Some original art journalling...

So this is my first piece of totally original art journalling - and I love it! I am following a few different art journal and gluebook sites at the moment (please comment for details if you're interested) which provide great prompts every day, or every week, or every two weeks :) I have been overwhelmed with wonderful prompts since the new year started :)

However! I spotted a few things in magazines when I was cutting things out that really caught my eye, so I cut them out and stuck them down and over the course of the past few weeks I've been adding paint and pens and all the things I could think of!

This is a TERRIBLE picture ( but I will add a scanned image when able) of this page, which may not look like much, but I am quietly proud of - this page is just about me, without prompts, just totally and utterly what I wanted to do with it.

As a scrapbooker, this is some new ground! Thanks for looking :)

Circle journals

At the moment I have two circle journals that I'm sending on their way tomorrow. The Sheilas Postcard Circle Journal has been going for over a year now, and along the way has gotten a little bunched up at times but we have no losses and they are still working their way across America, the UK and Australia!

The journal above started and will end its journey in Arizona, and the one below is from Texas.

I think all of my pages have been different, not just because all the journals are different shapes and sizes but because I love doing something different in each one :) I have had to change the way I started out, if only because I have moved house halfway through and there are no postcards of the town I live in now!

Seeing each new journal in person when it arrives is a real excitement, and sending them on their way again brings that little buzz of looking forward to the next one.

Tonight, I want to work on some art journalling I started last weekend - hope to share it soon!

A weighty issue!

So today I am giving myself a wake-up call! I was thinking about the things I want for this year, and one of those is getting myself back on track with a healthy diet again after the redundancy/Christmas/New Year/brother's birthday/work colleague's 50th birthday party indulgences! There's always a reason, right? ;)

Well today I'm posting this photo:-

...to remind myself that last summer and 30lbs heavier I was NOT happy in my own skin and it's a slippery slope back there again! I had lost more than 30lbs by November, but I'm running that risk of heading back there due to the aforementioned indulgences, and today I am putting my foot down and saying NO MORE!

I am blogging it with the hope of shaming myself into action ;) I have got some important things coming up this year that I want to feel good about when I'm there, and a really big important thing coming up next year in the form of my wedding! Now don't think for a second that I even have any idea what colour, shape or style of dress I want to wear, but the size? That I do have ideas about. And I don't want to have to make good on my threat of not going through with the wedding because this weight is still hanging on for the ride :-D

Sounds outrageous to say that, huh. But it's an issue that affects a lot of things for me, and for other people I know who struggle with their weight, whether it's too high or too low. Yes, I really have refused to go out on a night out because I felt so awful that my clothes didn't fit properly. It's a tantrum, I know this, but at the time it's such a panic and upset that it doesn't feel possible to do anything else!

So my wedding is not going to be like this. I refuse. Taking charge today, and every day. I have done it before, and I will do it again.

Thanks for listening to my waffle :)

CHA

So this weekend is the big weekend for all us crafters - CHA in California is this weekend! I have a good scrappy friend who will be going, and having instructed her to take LOTS of photos; I am looking forward to vicariously living through her!

I am on Twitter and am picking up updates from some of my favourite scrappy people during their time at CHA - how much do you LOVE this 'grungecoat' as modelled by Tim Holtz?

Totally fab :) a friend of mine picked up some grungepaper on Friday, I will be sure to mention this pic to her!

To occupy myself I am catching up with Celebrity Big Brother - who knows why but I am finding it quite entertaining! I think I am nearly getting DF interested; he always wants to know what I'm laughing at! It's nearly coming to an end so I'm trying to catch up before I find out who wins :)

Rambling on a Wednesday

Okay, so today is just going to be a bit of a ramble! I have been picture heavy lately :)

I should be scrapping right now but I am sitting back and catching up on blogs, and looking at all of the wonderful things that people are creating - it's so great to have all this inspiration around you, fabulous scrapbook pages, art journal pages, altered art, gorgeous photos - I love it! And the forums, the prompts, the people - yeah for just sitting back and soaking it all up :)

I just caught sight of a tag that I made among my scrapping stuff, and remembered taking pics of it underneath my lamp on my scrapping table - I miss it so much! Never realised what hard work it would be not having a scrapping table.

So here it is, a photo tribute to my lost scrapping table...

I have been working on some gluebook type stuff today, separate from my art journal for the Caravan. Waiting for paint to dry is a LOOOOOOOONG process! It's hard to try to find somewhere out of the way to leave it dry! Someday, I will win the lottery :)

Accessorize dahling!!

Another London post! We have an Accessorize shop here at home but the London one just looked so much better! Loving this shop window.

And the contents of the shop looked as fab as the window - I was lucky enough to be bought this lovely necklace as part of my Christmas gift! I just loved all the layers and different elements to this.

Art Journaling part 2

Bit more art journaling to share :) courtesy of the Art Journal Caravan! This first one is based on a prompt from last week, but I thought it was so fun I really wanted to have a go! We needed to take some inspiration from the week's diary style used by Geninne here.

This second page uses this week's prompt, mend. I wasn't sure what to do for this one, so I searched for some poetry that used the word mend, and found this pretty poem by Emily Dickinson which I really liked alongside the image of this girl.
I felt a bit scrapbooky with this one (the flower and brad mark me as a scrapper, right? ;)

but I really loved using the paints and pens, and going a bit wild for a change! I feel like I could still add some more doodling to this one, work in progress perhaps...