One of my mandalas fell by the wayside in England, but here are the rest of 71-90.
I have to confess that I am pretty much out of enthusiasm for the project at this point, even though they don’t take long, I am feeling like I would rather be doing something else.
Having said that, I am not stopping now and I do enjoy seeing them all together. I can’t wait to lay out all 100 and see them all together.
Have you almost finished your 100 day project? How has it been?
Happy Monday x
While on a recent trip home to Lincoln in the UK, I marked the calendar to visit an antique market in Castle Square and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a small but interesting gathering of stalls from local vendors and antique dealers. Among the wares on sale I spotted a vintage gladstone bag which my teenage goth self would have given her right arm for, I wanted one of those things so badly! Thirty years on, I left it for someone else.
This typewriter was pretty sweet and I thought a bargain at twenty pounds but it would not have fit in my carry on, so even though it worked, it also was left for another owner.
As cruised the stalls in search of photos and ephemera which would fit into my bag, I found these cigarette cards wrapped in a crabby old elastic band at the bottom of a box of treasures.
These old travel souvenir photo sets were in the same box and I soon had a pile forming!
The 1972 London street map and The Observer book of Pond Life sealed the deal. A fiver for the lot and the stallholder gave me another Observer book for free! 
The Lincoln booklets came from the second hand bookshop in the Jews House on the Strait in Lincoln and the four books full of tea cards were also from the market. Boxes of tea used to come with a small card on a topic like ‘birds’, ‘space’ etc and they could be stuck into books to complete the pages. Someone had worked hard at drinking all the tea and filled these books!
This next batch of books came from the Jews House shop, the market and Oxfam’s book shop in Lincoln. ‘Ships and the sea’ has some fantastic fold out pages of flags and is from 1936. The two Greek books are from the 1800’s and I just loved the cover of ‘In Praise of the Lakes’ which was published in 1953.
I will put all of this to good use, even if it sits on my shelf in my old book collection.
I hope that you are finding treasures too!
Happy Wednesday x
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
Being back in Lincoln for a visit is such a joy. The weather has been amazing with warm temperatures and blue skies full of fluffy clouds.
I walked up to the cathedral early one morning and explored as many nooks and crannies as I could see.
Looking up and down there are faces everywhere. Gargoyles, figures, statues and animals, all to spot wherever you turn.
These were some of my favourites.
It just shows that if you look carefully you will be rewarded.
Happy Thursday x
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
May was a very floral month! I sketched, painted and collaged all the botanicals along with the Botanicals in Art Journaling class at Get Messy Art Journaling. I didn’t realize just how flower mad I had gone! No complaints here.
Some of my favourite pages are the flowers for heads collage pages which crack me up and the pages where I was planning and making stamps. I am super proud of those stamps.
Nearly half way through the year, I can’t believe it!
Happy Thursday x
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 next Get Messy Art Journal season is almost upon us and it is the Season of Story! Where better to include stories inspired by all of these people from history and adorn my art journal with their grace and poise. I am going to use this season to find stories and let them find me, some may be my own and some will be imagined.
Now, I also need a journal to use for this new season. I had made a sketchbook a few weeks ago from an antique photo album which was falling apart but the spine and covers were in great shape, perfect for this project.
It is a lovely chunky journal with hot press watercolour paper which I buy in big sheets and tear down to size. Some pages fold out to give me more space and I have seven signatures each with six pages. Plenty to work with!
If you are interested in making your own sketchbook, I recommend the Get Messy bookbinding class which got me started making books in the first place, the book ‘How to Make Books‘ by Esther K Smith or videos by Kiala Givehand over at YouTube.
If you are interested in Get Messy, the Season of Story and seeing what it is all about and of course joining us in some art making and art journaling maybe you are interested in a season pass? The pass will introduce you to the world of Get Messy and will hopefully give you enough time to decide if you want more! As a creative team member I am obviously biased, but I love every minute that I am making art and involved in the Get Messy community. Click here for more info and to sign up if you fancy. This is an affiliate link which means that I receive compensation at no extra cost to you if you sign up, which means I can buy art supplies!
More details –
Happy Monday x
Over half way in The 100 Day Project! I am enjoying just grooving along with my mandalas. I am not feeling any pressure, just making a new mandala every day.
Are you participating in the 100 day project? How is it going? I am enjoying following along with other projects too, everyone has such good ideas and talent.
Happy Friday x
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
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 stamp blocks, would it leave an impression I could carve around. Yes! It worked, I painted some test designs in my sketchbook, then onto each carving block. I left them for a few minutes then carefully blotted off the excess ink to leave behind the shape I was to carve. This way I got the flow of the lines I wanted to create the stamp because I used my brush directly onto the stamp block.
After some carving and book consulting and more carving and stamp testing and final carving, success, I have three stamps I love! These are pretty big as stamps go, about 4 inches tall, maybe I will try my hand at smaller ones next.
Now I want to carve a feather stamp, a raindrops stamp, maybe some dots of various sizes all over a stamp, the alphabet…..the possibilities are only restrained by my dedication and trips to the art store for more stamp blocks!
I made this last page in my ‘season of play’ journal for the latest Get Messy Art Journal season. I painted the flower type marks and stamped over them with my new handy dandy stamp!
Happy Wednesday x
Clare Davis Etheridge 