, I've already completed week 8's (and the prompt was only posted this afternoon!)
The prompt was 'Found Poetry' encouraging us to create a poem. The inspiration page was an altered page from a book where words were highlighted that spoke to the artist.and the rest of the page blacked out.
I was inspired to have a go at this technique and grabbed my copy of pride and prejudice I use for craft purposes, ripped out a random page and grabbed a black pen. I followed the guide and just highlighted words that stood out as I read them and ended up creating this poem which is really relevant to me at the moment - it was as if the page and words just jumped out! I then added my little stick 'sisters'!
Incase you can't see it, it says:
Fatigued.
Inadequate.
Silence.
Wished she had understood the truth traveling among sisters was great for her.

Journal 52 - Weeks 5 and 6

I'm really enjoying my return to art journaling, and it's all thanks to Journal 52.  I can't wait for each new prompt so that I can start to think about my next page.
Week 5 was all about being abstract. It is harder than you think and is something I've struggled with on my City and Guilds course. I want to represent everything just as utter looks in the picture and to turn it into an abstract representation is extremley challenging. For thus prompt I chose to make a Zentangle using colours instead of black and white (a first for me). I kept it simple and enjoyed the process, completing a section each day of the week.
Week 6 was titled 'The Lost Art of Love Letters' - very appropriate as it is Valentines day this week. I chose to make a very similar page to the one on the blog as it used a few techniques I've been dying to try out but never have. I made my heart first, using some wallpaper samples, and then hand stitched over the joins and blanket stitched round the edge. I stamped my quote, found on Pinterest, in black ink onto card and cut each word out individually. The background was created using gesso applied thickly and then stamping over it with a wavy stamp to create texture. I then applied pink acrylic paint with a credit card and sprayed the page with ink spray. I used some old bottle tops dipped in black and white paint to make the circles. Finally, once everything was glued in place, I used oil pastels to highlight areas and to outline the words. This is my most ambitious page so far!

Art Journaling Revival

You may recall, if you've been a follower of the blog for a while, that I used to post a lot about my art journaling and then all went quiet on the journaling front?  I discovered art journaling a few years ago on a trip to America where I met a lovely lady who had the most amazing art journals. I was mesmerised by them, and the process, and before I returned home I bought a copy of Art Journaling magazine and some supplies ready to start journaling when I returned home.  I was addicted and journaled religiously for quite some time and then, all of a sudden, I stopped.

Why did I stop I hear you cry?  Honestly, I'm not really sure.  I never forced myself to art journal as that isn't really the point of doing it.  It is meant to be fun and relaxing and, if you have to force yourself to do it, it is neither.  I also think that I stopped around the same time I began my City and Guilds course, which takes up a lot of my time. So art journaling was swapped for felt and a textiles course.  I was OK with the break, it happened and I accepted it.

However, recently I've been picking up my journals and my art journaling supplies and thinking that I wanted to journal again.  I've been pinning images of art journals on Pinterest and thinking how lovely they are. 

Then, late one evening when I was lying in bed pinning (a frequent occurence when I'm meant to be sleeping - why did they have to invent a Pinterest App?) I came across Journal 52 - a free art journaling workshop for 2014.  Every week, there is a new journaling prompt with ideas of what to do.  You can sign up for email updates when each new prompt is posted, find ideas on the website for starting your own art journal if you're a newbie and there is a Facebook group to share your pages in.  

It has really got me back into art journaling and I love the prompts each week.  I spent hours the other day catching up on weeks 1 - 4 and really enjoyed myself.  

So, here are my pages for the prompts so far:

Week 1 - Up,Up and Away

Week 2 - Somewhere, a Simple Place

Week 3 - You Make Me Smile

Week 4 - Building Character

It's not too late to join in - you can work at your own pace and it's a brilliant way to begin, or resume, your art journaling journey.

Wonderful Workshops!

Tribal Bunny and Mum

I'm back!  The past few weeks have been manic with Christmas shopping, making and festive frivolities!  You may recall that a few weeks ago I was off to the Tribal Sleepover in Huddersfield to teach some workshops, eat cake and dance!! Today's post is all about what was an amazing weekend.  The Tribal Sleepover took place at the most beautiful Victorian house in Huddersfield and belly dancers from across the country came together to dance, drum, eat cake and be crafty.  The whole weekend was amazing and I taught my first ever crafty workshops; Feathery Hair accessories and Art Journaling for Dancers. 

We (my Mum and I) arrived on the Friday night and were greeted with cake, always a good start to any weekend I think!  In the evening I taught 2 lovely ladies how to crochet.  I have to say that they did extremley well and picked it up very quickly.  I think they are hooked!


Saturday saw my Feathery Hair Accessories workshop.  I had around 13 lovely ladies on this workshop and they produced some amazing clips and hairbands to wear whilst performing (I even saw one being worn at the hafla (show) on the Saturday night!)  There where plenty of feathers for people to choose from and sparkly bits to decorate the clips with. 




One of the beautiful hair accessories made on the workshop!



Look at what we made!!!

On the Sunday I taught Art Journaling for Dancers.  There were around 12 of us playing with paint, stamps and spray inks and some beautiful journals were begun.  Some of the ladies are now addicted to art journaling and have been out and bought more resources to journal with!




Busy, busy



I love this page

Sharing my love of making through the teaching of these workshops was amazing!  The feedback I have received from the individuals on them and from the fantastic organsiers, Asif and Pauline, has been great!  In fact, I have been asked to teach at next years Tribal Sleepover! How great is that?

Belly Craft!

This weekend is a rather exciting one and I am writing this post while I wait for my Mum to arrive so we can drive over the Pennines to Huddersfield in Yorkshire! We are off to The Tribal Sleepover hosted by some wonderful bellydancer teachers and I am teaching! Squeal!
It is a weekend if dance, drumming, craft, cake, chilling out and drinking (vodka in my case!) Earlier this year I was asked if I would teach some crafty workshops and I jumped at the chance! It is a great opportunity for me to develop this part of The Gingerbread Bunny, which I really want to do as, well, I am a teacher!
So, I am running a crochet-a-long later tonight making zill muffs and flowers, tomorrow I am teaching a feathery hair clips workshops and on Sunday morning it is all about the art journaling!
The bags are packed and the car is ready to go. All I need now is my partner in crime!!!

Art from the Heart 10th Birthday Blog Hop!!

Welcome to a very exciting blog hop in Celebration of 10 years of Art from the Heart!

Lots of exciting things are happening at Art from the Heart next weekend where the big birthday bash is taking place. Want to know more? Then do click here!

 

So, in celebration we are having 5 birthday blog hops.

You should have reached my blog from here, Dyan's blog, and are on the 7 Gypsies hop.

Here is my project!

It is a page from my Art Journal.  I used:

• A 7 Gypsies sticker from the 'Gypsy' sheet
• The gorgeous Sabadell paper (it is brown spotty on one side and blue and white stripey on the other) from the Barcelona papers range
• My fabulous 7 Gypsies stamper which has 12 word choices in fancy fonts
• The base is a 7 Gypsies card from the Vintage journal pages set
• A range of acrylic paints applied with cards and baby wipes, black stamping ink and round bottle tops to create the circles.

 Before you move on, you will need to collect a letter from me which is

N

This is part of an anagram of a 7 Gypsies product.

Once you get back to Dys blog please email your answer to Ben.

So, after leaving me a comment, you need to move on to

Cath's Blog!

Have fun hopping!

Being Creative ~ Travel!

It is that time of the month, time to share my project for this months Being Creative theme of travel.  Now I am going to be honest, I have literally made this in the last 3 hours since I got home from my first day back at work.  Ooops!

Now I love to travel.  I adore long car journeys and train journeys and coach journeys and, well, just about any journey really.  Only this week, me and Mr Bunny went on a very long car adventure which took us over the Humber Bridge (we do these adventures quite often, the most famous being a trip to Ikea in Warrington which turned into an adventure to Oxford when we decided not to get off the motorway!)

So, here it is, my journal page all about travel.



Beautiful Backgrounds

A good few weeks ago now, I attended a journaling backgrounds workshop, with my Mum, at the fabulous Art from the Heart in Harrogate.  The workshop was taught by Kate Crane, who has been featured in Art Journaling Magazine, and was fantastic!  She taught us 2 techniques for creating backgrounds for journaling.

The first technique involved lots of layering up acrylics using a card to apply them.  We then added spray inks, stamps and shapes to build it all up to create a gorgeous background.  Finally, we journaled on top.  I added some cut out stamps of houses on text taken from old books, putting them on top of some ripped sheet music to ground them. 

The second technique Kate showed us involved finger painting!  Very messy but lots of fun and it created an amazing background!  Again, we layered it up with spray inks, stencils and stamps and then journaled on top.  I picked the lady above, stuck on with tape, and a giant bug which made me think of Doctor Who! 

During the workshop, I had the opportunity to use pastels, which I've never worked with in my journals before, to highlight areas.  Very effective.

Of course, when I got home I had to have a go at these techniques, to make sure I hadn't forgotten how to do them, and I experimented with using fewer colours, different stamps and adding other layers. 

We really enjoyed the workshop, took some great ideas away with us and had the chance to do a bit of shopping (I took cash and no cards!) And of course, we had a lovely dinner in the cafe downstairs, bagel with cream cheese and a giant piece of coffee and walnut cake, mmm! 

(If you go to Kate's blog, there are some photo's from the workshop and you can just see the top of my head, I look very busy!)

Being Creative with dessert!



Millionaires baked by me

April has come to an end which means that it is time to share with you last month's Being Creative project!  For those of you new to my blog, Being Creative is the project organised by Julia Crosslands at her blog. 

April's theme was dessert! Mmmmm!  I have plenty to share on this amazing topic from baking, cards and art journaling.

I love to bake and have taken this as an opportunity to bake a little more.  In the latest issue of Simply Homemade, there where a couple of recipes I wanted to try out - Caramel Shortbread (or Millionaires as I call them) and Brownies! 

I made the Millionaires as a present fro my Mum for Mother's Day as she loves them and the brownies to take when visiting Babybee!

Brownies

For our last Stitch 'n' Bitch I baked some gorgeous biscuits!  For Christmas Shinybees gave me a fab present, a large glass jar layered with the dry ingredients to make these.  I loved them so much I have made them again.  Everyone enjoyed them!

Scrumptious biscuits

I also made a cupcake themed card and found this page in my art journal.  The page was all about my favourite food and I had recently had a Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding (with very thick cream) and cut this off the cardboard cover!  I adore this pudding and if you have never tried it you really need to!

My mouth is now watering following all that discussion about desserts! 

In my next blog post, which will be later on this week, I am going to announce my first giveaway!  The prize is very pretty and feathery and everyone, no matter where you live, is invited to enter!  Keep an eye out for that post for your chance to win a Gingerbread Bunny design!

Spring craftiness!

Beautiful sunny weather!

It is a gorgeous, sunny day here in the north of England.  The sky is blue with a dusting of light, fluffy clouds and the sun is shining brightly!  I could be outside, probably getting sunburned, enjoying this unusally beautiful weather; but I'm not.  I am, instead, inside in my lazy clothes making, blogging, and surfing the web!

Today's post is going to be a quick update on what the Bunny has been upto recently and future crafty plans.

CROCHET

I am loving the crochet!  Since the purchase of the monster hook, I have made a gorgeous open knit scarf all in double chain stitch.  The wool is very soft and the colours I just love.

I have nearly finished the Rapunzel scarf from April's Inside Crochet magazine.  The yarn is Noro Silk Garden which is just so soft and when it is finished it will be such a beautiful and unique scarf.  I just have 1 more strip to go and then join it together and it will be finished!  Keep an eye out for a future post.




Gorgeous yarn!  I love you Noro Silk garden.


SEWING

My sister has comissioned a journal wrap as a gift for her friend.  This one is purple and matches the card she also asked me to make.  (I will post pictures in the future just in case the recipient of the gift see's this! Don't wnt any spoilers.)

OTHER CRAFTY WORKS

I have been reading Treacle and Ink (a brilliant crafty blog with a new, fabulous crafty podcast) and she has made some gorgeous flower pens.  I have made a couple of these as gifts.  I have also been making Easter cards and a horsey themed birthday card have all been completed. (Again, pictures will follow in the future as I have made these for gifts)

I have had a couple of comissions for flowery hair clips from fellow bellydancers.  I so want to keep them but have plenty already!  Aren't they just gorgeous?




Funky feathery clips

 There has, as usual, been lots of journaling.  There is always lots of journaling going on!

FUTURE CRAFTY PROJECTS

The Easter holidays are looming and so I have a long list of crafty projects;

Bunnies for the RSPCA
Other bunny themed items
Fab shawl from the most recent edition of Inside Crochet magazine (Got to learn to block first!)
More journaling!

OVER TO YOU!

I am really interesting in getting to know the readers of my blog a little bit better.  Tell me what crafty projects you are working on at the moment! And, if anyone can help me with how to block, please contact me!





Being Creative!

Last month I signed up to the Being Creative project on Julia Crossland's beautiful blog.  Every month she posts a new theme for the project and we all go away and create a piece of art that reflects that theme.  It is an opportunity to create art for the sake of creating art, an idea I just adore.

March's theme was Garden.  At first I wasn't sure what to create but eventually an idea came.  I had created a similar page in my art journal based on Andrea Schroder's Creativity 101 ecourse.


Countryside page from my art journal



I love flowers and so they were the inspiration for my Being Creative art work.  I used a variety of techniques to produce it and had such fun playing around.  I started by covering the page in green tissue paper and then used a flower stencil create flower shapes in the background using a white dabber.  Using stamps, I added the flowers in pink and purple and then stamp smaller flowers along the bottom.  I love sparkle and had to add flower sequins, jems and brads to finish it all off.  I thoroughly enjoyed this months project and can't wait to get started on next's months theme of dessert! 



Garden page I made as part of the Being Creative project



The back of my Being Creative Garden work



Wrap me up!

There has been much journaling going on this week in the warren.  On Saturday I attended a journaling workshop based on The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.  It was being hosted at a local high school and, for £11.25 for a full day and your dinner, it was an opportunity not to be missed. 

I'm not really sure what I expected from it.  I was hoping that it would help with the writing aspect of my journaling as this is the part I always find the hardest.  The art bit, the painting and decorating pages, sticking sparkly bits on and generally having arty fun is easy and rewarding but when it comes to writing I often get a block.  What do I write about?  What have I got to say?  

Writing we got!  The lady running the course announced that she wanted us to write for 1 hour!  Yes, you heard me right, 1 hour!  My initial thoughts I will not print here but needless to say I did not feel good.  I felt intimidated by  the blank pages in front of me and  the prospect of sitting like a pudding for 1 hour with nothing to write about. 

So, in true teacherly fashion, I wrote the date and title, underlining them to!  It instantly took away the blank page, it was no longer as intimidating.  I then began to write about what had happened that day and then it just flowed.  One thought led to another and another and before I knew it I was writing.

Now, being completley honest, I have never sat down and just written before like I did then.  I never made myself do it.  It was a block, a barrier I had given myself and I chose the easy way out, to paint a pretty background.  As I said in my last post, ecourses like Andrea's and prompts from the Art Journaling magazine have helped me to write and record but, that 1 hour yesterday morning made me realise that I could write!

So, on to the title of my post, 'wrap me up'.  As you may have ascertained I love my art journal.  It is precious to me.  It is me as an artist and my thoughts and feelings and day to day happenings in my life.  It is my creative outlet.  It was sat there on my crafty work table, as beautiful as it is, but I felt it was missing something.  It needed to be kept in a special place, in a special way.  I decided to make it it's own special wrap! 

My beautiful journal and wrap.

I made the wrap from strips of fabric cut into rectangles and sewn together.  Some of the fabric is from old clothing I had, like a gorgeous silk skirt that no longer fitted, there is part of my wedding dress on there and other fabrics I had in my stash.  I then added ribbon and ric rac to cover the seams and used a zig zag stitch to make it look more decorative.  Finally I added a button (one a got from the Textile fair) and some pink ribbon to fasten it.  There was no pattern, it was just an idea and I played around until it looked right. 



Flat wrap

  I enjoyed making it so much I made one for my Mum, who loves her art journaling to, and have decided to make some for the Gingerbread Bunny Folksy shop when it is launched. 

Mum's journal wrap

Art Journaling

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun." Mary Lou Cook

Last summer I discovered Art Journaling.  It changed my life!  I had gone to America, with my Mum, to take a course in tribal bellydance.  There where several other people on the course, including a lovely lady called Tracy who we were car sharing with, and she was an art journaler.  She very kindly shared her journal, her work, with me.  It was beautiful.   I had never heard of art journaling before and was instantly interested in what it was.  I had made countless scrap books of holidays but they were quite basic and nothing exciting or expressive.  I learnt that art journaling is a way of expressing your self through your art.  It isn't about the end product, it doesn't matter if you make mistakes or how you use the products, it is about the process.  There are no rules, you make the rules! 

I began the hunt for art journaling materials, desperate to start my first journal straight away.  I bought a beautiful stamp and some papers as well as a gorgeous notebook and my first ever copy of Stampington's Art Journaling magazine.  What a magazine!  What inspiration I found within it's pages! 

When I got back I wanted to make a beautiful art journal of my trip and luckily had an old passport that I turned into my first ever art journal.  I was so pleased with it and will treasure it forever as a memory of my holiday!



As much as I love this journal, and it is a great reminder of my trip, it wasn't a reflective journal.  I wanted to explore this side of art journaling more.  I wanted to use it as a way of opening up my creative side and reflecting on, well, me.  I started a journal but soon gave up.  I loved preparing pages but found it difficult to write.  I just didn't know what to write about!  Also, the book was too big and a bit daunting.  I did some more research, got a book, got some older copies of Art Journaling magazine and searched the internet for ecourses and ideas.  From my research I made a list of journal prompts, joined a free ecourse on Creativity and started a much smaller A5 journal, adding my own pages to it when needed.  These have really helped me to open up my creativity and to write!

My most recent art journal began at the start of 2011.  I wanted to start the year with a new journal and chose a theme, a moto, for it 'Trust Yourself'.  Already my journal is getting quite thick as I use my prompts and ecourses as a way of opening up my creativity. 

My journaling has helped me to realise that I am a creative artist and I love it.



This page was inspired from Andrea
Schroeder's Creativity 101 ecourse. 





Creative Me!  This page was also inspired by Andrea
Schroeder's Creativity 101 course.





Previous Makes!!!

Here are a few of my past makes!   

ART JOURNALING 

I used an old passport

I used a range of papers for backgrounds

Last summer me and my mum went to America on a Tribal Bellydance Holiday (My other passion!)  I was inspired by a beautiful lady we danced with over there, Tracy, who was into art Journaling!  I bought a magazine and was completley hooked!  This is the first art journal I made about our fantastic trip!

SEWING

For Christmas I got the best present ever (as my husband keeps telling me!)  A sewing machine!  Now it is only a very basic model (a mini sewing machine from John Lewis in bright pink!) but it is wonderful!  Here are a few things I have made so far!



I bought a great book, 'How to get the most from your sewing machine' by Marion Elliot.  There was this great idea about how to make a sewing machine cover out of an old pair of jeans!  So I did!  I used the pockets to hold the foot and adaptor and on the back is a pocket for the manual!  It keeps my sewing machine dust free, all it's bits together and looks pretty good!!!

Inspired by a present my friend Jo made me for Christmas, I made my train mad husband this notebook cover using some pretty Cath Kidston fabric!  He did complain that the seing on the ribbon was a bit wonky but given it was only my second sewing machine project, I don't think I did too bad!!! 

This cute vase cover was made from an old jumper I had!