The Bombdy

Minibook madness has descended! I bought several of these papermania minibooks some time ago and feel that before I get to seriously play with the bind it all I should use these up! So here's the first one, pictures I took when I visited the 'bombdy' - St Luke's bombed out church in Liverpool city centre. I'd flown in from Italy and had a couple of hours to kill before my train north so was wondering around when I realised something was going on in this interesting building. A group called Urban Strawberry Lunch had opened up the building as an art exhibition, come place for folk to meet and have lunch. A real fascinating mix of art, community, remembrance and ideas. I loved it.

Art Cards

Well I've been working away on them but haven't posted for a bit so here's a wee catch up - I can hardly believe it's now week 44 .... And the prompt was home - I travel lots so keep thinking that (eventually) all roads lead to home! This is weeks 39-42: Not anymore; Where would you like to be?; A grateful week, and someone special. 43 was scary - but I can't find the piccy at the mo! Will try to sort that out.

CC report!

Well I don't know what the UKS party cyber crop did to me, but it's taken ages to recover and get back onto blogger .... I guess I did have to go away for work for a bit though I suppose. But I had great fun one weekend as my mum and sister came to my flat for the weekend and we set up the dining table, brought out the stash, bought in the choccie and champagne and chinese food when necessary, and had a great time! So here's a few shots featuring my wee crop creature with the party bags he made for his pals!And here's some of the los I managed - the first one was using up scraps from the Banana Frog kit, and the others all followed the cc classes.

Doodle-de-doo!

More shapes and assignments for the doodling class at BPS - above was to use lines to frame rectangles (practising for photos I guess), and on the rhs, you had to trace round a chipboard shape then doodle round it! The colourful one I did a day or so ago, trying out more ideas from the cover of Maelynn's book, and playing with my pens and pencils. For this assignment you had to get an older lo that could do with being framed. So I chose this one and used my Uniball Signo white pen, but kinda smudged the corner with the lovely wee white flower that was already on the Rouge de Garance paper so had to go and cover it up with this rather heavy handed splurgey thing. But hey, you live and learn!

Going colourful!

Oooh, this is addictive.... the next assignment was to look at the cover of Maelynn's book, so I tried to copy bits in my doodle journal, and in so doing learnt so much about the characteristics of the different pens, and remembered that I had a fab set of colour pencils I could use! This is such fun!

Doodle all day!

Well, how about this for an excuse to sit and daydream, er I mean practise? I'm doing the bigpicturescrapbooking Doodle All Day class with Maelynn Cheung and loving it. A great book with lots of really clear photos and examples, and daily emails with assignments that are totally achievable (even if it is a bit scary putting pen to paper...) So far I've managed to just doodle! (above) and practise the lines and circles exercises (below). We also had to search through and test out all our pens on white and black card. These are mostly Sakura souffle (pastel), tombow, jimnie gel rollers (metallic ones) and marvy le plume. And on the white below are a set of Sakura micron pigment pens 01-05, and on the black, the souffle again, a couple of sakura gelly rolls, the jimnie metallic gell rollers again, white sharpie paint ones, and a krylon gold leafing pen. This was the first scary thing - to go back to an old layout that needed 'something' and add doodles! So here it is....

What I learned in September!

Well here it is! I finished my Learn Something New Every Day (online class from Shimelle) album today - yay, what a feeling that is! I found it hard to do a lo every day, but did note down what my lesson was each day and used that to make the los. Again, I found it hard to always find a relevant photo, as I wanted to use existing photos rather than take new ones (and I don't have a digi camera). But I loved doing this, hard though it was at times, and will no doubt use this as book of thoughts and reflections to look at time and again.Just do it! Just start somewhere // The past is worth revisiting, old stuff is still good!Grumpy teenagers grow up - give them their chance! // Do a bit everyday - eat the elephant.Life should be a roundabout, not a rollercoaster! // New term, new start, set challenges, make plans...Memories are precious ... my Dad // Stop off and take a break! Enjoy the scenery.Delegate, hand things over and move on! // First piano lesson - great to learn new skills.Sometimes you just have to rest. // Decluttering is good for you.Don't isolate yourself, keep in touch. // Death is part of life.Holidays are important. // Eat well! Doctors orders.Pass it on - knitting is for life! // Making things is fun.Don't be afraid to ask for help. // Preparation pays off!Dreams, nothing is too small to know and too big to attempt. // The mind is powerful. Use it.Rituals are important. // The past is important.Happy is the best place to be. // Getting ready for winter.Dance like nobody is watching. // Dare to be remarkable.These are the lessons I learned this year, 2007. Not all are new, some are memories, but all are things to think on. // notes on photos

Art Journal Cards

Couple of weeks of catch up here (again...) This is weeks 36, 37 and 38 shown together.

The first prompt (by Emily Falconbridge) was "life is beautiful", and I copied Em's use of the index photo here as it seemed so right. Piccies are of my hols on Islay in May. The next was to "draw something". Hhhhmmm, not too good at that, though I'd love to be. So somehow ended up drawing something that looks scarily like a Christmas tree , with the journalling reading that winter is on the way! And the last was "I wonder". I couldn't resist the BG Phoebe wee birdie paper, so of course I wonder what the wee birdies are telling people....