All posts filed under: Creativity

100 days of freeform mandalas 91-100

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Hurrah for the completed 100 day project!  I finished a while ago but have only just got around to blogging my triumph. I also just realized that I missed a mandala off these photos, I made number 92 but neglected to include it here.  Ooopsy! I did enjoy the whole project, but I must admit that I am pleased to be done. I have made all kinds of mandalas and this project has been in part responsible for my new love for making stamps and some experimenting which went well and some which I  maybe didn’t love. Will I do it again next year? Most likely, yes! Happy Monday x    

Daily Moleskine 2018 June pages

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Lots of sketches and splats of colour in June.  Two weeks of pages were completed while I was on holiday in England so there are some good memories in those pages. I like ‘Don’t panic’ as I did that page right before we flew to England and I was panicking!  I am an airport panicker, always worried I have forgotten something or something will go wrong! Also, I like the sunnies which opened June, a pretty bad sketch but it makes me smile anyway. Are you doing a 365 project?  How’s it going now we are half way through the year? Happy Tuesday x  

Get Messy Season of Story Week 5

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For the Season of Story over at the Get Messy Art Journaling community, I made a journal which I love and I am super proud of and then I left it at home when I went on holiday to England for two weeks.  I left it because I didn’t want it to get squashed or damaged or worse, ignored.  All of these things would  most likely have happened to it, so I am pleased I didn’t take it. However, what also happened was that I didn’t do much of anything in the way of art journaling in my new journal for another couple of weeks afterwards.  It is a chunky little number and it needs to be filled! This week I saw a bird egg which I decided to paint in order to capture the colour of it, then I searched my old photos for suitable candidates for the season of story.  At the same time I pulled out some old National Geographic magazines which I had recently bought at an estate sale and I …

100 days of freeform mandalas 61-70

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We are in the final straight of the 100 day project and to be honest I keep forgetting which day we are on and if I am keeping up or not. I am pretty much keeping up and I still am not sure what number I am at! Of this 10, I like the trio of collaged mandalas on the vintage math cards best and I also like working on the small watercolour cards, they are just the right size.  I used the watercolour cards while I was in the UK and they worked really well.  There is one missing and that is the mandala I drew on a coffee cup on the train! The 100 day project is almost complete and I am enjoying it still and I am very pleased with my pile of freeform mandalas so far. Happy Monday x SaveSave

100 days of freeform mandalas 51-60

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We are well into the 100 day project now and if you are still going, good for you and see going!  We have quite a collection of items created by now which is always encouraging. I like this gathering of mandalas which are painted, stamped, sprayed, collaged and drawn. I am looking forward to see what the next ten will look like. If you want to follow along with my project on Instagram, it is at #100daysoffreeformmandalas. Happy Monday x

Handmade art journal and Get Messy Season of Story

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Whenever I visit an antique shop or estate sale I am always on the lookout for old photos, books and ledgers as well as any interesting papers from days gone by which I can use in art journals as collage or inspiration. Sometimes there will be a box of photos to sift through but in my eyes, the real finds are the albums still full of ancient black and white images often with written descriptions on the back or front of the photos and on the album pages. I love to see the names, the date and often a little description of the image. Just look at the poses and the joy in the page of photos from 1916 shown above! I consequently have a lot of old pictures and I use them in my journals some, but I want to use more. One per page at least to and fill my journal with photos and the imagined stories that accompany these people and their clothes and cars and locations. A happy coincidence that the …

Get Messy season of play week 8.

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The final two pages in my little altered book – a vintage Maytag washing machine manual- and it timed out perfectly for the last week of the season of play over at the Get Messy Art Journal community. This has turned out to be a season of few pages for me, but I did fill my book which I am pleased about.  I have also been very inspired by the new class also from Get Messy called Botanicals in Art Journaling . I just can’t stop adding leaves and flowers to my pages! I am always on the lookout for flowers to photograph on my phone so that I can use them as sketching inspiration in my journals and sketchbooks.  The top irises are from a sea of flowers I snapped near the gym I go to. Happy Thursday x

The day I made a hand carved stamp set.

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I have been wanting to make stamps for ages now and I have had a couple of goes with some success but nothing amazing. Boosted by the fact that I said that one of my goals for May was to make a stamp set, yes, not just one lonesome stamp, a lovely friendly set of them, I got to work. I am not a get the equipment and dive in kinda girl, I have to look at at least one book on the subject if possible.  I checked out ‘Carve, Stamp, Play‘ by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and ‘Making an Impression‘ by Geninne Zlatkis from the library and got studying stamp making. Of course I don’t get far into any books about making stuff without wanting to jump in and have a go.  I grabbed my carving equipment and some stamp blocks and decided what I wanted to make a stamp of. I love to use sumi ink with a sumi brush so I wondered if I painted a basic design on each of my three …

100 days of Freeform Mandalas 11-30

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I am really getting into the world of freeform mandalas, so much apparently that I have neglected to write a blog post about my 100 Day Project since day 10. I am now up to day 43 and I have 43 mandalas.  Some days I have to play catch up but I have not fallen more than one behind.  If I do, I shall catch up again, one of the ways I manage the 100 day project is to be kind to myself and not let myself get too far behind with it, but if I do, then I allow myself to make 2 or 3 in one day if needed. Are you doing the 100 day project?  Are you using any helpful methods to keep going? Happy Monday x   SaveSave