Jeudi Journal - Succeed

"If At First you Don't Succeed - Give Up" is Wendy's choice this week for our Jeudi Journal.  This one really had me stumped!  If only there was a figure that had hands up in the air, or clutching at face ...

Thankfully I had a page already done, not a clue what I used - I suspect Distress Inks and that looks like an Andy Skinner stencil or two.  As it turned out the page was busy so I did not need to do any more to the background.

On Saturday I was talking to my friend Cath and she came up with a suggestion of ripping half a page and sticking it back - giving up because whatever I was doing didn't work.  That was great but when it came to execution I was stuck - again!

I had had an idea earlier in the week, something to do with fish and an under water scene but my addled brain stopped working and I could not, for the life in me, remember what I had thought of doing.

So come Monday I got to thinking, merging ideas, and came up with this

ok, so it needs some explanation!

The top corner shows our little caterpillar day dreaming about becoming a beautiful butterfly and he is wishing with all his might that this will be him.  The bottom corner is when he realises his wish has not come true and he is still a little old caterpillar.

Now you and I know he will eventually turn into a beautiful butterfly but he just needs to be a little more patient.  Now what is on the cards next week?

WOYWW 519

I have been meaning to mention "Spam" for a few weeks now but last week I had NINE spam comments on my WOYWW blogpost.  Is anyone else getting a lot of late?  I don't even know what they are trying to achieve - the wording is not offensive, not asking me to click on a link or anything.

Anyway, here we are - back to WOYWW and the baring of desks for another week.  As my desk has not changed - again - actually I sent three birthday cards out on Saturday but I forgot to scan them - I am showing you the stamps I bought at Happy Stampers on Saturday.  Yeah!  I made it and that means if I did that then I am going to be at the Crop!!

Here are a couple of photos of what I bought:

and close ups

nowhere near as much as usual.

It was good to see some WOYWW'ers and the first persons I saw were Doug and Shaz, closely followed by Heather, then Sarah and much later I bumped into Chris.  Hope I haven't missed anyone.  My memory is so bad at the moment - put it down to old age.

Well, I will leave it there, short and sweet for me.  Not long to go now before the Crop so I had better get on with the ATC's - see you next week, maybe a sneak peek will be on the cards.

Jeudi Journal - Over the Hill

Is that how you feel some times - like you are 'over the hill".

My Journal page lady does not feel that at all - or does she?  That is the question.  She is actually saying she will never be over the hill because she is too tired to climb it.  I think we all feel like that at times.  Too tired to do anything.

For the background I again used Distress Inks, but this time in greens at the base of the page and blues at the top.  I began using the pads direct to paper but then filled in gaps with the blender tool.  As you can see, at the top, I used some lilac to give the appearance of a nicer evening.

Originally I was just putting some leaves down the side and a little across the top but then I decided to use the rest of the stencil and do the light rays coming from the top left hand corner.  Whilst I was looking for my stencil I found the one for the hills from Inkylicious and thought that would be perfect.  It also had a circle cut out so I just used a babywipe to lift the ink from the page to pretend to be the moon.

Although I struggle with most of the quotes I found I really enjoyed this one because I knew where I was going with it.  Will next weeks fall into the same pattern?

Erika, over at Art Journal Journey, has chosen "In the air" as her topic for this month challenge.  Well, my lady is out in the fresh air so I think it should count for inclusion.  I hope so and that my hills and moon help with the topic theme.

WOYWW 518 and Art Journal Journey

Another week closer to the crop - for details check WOYWW here.  Not too late to join us either.

Once again my desk is full of lace, still messing about with the teabags.  The idea I had does not seem to be working and I am back to square one.  I think the back pain has a lot to do with it and I cannot spend too long without a break, also I don't work as quickly as I normally would in order to try out different ways of putting them together.  Production is slow.  Only a week to go, oh heck!

There is something different I can show you which I did almost a week ago.  I like entering a challenge now and then and have been entering one in particular on a fairly regular basis.  I always do two sheets of A4 card and stick little squares on so that I can do some journalling.  Unfortunately this is my 'pain journal' which makes sure I do enter up daily (well almost, might miss one or two and have to play catch up) what my day has been like.  

This month the topic is "In the Air"/"In the Sky" and was set by the lovely Erika at Art Journal Journey.  So mine has to do with birds and has a bird nest on it, plus feathers in the background which are mostly covered up by the squares - but I did enjoy colouring them in with my Inktense pencils.

Jeudi Journal

This week the Dylusion quote is Cancel "My Subscription I Don't Need Your Issues" and I hadn't a clue how to portray this at all.

To begin with I created a background with some lilac/purple DI's and then used a square stencil to create some interest.  I wanted to use another AAL & Create stamp on the background and so I chose to use some brushes and a ring binder spine (I think that is what it is).  Just felt that those two images were probably the most appropriate from my collection for 'subscription' and 'issues'.

Btw:  the words around the figure on the right are "A bit of this", "A bit of that", "A bit of the other", "As I said" and "You know what" - to give the illusion of "Issues".

I really enjoyed creating the figure on the right which some of you may recognise usually has a telephone on his head and another one between his feet.  I thought the short trousers, or long shorts, looked quite trendy, especially with those long socks and the boots.

This is what I enjoy most about doing my Journal on a Thursday - creating different figures from the rubber stamps I already have.  Saying that, I was thinking I needed something new to use, and on going through my stash I discovered that one set I thought was only on my wish list was actually in my box.  That cut me down from ordering.  Saved a bit of money there!  Now I have checked my database is up to date I shouldn't be duplicating my Dylusion stuff.

In the Sky or In the Air

That is the title of the challenge on Art Journal Journey set by the lovely Erika for this month.

I always seem to do my pain journal pages for the first thing in this challenge and so this morning I set to and thought about "birds", seeking out my bird stamps.  First of all I sprayed two sheets of cardstock because it was the quickest way I could think of to create a background and then I got stamping.

Spent a nice time sitting in my high backed chair with my Promarkers and my Derwent Inktense Pencils colouring in the images.  I always seem to do two images per page with them in opposite corners for my main images and then do some smaller bits scattered around the page which is going to be covered in squares for my journalling anyhow.

I went along with 'feathers' and had a lovely time using the pencils to colour them and create some nice blending - shame you can only see bits.  Perhaps I need to think out my strategy before next month.

So here it is - my "In the Sky" page for Erika at Art Journal Journey.

WOYWW 517 - the First Day of May

Another week closer to the Crop and the Anniversary.  Just need to get my thinking cap on and start making something.  Perhaps a Masterboard is in order and I can take it from there.  What on earth am I on about?  Well, go here and see all about it - Julia can explain it much better than I can.

Still not doing much crafting.  I am managing to keep up with my Journal challenge that I do with a friend of mine on a Thursday and doing prep for my workshop (fingers crossed I can get through it on the day) but that is about all.  I have lots of Dylusion figures all ready cut out and some are coloured so Thursdays is just a question of making a background and finding a figure or two to add to it.  This is the start of one of my backgrounds

To the left you can see my folder which contains most of my A4 stencils and then there is my flip journal which is the one I am using at the moment.  I used three Distress Inks direct to paper and then put a stencil on the top left and the whole of the opposite side in yet another shade of blue.

At the back you can see one of my "cubby holes" that houses the tall bottles of various things that aren't used that often.  It is as well I don't buy as much these days as I used to - I have bought things in the past that I no longer remember what to use them for.  Anyone else done that?

This is the blue card from last week - not a clue what year I did it but i do remember it was at CHA:

Well, I will leave it there, short for Julia and see you all next week for another WOYWW.