Unusual Alphabet

I was away at a hen do this weekend so I didn't do much however I was busy creating friday night with my man by my side offering me some idea's actually. It was good fun. I created 2 Unusual Alphabet ATC's to send to Rixta and I am going to do the 3rd tonight so I will be sure to post pictures tomorrow. I did a geisha one and a mermaid one. I was impressed with my mermiad one as I drew it myself - based on a picture I had. Some learning points gained from it and going to draw another one and learn from the experience of drawing the first.

I also made a geisha postcard which I am going to send to one of my pen friends in the states. Probably Nina as I think she will appreciate it. I got an image from the Mary Dover sampler and then coloured in only parts of the image to create a nice Japanese looking postcard. Again pictures and a longer update to follow tomorrow.

Had a good time at the hen night and was very tired when I made it home yesterday late afternoon hence no crafting, just lots of watching House.

Organisation is key

Thats right I have got a new organiser which is great as the 3 drawers I had just didn't hold it all and Sam wanted to get it all put away together so we bought a 7 drawer thing from B&Q and I managed to fill up 5 drawers very neatly with all my bits and pieces. Well it started neat and tidy but since I have done some bits with it, it is not so any more :) I will sort it out again. If I keep it tidy it will be easier to find things, it just when you are in the flow, tidiness is not on your mind. That was actuallyabout a week and a half ago but it has made a difference plus whilst sorting through I found some new stuff.

I refound illustration friday as Lia started doing some pieces for it and I thought I would have a go but as usual did not finish it in the week timeframe, so at the moment I see it as a work in progress as I am unsure whether I want to add colour to it or not - hmmmm a little thought and then I will see. I wonder what this weeks theme is, see if it inspires me :)

I finally got my 4 elements ATC's done, horray - i don't know why its been such a challenge, they are very late so thanks to Julie for being so patient, my idea of what to do changed many times and a hald made card has been discarded for the moment but I am happy with these pastel creations. It was fun to play with the pastels and I learnt a little about blending from Sam which was good. There a bit abstract but I like the water and fire ones the best because they are so abstract.

I also did a little work in my journal. Without a journal to work in at the moment I am trying to work in my own journal as much as possible anyway. I want to try and work in it most days, even if its only a little bit. So i found these trees from a card and I liked the way they looked so decided to do something with them. I did the background and the trees but then was not sure what else I wanted to do however when working on my element ATC's I decided to see if I had a white pastel and see what effect that would have. I like what it did because it is like they are invisible clouds. I think I am going to leave it as it is without words. I think it says more that way.

Spring fun

Last night I decide to get in the spirit of spring and get moving on my spring postcards. In the end I made two. I bought a couple of years ago a 365 day calender about scrapbooking in that each page can be used to scrapbook. I had done nothing with it until this year and picked out a couple of pages to make use of in spring postcards. One had a nice flowery background and I took some tags from a craft magazine to spell spring across. I really like the effect it made and actually used brads rather than just glue them down. Just sitting here now I have realised I could have put hidden pictures behind them and you could have moved the tags to reveal them. I will use that in a future postcard - I like the idea.

My other postcard is a bit more random. I used another page, it has a flowery border and then took some pictures from a different page to put in the corners. I think found a spring chicken tag as such. That looked cute in the middle but I realised something was still missing. So i dug out some flowery confetti and put that like snowflakes on the page. After creating it I decided it would probably have looked better without the corner images but they were already there.

Finally I finished off an Easter ATC I had been working on. I only needed to glue the final flowers on it but I think they just added a final touch to the card.

Ideas

I haven't done any more art over the last couple of days but whilst driving back from my dads I had a couple of idea's for creating journal pages. It was frustrating because I could see them in my head and I was driving so there was no way to put them down but as soon as I got to where I was going, I dug out my journal and just jotted down the idea's with a little picture so I knew what I was thinking about. Then when I get back home tomorrow I can get started on them. A bit different to what I have done before so I am quite excited about giving them a go and hope they turn out the same as I saw them in my head.

Blog Revamp

I am sure you have all noticed a few changes in my blog recently - like the creation of my very own title. I am having a little play and looking to try and make it how I want it to be rather than just how the template lays it out so it will probably change a few times other the next couple of weeks. Heres hoping you like the changes :)

Inchies and journals

Been a little while since I updated because it appears I did not update at all last week - tsk tsk, plus I had things to talk about. So I got all my spring inchies done in one day, thats right 13 inchies in one day - I am not quite sure how I managed it but I did, I went on a theme as such making all 13 similar so I am guessing that helped. I have found inchies to be tricky before because of their small size but I just went with the flow this time and didn't worry to much and they came to me. I only have a picture on my phone (my camera had no batter power) so I will post a picture once I sort out getting it off my phone. But they all had bugs or flowers on them on either a green or yellow gingham background. They looked very cute and seasonal.

I also did lots of journalling work on Friday night. Having received 3 journals through the post from norma, sitting there when I got home from work that day and still having my own to complete (which I am glad I hadn't started as I thought we were making ATC's to go on them but not in this round) I felt I should get started so that I can send on to Katz as I felt like I had been holding things up (although wanted to send 2 journals together so had been waiting for them to come through). So Having had a flick through them earlier in the evening I had another look and was inspired to create in Vix's journal which was on friendship.

I found some background paper I liked, wrote how I felt about friendship in some of them and then thought about how to embellish, did the butterflies and then had quick search through my stash thinking what would fit. I had everything in but the kitten picture when I remembered about it and thought it would be perfect.

Then I though I better make my own so looked back through my papers and decided to cover it with musical paper. Thought be best to keep my page to the same theme but only a bit of paper left but looked better with the blue behind. Right from when I started the journal I kept thinking Money makes the world go around from Cabaret in my head so felt I should include. Once I had that done, my mind wandered to the music cat stickers I knew I had and bingo a page was created. Its not fancy but I like it.

Journal Page

I did a small amount or artwork over the weekend. I was away and didn't really take anything with me however what I did take was my journal and a 4 colour biro. Working on the basis of zentangles which really is done on an ATC sized card/paper I purposely doodled in my journal. It was an interesting experience. I stopped and started a couple of times as I was travelling on a train and such but over the weekend I ended up with a finished page. At first my doodle looked like an eye which I wrote about but I had lots of balnk space on the page and I didn't want to leave it like that. So I decided to use a totally different colour (I had been using blue and black up until this point) and I started doing little squares in red. As you can see the finished project (photo to be added tomorrow) it ended up looking like a tunnel to me. I like the effect it created but hoped people can still see the eye. I was pleased with this page and I enjoyed creating it. It was quite calming which zentangles are supposed to be so from that perspective it was.