Jeudi Journal - Penny

"Collage Fodder, Food and Drink, or Both" is the theme to work to for Art Journal Journey this month, hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard.  I did link in last week, I distinctly remember seeing which number I was - and I followed one of Valerie's links.  Somehow that disappeared so I am hoping that this week this post stays on.  This week I have used collage to make a frame around my page - Teesha Moore style - as taught on a Dylusion workshop with Dyan herself.  That was many many moons ago but I think it, and the basket of food, covers collage and food for me.  Hope so. Really the figures are also collaged I guess as I stamp them, fussy cut and colour them before sticking them down in my journal.

The Tim Holtz snarky comment this week is "a penny for your thoughts seems a little pricey" and so the story goes:

Patsy and her friend, Sally, had bumped into one another in the supermarket and were now walking home through the local park.   Sally, as always, was busy chatting away, talking about Graham, her husband and the two kids and what they had all been up to recently.  Her whole life revolved around her family and she loved to talk about them.

Graham had recently been promoted at work and had a lovely new car as a result.  She was always talking about it and all the little gadgets that come with a top of the range vehicle.  Her son was very bright and it looked as if he might go on to university when he reached sixth form and her daughter really was one of the prettiest girls around.  So, you see, Sally had lots to talk about when it came to family.

She had been talking for about five minutes or so when she noticed her friend, Patsy, was awfully quiet.

"Penny for them?" she said.

Sally looked at her,   "You really don't get it do you?  You are wrapped up in your little world and nothing ever goes wrong. Graham has got that lovely new job with all its perks, Simon is Mr Brains himself and as for Petra!  Nothing goes wrong in Sally's little world whilst the rest of us have problem after problem.  You know darned well that Fred was made redundant last week yet you prattle on and on.  We are struggling  day to day and all you can talk about is your precious family.  What do you expect me to say?"

Patsy was aghast.  Never had her friend spoken to her like this and she had no idea about  Fred having been made redundant.  "I'm so sorry, I honestly did not know" she said, "A penny for your thoughts seems a little pricey."

Sally started to cry, it really had been a struggle this past couple of weeks and  she hadn't meant to snap but some people seemed to have all the luck and she felt they had none.

Patsy put her arm around her friend's shoulder and said "Come on, let's go back to mine and have a cuppa and then we can look at how we can help one another."

And with that the two friends made their way slowly to Patsy's house to put the kettle on."

WOYWW 701

Did I mention last week that Sarah had made some little pockets at the Lavinia weekend?  They are for putting tags in, and on, and the idea is that you add them, via the paperclip, to your journal pages.  Well, I made some just for myself, just for a bit of fun and I so enjoyed doing them.

As you can see the tags on top of the pocket are held on with a safety pin - cute idea or what?  Well I liked them and I have lots of safety pins, all sizes and colours.  Think I will make some more - all you need is some left over bits of card that you have salvaged from other work.

I got a fantastic parcel the other day and should have taken a photograph when it was all on my desk but I didn't - I did a video instead - but then I put everything away and so my desk is empty.  Well, it has my bag on at the moment as I am packing up early for the class on Saturday.  I will be loading my video up on my You Tube channel shortly, never done a parcel 'reveal' before.  My friend Jayne does lots of them but then she is brilliant at making videos, she knows how to edit them and everything.  With me you get what you see, warts and all - and no introduction, Jayne's are fab!.

So, as I have nothing interesting to show you I thought I would give you a glance at my ink storage.  I have put some inks (Brilliance and ColorBox) which are not used often, in a drawer.  The ones you see are the ones I mainly use the whole time and I need another cabinet for my Oxides as my brown ones are stacked up haphazardly in a compartment above Spencer, my little Teddy,

Starting at the top you have left and right my Adirondacks, down a layer and left are my odds (Ancient Page, Colorbox Chalk, Versamagic, Versacolor (minis) and Catherine Pooler) and to the right are some Distress Inks with Puss in Boots on guard (swoon over Antonio Banderas doing the voice over).  Next down with the little green Cricut Bug are my Versafine Claire's and opposite more Distress Inks with a cute little felted Rabbit my American friend made me.  Down again and we have Spencer Bear lounging in his deck chair - the inks are packed up in my bag (some Lavinia ones) and below that are a mixture of Encore Metallics, Castaway, Versamagic (full sized), Opalites, Memento's, Archival, Stazon, The Ton, and Wendy Vechi.  

In my new ink stands are my Oxides and this is what I need for my brown ones that you can see on top of Spencer's box.  My other Lavinia ones are in a drawer as are my not much used ones mentioned above - a total of two drawers - do you think I have too many inks?

If I still have an empty desk next week i will show you somewhere else and how I store other things.  C U!

Jeudi Journal - Understand

'It was a lovely Autumnal day when Sheila went walking in the woods and met up with her friend Brenda.  Brenda was wearing the most peculiar clothes and looked as if she was about to take a train ride somewhere as she had lots of suitcases with her.  But the most peculiar thing was that she had a can of cider in her hand.  

Now that might not seem strange to you but Brenda was known to be totally tee-total.  She never let a drop of alcohol pass her lips.  She had been known to refuse communion at church if she found it actually gave wine out, preferring the "more decent drink of Blackcurrant".  To Brenda anything alcoholic was "the drink of the devil himself".

So you can imagine Sheila's face when she saw her with the cider.

"What on earth are you doing?", she asked, "surely you are not going to drink that, that cider?"

"Of course I am" replied Brenda, "I am dreadfully upset and have done it at last, I have turned to drink."

Sheila smiled and told her friend that one can of cider did not make her a drinker, in fact the particular cider she was drinking was not even of a very low alcohol content, it was alcohol free and it was basically only like drinking a soda.  But she added "But why?"

"If you met my family you would understand" said Brenda, "you have no idea what they are like and what they are doing."

"Oh dear," said Sheila, "Come on, let's sit down on that log over there and you can tell me all about it.  Maybe we can even share that can of cider," and the two of them walked over to the log and sat down.'

The words for this week from Tim's snarky comments are "If you met my family you would understand" and the theme at Art Journal Journey, chosen by the lovely Elizabeth and the handsome Bleubeard, is "Collage Fodder, Food and Drink".  

So my page began life with my using several yellow shades of Distress Oxide Inks and then a couple of the orange ones and more yellow on top.  My new favourite stencil was used with a couple of the shades of orange as I do like tone on tone.  To finish off I put some ivy across the bottom of the page through a stencil and then drew a squiggly border on the other three sides.

I do hope this is acceptable to AJJ (and particularly Bleubeard whom I admire so much) and so this is my page for this week.  I included some Collage in the form of the two cut out figures and the can of Toffee Apple Cider, alcohol free of course.  That is using something from both Elizabeth and Bleubeard's choice of items for the theme.

I do hope you can join in with this theme during November, there are lots of things you can do with that title.  But, as Elizabeth points out, it must be a blog page - I suggest you read the rules carefully and enjoy creating.

WOYWW 700

Well, what do you know it's the 700th Edition of of WOYWW.  What a milestone!  Well done Julia for giving birth to what must be the longest running blog in existence (well, I imagine it is - apologies if this is not so).  700 weeks of blogging! Well done.

On Monday it was Halloween and the witches were out and about but none came knocking on our door.  I guess most parents are just too worried these days to let children out for a bit of Trick or Treating and the tradition has not been going that long here in the UK.  

I have noticed, however, that there are more and more houses with a bit of decoration, or a lot, and I passed a yard where something exciting was obviously going on on Saturday.  I would have loved to have stopped and nosied around.  

This is as far as we got - my Halloween display has grown and grown and now, this year, has the pretty picture I did with Jo Rice in a workshop as centre stage.

Here is our window sill in all its scary glory

I am hoping you can enlarge it - it is so dark and small but it is a big display and not easy to photograph.

Prior to Halloween, I went to the Hellaganza at Lavinia's in Ruthin.  Imagine my surprise when I was walking across the car park and I heard my name being called.  I turned and wondered who on earth was shouting - then I spotted someone getting out of a car and it was Angela (Crafting with Jack).  Angela had never been before and so she discovered her only vocabulary for the first few minutes was "Wow".

If you have never been you don''t know what you are missing as far as a shop's interior is concerned.  It is beautifully decorated, every room is a real pleasure, it really is like a journey through an enchanted forest.  And it even smells lovely.  I'll leave Angela to tell you about it.

There were lots of demonstrations going on and I managed to sit in on one of Jo's and she passed me one of her demo tags - so it is in my journal now and I just need to do some decoration around it.  I also went to see Sarah and she was doing the cutest little folders using lots of papers she was making with a stencil and some spray.  I'll make one and show you.

In the meantime - here is my desk - and all the goodies I bought on Saturday.  Rather a big spend on stamps but oh those hares!  (LLJ watch out)

Spent all morning (it's Tuesday here) sorting and cleaning one tiny bit of my craft room.  Well, it was a bit more than just morning.  Intended throwing lots of things out, filled a bin up but only with junk papers etc.

See you next week.

Jeudi Journal - Adulthood

My story this week is based on Peter Pan, the little boy who lived in Neverland and did not want to grow up.   That is because today's quote Wendy and I had to use  is "Where's the unsubscribe button on adulthood?" and we are trying to link our journal page (with the help of a story) to Art Journal Journey.  The lovely Elle has chosen 'Fairytales, Folklore and Fables' as her theme which is why, along with the quote, I thought of Peter Pan and Wendy - and not forgetting Tinkerbell.

I straight away thought of the Christmas Elf that Dyan brought out a couple of years ago and then when I went to it, you must remember it hasn't seen light of day for a year or so, I found out he only has a head and legs.  So I quickly gave him some kind of body, cut off the bell on his hat and replaced it with a feather.  My story deals with the part where ...

'Wendy was getting annoyed with Peter and all the silly things he kept getting up to to stop her and the boys leaving the island.  Even Tinkerbell was losing her patience with him and shaking fairy dust all over the place.  They had had adventures with Mermaids, Native Americans and Pirates - the most frightening being with Captain Hook and a crocodile and a clock!

But in order to stay a child Peter must forget about the adventures after they have happened along with what he learns about the outside world when he pays it a visit periodically.  He is able to fly and when he visits the 'darling family in the beginning of the story he teaches the children to fly by getting them to think "lovely wonderful things" plus some fairy dust.

It had been a lovely warm day and as the sun set it cast a lovely pink glow over the land which should have made them all happy but Wendy was missing home and thought it about time the boys returned to their real mother.

"I'm sorry Peter," she said, as they walked through the enchanted forest with all the beautiful magic toadstools around, "I really think it is time we went home to mother."

"But you're the mother" said Peter.  "I made you the mother of all the children in Neverland.  You can't leave, not yet."

"Oh Peter" said Wendy, "you always say something to try to make me stay but this time I have to go.  Our real mother in London will be wondering where we are and getting ever so worried and the boys need to go to a proper school."

Tinkerbell, who was resting on the tallest toadstool in the field shook her head, she agreed with Wendy, she wanted them all to go and leave her and Peter alone again with the Lost Boys.

"For goodness sake, grow up will you" Wendy shouted.

Peter looked crestfallen and he looked down on the ground.  "Where's the unsubscribe button on adulthood?" he said rather loudly, his feather standing straight up in his hat.

Poor Tinkerbell took off in a flurry of fairy dust and Wendy adjusted her spectacles and carried on down the pathway.  Wendy knew it was the end of the road for her and the boys and they must return home.  Perhaps Peter would go with them?

Do you know whether he did or not?'

This is my last journal page for Elle's lovely theme and I would like to thank her for making me think outside the box this month.  I have thoroughly enjoyed trying to marry a Tim Holtz Snarky Sticker to her theme at Art Journal Journey.

WOYWW 699

Next week is another Magic Number - we reach 700 posts - well some do - thanks to Ms Julia the inventor of WOYWW.  I wonder how many regular WOYWW'ers were here at the beginning?  Gosh, they've notched up a lot of paragraphs if they were here from day one.

Well, crafting has taken a back step this week, no reason, but I am going to have to pull out the stops if I am going to get a couple of special cards made this week.  I only made three last week and two of those were the same as cards made in the past so the third one was for my friend's daughter who is horse mad and is another of those Thelwell type images (not him but a similar copy)

This is the last of the three images on the stamp plate so I will have to think of something else for next year - guess it will have to be a horse of some kind.  This time I coloured the images with my watercolour crayons.

A bit more interesting than my desk which is just containing a couple of bags full of crafting goodies.  Now am I coming or going?  That is the question.

Both are full of crafting goodies, but where are they going?  What are they in bags for?  Notice the bags, both Ranger ones and the one with four panels has been signed on each panel by the artist who created it.  Still a treasure and one I will not part with for a long time to come.

Apart from the two bags you can see, in the background, my Oxide inks, now all labeled up and there, in splendid view, my lovely coaster, a beautiful gift from Jo via her talented daughter Maxine (aka Tilly).  Too nice to use, I jut don't want to put a cup on it and hide the beautiful image.

Well, this makes a change from me, short for once.  Hopefully some crafting by next week but don't hold your breath.

Jeudi Journal - Train Wreck

 Today we find ourselves down a back alley with the Alley Cats.  There are two gangs down there, one made up of the Spoddy's  and the other the Chex family  There is great rivalry between them and each have their own patch down town.

One day young Sally Chex went wandering down the Alley and found a great big dustbin full of left over goodies. There was a great big bag full of fishy bits and she knew those would go down a treat with the rest of the family back home.  So without a thought about anything else Sally began grabbing what she could from the bin and piling it up ready to take home.

"Hey, train wreck, this isn't your station?" came a very loud shout.  

Turning her head to one side Sally saw two of the members of the Spoddy family standing just a bit lower down the alley than she was.

"This is our patch" said Butch, the one with the largest head, and mouth to go with it.  "You'd better scarper before we come over there.  And leave that stuff you've put on one side as it belongs to us, not you.  Remember what we threatened to do to your Max when he came on our patch."

Sally well remembered her brother Max coming home after a run in with the Spoddy lot, his fur had been ruffled well and truly that day.

"Hey, train wreck, this isn't your station" shouted Freddie, repeating what his brother had said earlier.  He wasn't known as Freddie the Fearless for nothing and he was scared of no-one, even if his brain didn't always work as well as it should.  "Get off home and tell that lot of yours not to come sniffing around here anymore, or else."

Poor Sally put back the bag of goodies she had been collecting, looked enviously at the fish heads lying on the floor and slowly slinked off.  "One of these days" she thought, "they will get their comeuppance."

The  quote we had to work with today was "Hey train wreck, this isn't your station" and we wanted to tie it in with Elle's lovely theme at Art Journal Journey.  I thought of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a fairy tale I was told as a child and which has been told countless times everywhere.  So I tried to write my story around that theme and hope you can see the connection.  Why not join in with Elle at AJJ and see what story you can come up with.