Sorry Friends

I have been absent for a while and have not been doing much art at all. However, the drought is broken, I am back.
I am finishing off a dotee doll for a swap - the theme is Russian and I will make another smaller doll to go in the pocket of this work in progress doll.



I have started a very special journal, utilising my moleskin that I have been too scared to touch for fear of spoiling it. The journal is entitled "Gratitude and Inspiration" and it is a special book to contain my personal thoughts of what I am grateful for and the things that inspire and uplift me. I am really excited about this - it is something that has been at the back of my mind for ages and I have a friend that is taking the journey with me. We will exchange our journals periodically to write uplifting messages to one another and then return them. I can't wait. The photo is of my first page and utilises caran d'ache soluble crayons, Golden liquid acrylics and distress ink, oh, plus some perfect pearls in multiple colours. It looks beautiful in real life, as it really sparkles depending on how you hold it, as I used some interference colours. Hopefully, this is the start of many more pages that I can read over and over to lift me when I am low and to remind me of how much I have to be grateful for. Thank you to those special friends that have emailed me to tell me how much they miss my blog posts - I appreciate each and every one of you.

Covering notebooks

Being a bit run down and tired and still suffering from my cold for more than 2 weeks, I decided to have an early night last night so didn't blog. I have finished off another collage for a friend, but the gel medium is still drying so I'll post a photo of that tomorrow. In the meantime, last Tuesday night, for Mutual at Church (like Youth Group), my young women and me covered horrible hardcovered notebooks with some beautiful, coordinated scrapbook paper from the cheapie shop (dollar store). You should have seen their faces when I showed them the notebooks and asked them to choose one *giggle*. Then I brought out the scrapbook kits! Big smiles! Since some of the girls were away sick, so I used some of their papers and a book to make my own journal. The girls had a wonderful time, and it was so amazing how different their journals looked, even though everyone had access to exactly the same supplies. I will attach a photo of my journal and the girls holding up theirs.

While I was searching for some quick and easy ways to cover notebooks, I came across this great tutorial for sewing a journal cover - it even comes with a pen holder and clasp. Heart of Mary. I hope to try it soon - would be a great gift idea. She has lots of other great tutorials as well - one clever lady.

Free Stories Class by Jessica Sprague

I have registered for this FREE class at Jessica Sprague's website. This is what she says about it:

"Lately, I've been realizing, that for me, there needs to be a way to capture little stories that can either be made into scrapbook pages, or not. There needs to be a way to fill in those gaps for which there might not be a full-blown 2-page spread that took me 4 hours. But that is a story worth telling nonetheless.

I'm confident that I'm not the only person out there in this situation. So that's why I developed this class. We ALL have stories. And whatever way it is that we choose to tell them, we all need a way of capturing them first. So that's where Stories in Hand comes in.

In our week-long, instructor-led class, we will learn:

* Techniques for capturing memories from our own lives and from others
* Dozens of prompts for stories you might have forgotten
* A cool system for capturing the stories happening in your life right now, AND for listing the stories you have yet to tell
* Technologies you can use to help you gather your stories together with photos, video, your blog, or any other media you have that gives a peek into your life

And we will make a REALLY CUTE project! (You’ll find out the supply list when you register). You are not required to have Photoshop to complete the project.

Oh yeah, by the way, this class is COMPLETELY FREE."

Sounds great doesn't it. You have until November 8th to register. Hope to see you there.