Count your Blessings!

I hope you had a very good Christmas.
Here is a digital collage.

Credits: words by D Inskip & SBG; all other elements from 'Zebre Diaries' by R McMeen @ T Baxter & Co.

Happy Christmas!

Credits: 25 by Captivated Visions; light bulb by Altered Emporium; all other elements by T Baxter

Make your own Magic

A wintry digital collage.

Credits: all elements from 'Shine Bright' by Captivated Visions @ Sweet Shoppe

Windows to My World

A quick journal page.

My Documented Life - week 50

The prompt this week was 'using quotes and lyrics as story-telling'. I decided to use a carol, 'It Came upon a Midnight Clear'.

Apologies for the quality of the picture. I was hoping for a bright day, but ended up having to use a flash.

My Documented Life - week 49

The prompt for week 49 was 'Life is a book; we fill the pages' and the challenge was 'words front and centre'. Well, you can't see a lot of my words, as they are hidden under all the layers, but my theme of 'advent' is visible. I have to say, I really like this page!

Two Ways to Live

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements by T Baxter, from various kits

Lady with Hat

A fun page, playing with collage, whilst still practising faces.

Joy, Love Peace

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements from 'Shine Bright' by Captivated Visions & Basic Design @ Sweet Shoppe

Inks and a Stencil

Inks and a Bit of Carcoal

My Documented Life - week 48

The challenge this week was to use a combination of stencils, masks and stamps. Can you spot them all?

... and all is well

A digital collage.

Credits: border by N R Janitz; all other elements are from 'Yesterday was Yesterday' by Captivated Visions @ Sweet Shoppe

My Documented Life - week 47

The challenge for this week was to use a mask. I used paper circles.

I stuck some decorated deli paper onto my pages and then painted the blank areas. After adding the circles I added more paint to the page. Once dry, I removed my masks and added various marks, turning the circles into flowers!

My Documented Life - week 46

The challenge for week 46 was to use a homemade stamp. Michelle Ward was the guest artist and, as I love her work,  I decided to emulate her page.

I made a large tree stamp, about 8 inches by 5.5 inches, using foam. I cut out the tree and stuck it onto a second layer of foam. I then stuck this into a backing of cardboard. I stamped three trees onto tissue paper that I had decorated and then cut them into strips and collaged them onto my ready prepared background. It took quite a time matching up all the pieces of paper, but I'm pleased with the result.

My Documented Life - week 45

The new theme for November is 'stamps and masks'. So, for the first week we were charged to use stencils on our pages. Here's my finished spread.

Today

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements from 'Love This' by Captivated Visions

Paint and Collage

This is one of those pages where I was using up scraps; paint from other projects topped with scraps of paper, which I had punched out and sewn together. Voila!

Three Cards

 For the first two cards I used Paper Artsy JoFY flower stamps, and for the third I used Tim Holtz stamps.

Still Practising Faces!

Something to Aim For

The photo on this page is a picture of one of my early collages. I built up the background around it.

My Documented Life - week 44

Still on the theme of translucent papers, the challenge this week was to use tea-bags or similar. I prepared my background with stamping, acrylic paint, gesso and spray inks. I then stamped images onto my tea-bags and used matte medium to fix them to my page. As matte medium is wet, the tea-bags picked up the colours of the spray ink. I added various marks using water-soluble oil pastels to complete my spread..

The World is a Better Place ...

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements from 'A Better Place' by Captivated Visions and Basic Designs @ Sweet Shoppe

Happy or Scary?

Perhaps I should have posted this journal page on Halloween, as those faces turned out rather scary!!

Playing in my art journal

Paint, stencils, mark-making ... with a bit of tape thrown in!

My Documented Life - week 43

The challenge this week was to use glassine paper. Jeanette House was the guest artist and I took her pages as my inspiration. I didn't have any clear glassine paper so I used tracing paper instead. I did however have some brown glassine paper, so I crumpled it and coloured it with spray inks, tore it up and added the pieces to the left-hand page.

Let Go of Fear

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements are from 'Be Fearless' by Angie Young @ SBG

Count Your Blessings

Paint, stencils and a bit of collage thrown in.

Playing with Inks!

Although I use my inks quite a lot, I tend to just drip them down pages. So I thought it was time to experiment. This time, I used the droppers to create patterns, spirals, on the page. it was great to see how the inks interacted when they over lapped. I nearly applied some more layers, but decided to resist the temptation on this occasion and just added the words.

My Documented Life - week 42

The challenge for this week was to use vellum. I found this one hard! I decorated some vellum using a stencil. I then created the background - a layer of green acrylic paint under a layer of purple. Once it was dry, I stuck on the vellum and added other elements and marks. It reminds me of toothpaste. Not quite what I intended ....

A Colourful Journal Spread

Having fun with acrylic paint, stencils and pens!

Just breathe

A digital collage.

Credits: frame by Captivated Visions; words by A Young @ SBG; all other elements from 'Fearless' by Sherrie J. Drummond @ SBG

Cardboard lady

I have to admit, I have a penchant for Kelly Rae Roberts pictures and this inspired me to create my own cardboard figure. She is 18 inches tall.

My Documented Life - week 41

The challenge for this week was to use tissue paper and Dina Wakley was the guest artist. I used her layout as inspiration for mine. I painted and stamped onto tissue paper. Some of this I then glued onto my pages. The rest I used to collage onto drawings on tracing paper. After painting the backgrounds and scribbling over them, I stuck these drawings onto my pages so that they can be flicked upwards to reveal the pages underneath. The quote reads 'The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new' (Socrates).

No more tax discs!

The background of this page is created from acrylic paint and a blue Stabilo All pencil. I couldn't throw away our last tax disc ...

Serious Reflection in Progress

A digital collage.

Credits: all elements from 'Bubblegum Pop' by Captivated Visions

My Documented Life - weeks 39 and 40

The challenge for week 39 was to create a storyboard. Well that was easy - I told the story of my trip to New York.

Week 40 started a new month, with a new overall theme of translucent papers. This week the challenge was to use deli paper. here is how my spread ended up. I go from loving it to hating it. What do you think?

Love One Another

A simple digital piece.

Credits: words from 'Speak It 2' by A Young; all other elements from 'Celeste' & 'Mish Mash Color Lovin' by Captivated Visions

Bird cards

Here are two cards I made using Gelli Plate backgrounds and Tim Holtz's bird stamps.

My Documented Life - week 38

The challenge for this was 'silhouettes'. My page didn't quite work out how I had in mind, but here it is. The pictures inside the silhouettes are both by Degas.

My Documented Life - week 37

The challenge for week 37 was to use digital imagery. I took one of my holiday photos, digitally manipulated it using an app on my phone, printed it and added more colour using my water-soluble oil pastels. I now wish I hadn't added the black paint to the page, but hey we learn from our mistakes! I might fill the space in further ...

I'm Back!

Well, I am now back from my break. We spent 10 days in New York and had a fabulous time!

I am now catching up with My Documented Life Project (DLP). The theme for September is journalling with photos. As the challenge for week 36 was 'photo transfer' and the prompt was 'from here to there' so it seemed very appropriate to transfer two of my holiday snaps onto tissue paper and add them to my journal. I then used acrylic paint, stencils and pens to do the rest.

Yes, another face!