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.

Gingerbread Bunny HQ

Around a month ago, me and Mr Bunny embarked on the arduous task of redecorating the spare room, aka Gingerbread Bunny HQ! We are hoping to up sticks and move north of the border sometime in the not to distant future and this was the first room to be made over. Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures but it was pretty dismal with pale blue walls, a manky border and generally an uninspiring room where I didn't want to spend much time creating and, as I have plans for The Gingerbread Bunny to grow, it needed to change!

It is amazing what a very large tub of white paint can do! Now white isn't a colour I would normally choose for my walls but they need to be pretty neutral for renting out purposes. Now worry not, I got the colour in there! My woodwork and radiator is yellow and I have managed to get just about every colour somewhere in my room to make it bright!

Storage was a big issue before (despite the large built in cupboard -which was full of rubbish!) We tidied up and organised the cupboard, putting a large curtain in front of it, and added some shelves to display my craft books (I never realised I had so many!) I've even managed to squeeze a 2 drawer unit under the table!

My favourite part of the whole redecoration was wall art! I found a gorgeous owl picture in IKEA and a great Make do and Mend canvas in a discount shop for £3.99! I have lots of cards and pictures I wanted on the walls so I created a little washing line and used pretty pegs to hang them all up! I even painted a notice board and glued buttons onto pins to make it all crafty!!!

I love cushions but haven't had any need for them, until now! My little cosy area is a place where I can sit and browse books, magazines and do a bit of crochet! My foam blocking boards are at the bottom (useful and stores easily) with a throw and my Attack of the Giant Granny Square blanket on top and lots of cushions!

I now love spending time in the new Gingerbread Bunny HQ and feel much more inspired to create and make!

(I apologise that all the photos are at the end but I am blogging from my phone and it won't let me place them anywhere else!!)

Customisation, customisation, customisation!

Today I got up to a bit of impromptu crafting of the customisation kind!  Whilst in the new Abakhan store in Bolton last night (it is amazing!) I picked up some 3D textile paint.  I have had a blank canvas bag for ages, which I picked up for 99p in Hobbycraft, and just haven't gotten round to doing anything with it.  So, this morning I customised my bag all ready for taking my things to my textiles night class which starts on Monday.

I got bitten by the customising bug and also jazzed up the cover of my sketch book to! 

If you fancy customising something you have lying around, then read on !

You will need:
An item to customise
Some 3 textile paints (Available from the Range or any other art and craft shop)
A felt tip pen or fabric pen/pencil

How to:
1.  First, make sure the item you wish to customise is clean and dry.

2.  If you want to, use the felt tip pen or fabric pen/pencil to sketch out your design.  I started doing this and then got fed up and just went for it ~ this acheived a more random, doodley effect.

3.  Carefully, go over your sketch and apply the paint.  Be careful not to smudge it as you do (I had an accident and smudged some of mine and had to reinvent some of my design!)

4.  Leave it to dry for 12 hours!

When complete you will have a gorgeous customised item unlike anyone elses!