The Creative Type..

Prompt #10 is now up at THE CREATIVE TYPE. This week it's all about fonts that evoke an era or style. Why not go over and join in the fun. You could win this fabulous unique prize, from here:

Anyway the prompt was just the kick I needed to scrap my photos of a beautiful ART NOUVEAU apartment block I came across wandering the streets of Madrid. It also got me using one of my Prima paintables paper. I painted it with twinkling h2os, and used stickles for a bit of glitz-so the whole LO has a bit of sparkle.

A Year in The Life of An Art Journal

I've decided to join in with this flickr group. I'm doing ATC sized cards for the A-Z prompts.
But I have made a rule:
Each card must take no longer than 5 minutes.



I'm hoping that way I can keep up, and secondly that they will be more 'freestyle' that way.

Thank you Laura for this award; Laura does great scrapping-so why not pop over and see.




and Scrapbook Sisters for this award; Scrapbook Sisters blog is full of inspiration, and the shop
is full of yummy scrappy arty things.



Now I'm meant to pass it on to 5 of my favourite bloggers; well I have lots of favourites, most of whom I've passed on awards in the past so for now I'm going to invite anyone who visits this blog to take an award for themselves, because I find inspiration from you all!

And now for a layout.

This is the one I did for the last prompt on THE CREATIVE TYPE:





This was such an easy LO to do-I was reading the colour supplement in one of the Sunday papers early on in the year, and all these words kept jumping out at me. As soon as I saw the prompt from The Creative Type I just painted a background, cut out words and Voila- layout done!

Quick cards

I made some cards today. I am NOT a card maker!
But Emily wanted some birthday cards for friends- 3 girls and a boy.
Girls were easy!





But teenage boys? I tried looking on the internet for inspiration-
Naff! Football, or cars. So I had to come up with something myself!
In the end I settled for this!
It's not great-but so much better than the boy crap I saw today!

Double Toot

Well I feel really good tonight. The other day, Angela from Angel Crafts, asked me join her Design Team, and today I received one of her gorgeous ribbon kits in the post. Love that Kaisercraft bling too-and the chipboard from Riff Raff:




And secondly, my 'Small Boy', Big Hat' layout is featured on It's A Creative World. It is very flattering when someone asks to use your work. And coincidentally, that layout uses 3ndypapir paper that came from Angel Crafts. If you like it, it might still be on special over there!

Here's the layout:

Art Journal

I've had this book for over a year now.
Malcolm gave it to me Christmas 2007.
It's actually an address book, but I didn't need an address book,
so I decided to use it as an art journal.
I'm not going to touch the cover-it's beautiful as it is-covered in different sorts of leaves.
And I love the binding too! It's all very rustic and handmade.
So it's staying as is!



I'm enjoying the freedom of my art journal-just mucking around with paint and glue and images.
I did this page shortly after christmas.
I had been into the city centre to take photos of the shop window displays two days before christmas,
but instead of lovely christmas windows, most shops had huge red sale signs.
I know we are in the midst of an economic crisis,
but all the signs served to remind me of the commercialisation of christmas,
and it seems to me this spoils the magic.
Christmas as an economic solution!
Anyway, that's what this journal entry is about.



And last, but not least, Gauche Alchemy is having a sale of their past kits. if you want something a bit quirky, somethin g to challenge your creativity, these kits are just the ticket>

The CreaTive Type

The new prompt on THE CREATIVE TYPE is up. This time the DT has come up with a range of LOs ranging from clean and graphic to fun and funky-but they are ALL inspiring. So why not head on over and take a look. You never know, you too might be inspired to take a fresh look at the way you use type on your scrapbook pages-and if you leave a link to your layout in your comment you are in with a chance to win the prize, and to be a guest designer!

Been Busy

So I have been scrapping lately. I've been doing my art journal. I've been taking my daily photo. I've been doing some stamping. I've been back at work. AND I've been shining my sink!

I've done my LO for the first challenge of the year on The Creative Type, which goes up on Monday. I love being part of The Creative Type. It really challenges me creatively and makes me scrap differently. It's fantastic to think of text as an embellishment-a real part of the design of a page, rather than just away of adding a story. It is well worth participating in the challengs if you are looking to try different things.

I've also worked on a LO for February's Pagemaps.
Pagemaps is a fabulous resource if you like to use sketches!

Tonight's LO is one I did a while ago for The Scrapbook Magazine.
I love using paint on my LOs. This one started off as plain cardstock, then I swiped some paint on with a plastic card, stamped with acrylic paint, and then used two sizes of bubble wrap to make the spots. I was pleased with the rusty, distressed look which I think suits the photos well. In real life the background is subtle, yet quite complex because of all the layers of paint. Sometimes patterned paper is just too overwhelming and I like the subtle effects you can get with paint.

Mixed Media Monday and exciting news!

The prompt on this week's Mixed Media Monday was 'MOON' so I made this wee card. I'm very much a beginner at stamping, and I'm still not getting impressions as clear as I would like. More practise needed me thinks!

And the exciting news? I'm going to a guest design spot for this fantastic mixed media/vintage scrapbook kit company. Scroll through the blog for a flavour of the quirky bits they put in their kits-and the fantastic projects that have been made with past kits! I can't wait to do my spot-but I will have to because it's not for a while yet!

Art Journal

Well at the beginning of a new year we are supposed to make resolutions.

Well I gave up doing that years ago. I figure if you want to do something, or change something, why wait until a new year? Also why resolve to do things that are doomed to fail, like no chocolate, or being a super housekeeper?

But this year I thought I would make some resolutions.

1. Keep an art journal-but no pressure on how often. I just want to have fun, experiment and maybe record some of my thoughts.

2. Attempt the photo a day challenge-365 daily photos during 2009. I have kept it up for 3 days now! I wonder if I'll last a week? You can check my photography blog link on the right to keep track. OK family? You will get a feel for our life if you check the photography blog.

Anyway, every New Years Eve we each share out top 10 highlights of the past year. So I did my list as an art journal entry, so here it is!