Altered Art CJ.

This week I have mostly been doing circle journal stuff. This time it's an altered art CJ that I'm part of and my theme is The Sea. The covers are kitchen roll which has been glimmer misted within an inch of it's life and boy those thirst pockets came up well. The title is Basic Gray chipboard embossed with Blonde Moments Ultra Thick Embossing Powder in Savoury Sky. I worked the whole album around a shipping region map I found that was this lovely dark turquoise colour. Inside I prepared the pages with twinkling H2O's and then used my new Tim Holtz and Tattered Angel masks I got with distress inks to give me a swirly sea effect. I got some images of mermaids, retro shipping ads and some sea monsters and used my oil pastels to colour them in and give depth to them. I was aiming for the theme of Lost at Sea. The colours are better in real life. The sign in page is the netting off a bag of satsumas, how's that for recycling and a compass stamp.






The other CJ entry is for the art journal CJ and this CJ had butterflies and dragonflies as it's theme. If you look closely you'll see a pattern forming, on no masks again! I have to say I'm loving them a lot at the moment and imagine I'll use them to death and then never want to see them again. We'll see. So more twinkling H2O's with my fav distress ink colour Spiced Marmalade with a Tattered Angel mask. I found this quote from Carl Sagan and that gave me the idea for my LO. The wings are from Lisa's Altered Art that I had left over from Scrapattack 3. The stamps are a Basic Gray mini set I had and some forest green glimmer mist to take the edge off the background as it was a bit lighter than I was aiming for.

Pink Saturday in a Small Way

Happy Pink Saturday. Pop by Beverly's blog and say hi to all the particpants in Pink Saturday.
Today there is a small theme to my Pink Saturday picture. It's a Small World after all......... I love this ride at the Magic Kingdom as it's just a blast from the past before you got whipped around a coaster at 60mph having a facelift or having the wits scared out of you on plummeting elevators. Don't worry there aren't that many more pink florida photos to share although I did get plenty of photos while away. I won't make you suffer them all.


My blog to visit today is Jenny at "The Red Bulletin Board". She has some fab retro images, a cute halloween boy and some really nice wedding photos of her sisters wedding. Some of the little touches are lovely. So enjoy and say hi when you pop by.

Wow and Thank You Sarah!

Just a quick blog before I go to work this evening but I had to post and say thank you to Sarah Carrington for her fab Rusty Pickle giveaway that I won. The wow is because I never win anything normally ever. I think I have only ever won three things and one of them was when I was 12 so you get the picture. Sarah is a Rusty Pickle chef on the design team and is away to spend some time with the team in the states, lucky girl. So pop along and have a look at her work as it's great and very inspirational. Thanks again.

Art Journaling Really!

I took an art journal class in September with Dyan Reaveley and loved it. In fact it was the highlight of my weekend. So since then I had been reading, lurking and a bit of dabbling but not really actual doing very much. That changed when I was lucky to get hold of this magazine from Stampington when I was away and it really is fab. It helped me get over my white page fear and my little inner critic going "what are you doing" (in a whiny voice) with the view I can just gesso over it if I really hate it and away I went. So some backgrounds using masks from Tattered Angels and Distress Inks, masking tape and a wood grain stamp I bought when I was away. The book is a canvas sketch book I got at Staples. I actually bought it for the canvas cover which is just screaming to be worked on (not that I have actually touched it yet!, that little inner critic is going not yet, not yet, don't ruin it) but I'm away and running with the insides. It's also helped that my friend Kirsty is having a journaling explosion as well and you can speak to each other about what you've done. They understand the joy of masking tape for backgrounds and just generally spur you on when that little whiny voice is sounding very loud.





I've also done some pages and I haven't covered over them yet with gesso so I'm getting there although sometimes the urge is strong. If it is I leave the page sitting on my desk and I tend to find it grows on me or I end up tweaking or adding something. I find that I like to dot back and forth and have a play around and sometimes I'm playing with the materials rather than aiming for what I end up saying.
This is my first one and I do still occasionally want to paint over it as I don't really like my handwriting. Some people have lovely writing but I'm leaving it alone at the moment with the view that my writing is part of me so I need to accept it.

This one was just playing with the Inktense pencils I got mega cheap last month and I thought I ended up with a set of eyes which fitted with what I wanted to journal about. The one thing I like is that you can always add later as it's a work in progress. I think this one needs something else but at the moment it's eluding me so it'll stay as is until it hits me.


The last one is a new stamp I got that is a three step marble background effect but when I used it although I liked the effect my colour choices weren't right so I just doodled away.

All Saint's Day

I felt horrible yesterday with the lurgie so I'm sure the trick or treaters who crossed our threshold were thinking what a good make up job (hopefully) as I looked pretty scary. Anyway last night I fielded a ninja and a small skeleton. It was the skeleton's first outing and he loved collecting sweets and treats. Of course now he's going to think we do this all the time. I also carved the pumpkin after DH did all the hard work and scooped out the centre of the pumpkin. I also got a fab sign while I was away and I am tempted to keep it up all year. We'll see.

Halloween Pink Saturday.

Happy Spooky Pink Saturday to you all. Pop by Beverly's blog and say hi to all the pinks.
I have returned from my holidays and have suitably fitting pictures for today of all days. How can Halloween be pink, well it was at Seaworld Orlando's Halloween Spooktacular event. The kids had a ball following the candy trail and seeing all the events and activities the park puts on. There was a pink octopus overseeing all the events and a pink theme running through the park. I don't know if this event is the same every year but it was our first time at it so hopefully you'll enjoy these pictures as much as we did. My blog today is Betty at She's Sew Pretty she has these great Halloween tags with a sweet and a sinister side and they are very inspiring and very fitting to this holiday.





This last photo is from the dolphin show "Blue Horizons" which I think was even better than Shamu. This is one of the smallest whale's a false killer whale and it's trainer and they were a joy to watch. Well worth seeing if you visit.

Getting to Know You....in time for Christmas.

This quiz is a warm up for the 12 Days of Christmas project and it made me smile, especially as it reveals my anti-social negative cake eating beach loving slightly grungy nature!

This OR That?

fabric OR paper: Must I choose! Okay Paper.

ink OR paint : Paint please.

grungy OR clean : Grungy

cut with scissors OR tear with bare hands: Scissors surprisingly

measure OR just guess : Measure

careful OR haphazard : Careful ( It still comes out grungy even with the above)

hoarder OR minimalist : Minimalist is not a word that applies to me ever!

Christmas OR Summer holidays : Christmas!

music OR talk radio : Music

drive OR walk : Walk

gym OR beach : Beach

cook a meal OR buy take-away : Take-away

fruit OR cake : Fruit Cake.

ironing OR crafting : Do you ever choose ironing? Crafting.

ironing OR vacuuming : Ironing only because I need clothes to wear. Dyson's are not so wearable.

my friends OR my own company : Me, myself and I.

talk OR listen : Listen.

you OR them : You

always OR never : Aways

half-full OR half-empty : Half-empty.

yes OR no : I do like no I have to say.

And finally always Treat!