Kindle and Flow

 Hello All.

I have a couple more pages to share for Elle/Empire of the Cat's Journal August challenge.

Day 23 - Kindle. 

I went with the fire interpretation, and used some twigs from my garden, tissue paper flames, and some magazine images & teabags. It brings back memories of camping with the Girl Guides many years ago, so I'm linking this page to Chris' When we were young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Day 24 - Flow.

I was gluing down some pieces of collage fodder, when I realised they looked like water, so I went with the 'flow' and added contrasting drips, a quote and some splatter.

Thanks for dropping by today, it's much appreciated.

Alison

Poems and Postmarks

 Hello Everyone!

This week seems to have whizzed by! Thank you so much for all your recent comments. I only got around to reading and publishing them today. I wish Blogger would notify me that I have comments, like it used to!

I have a couple more pages to share for Elle/Empire of the Cat's Journal August challenge.

Day 21 - Poem. 

I sketched the deer, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It reminds me of when we would take the children to see the deer, and collect chestnuts at a local park. I'm therefore linking this page to Chris' When we were young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Day 22 - Postmark. I'm glad I saved those postage stamps now :-)

Thanks so much for visiting,

Alison

Journal August Days 19 & 20

 Hello All.

I hope you're having a good weekend. I had a busy day yesterday, cleaning out the guinea pig and tortoises, but I found time in the afternoon to catch up with Elle/Empire of the Cat's Journal August challenge. I made these two pages.

Day 19 - Compass. 

I used a Tim Holtz compass stamp on a glassine envelope, with some bits and pieces from my collage fodder box. I made a little tag to pop in the envelope.

Day 20 - Journey. 

I started to rip up a local map page to start this page off, then spotted that the restaurant (The Knowle) where we had our wedding meal 31 years ago was on the map. This inspired me to use a wedding theme for my page, with the quote 'The wedding day is only the start of a life-long journey'. 

I outlined The Knowle with a black pen, it's about two thirds down the right-hand side of my page. 😊

Obviously I was quite a lot younger when we were wed, so I'm linking my wedding page to Chris' When we were young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Alison

More Seaside Memories

 Hi Everyone. Happy Saturday!

I have another two pages to share today, made for Elle of Empire of the Cat's Journal August challenge.

Day 17 - Black & White. I had a good rummage in my collage fodder box for this one.

Here's a closer look at the button. You may remember that I made it on the Collage Fodder course a while ago.

Day 18 - Sand/Castle. Another happy beach memory. My sandcastles always had to have a moat, a few shells to decorate them, and some paper flags from the beach promenade shops. I used some Crafty Individuals' beach stamps for the quote, shells and starfish.

I'm linking my sandcastle page to Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for visiting,

Alison

EOTC Journal August - Days 15 & 16

 Hello All.

I have a couple more pages to share from Elle of Empire of the Cat's Journal August challenge.

Day 15 - Lost & Found

Day 16 - Rollercoaster. This brings back memories of trips to the seaside town of Margate on the SE coast of the UK. My auntie and uncle had a holiday flat there, so it was lovely to meet up with my cousins. As well as the beach, we enjoyed visiting the Dreamland Amusement Park. I was never a fan of the rollercoaster though, too scary for me! I did enjoy spending my pennies on the slot machines though.

I'm linking my seaside page to Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for visiting and leaving your lovely comments,

Alison

Hiking in the Mountains

 Hello All.

Here's my page for Elle/Empire of the Cat's day 14 prompt of Mountains.

I went mad ripping up gelli prints to create my mountain scenery 😁

My love of hiking started in my late teens, when a colleague from my first job organised weekend hikes for a group of us. Those were fun days. I remember struggling to stay upright on the top of a 'mountain' near Sheffield one time! 

I'm linking my page to Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for the visit, and all the lovely comments you've been leaving!

Alison

And...Relax

 Hello All.

I thought I'd try and join in with Elle of Empire of the Cat's August Journal Challenge. It's been going for a couple of weeks, so I decided I'd start with Elle's Day 13 prompt of 'Relax'.

My favourite way to relax is with a good book. I've been reading a lot lately, with the weather being so hot.

I made myself a junk journal to work in, using collage fodder, envelopes and junk mail for my pages, with a cardboard cover. 

The music sheet page already had blue paint on it. I added some torn teabag paper, doll images from a magazine, then some hand-drawn books and my stamped words.

I've loved reading books since I was very young, Enid Blyton was my favourite author back then. Nowadays it's Jojo Moyes, Victoria Hyslop, Diana Gabaldon, Ken Follett, Barbara Erskine, Kate Mosse, amongst many others.

I'm also linking my page to Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey.

Thanks for visiting me today,

Alison

A Play Date In The Garden

 Hi Everyone!

Who didn't love a play date in the garden when they were young? We had a little swing in our garden, and a paddling pool if it was a hot day.

Here's another page for Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey.

I'm also linking my page to Try it on Tuesday's Summer Blooms challenge. 

Thanks for visiting me today,

Alison

Try It On Tuesday - Summer Blooms

Hello Everyone!

There's a new challenge theme of 'Summer Blooms' over at Try It On Tuesday, and I'm thrilled to be their guest designer for the next fortnight.

Here's the art journal page that I created for the theme.

I created the background and flowers using some of the collage fodder I made recently for Collage Kickstart, and finished with some found text from a book page, and some white ink splatters.

I hope you'll be inspired to pop along to see all of the team's beautiful artwork at Try It On Tuesday, and join in with the Summer Blooms challenge.

Thanks for visiting,

Alison

Catherine Rains' Collage Kickstart Course

 Hello All.

I recently took Catherine Rains' wonderful free 5 Day Collage Kickstart course. I can highly recommend this course if you love making collage as much as I do. And Catherine is an excellent teacher.

On Day One we collected up all the supplies we needed, finding items from around the house to make marks with.

Day Two was about creating light, medium and dark collage papers with a limited palette. I chose to use my favourite blues.

 

Day Three we created some tissue paper collage fodder with stencils, paint and molding paste.

Day 4 we created collage papers with circles.

And finally, on Day 5 we created some mini 3x3" collages, using our collage papers, adding in some pieces of magazine text for contrast.

You might recognise some of these collage papers in some of my recent and also future projects, I have loads left over!

You can also find Catherine over on Instagram, as @catrains.artist. Every Tuesday she posts a video of a collage material technique.

Thanks for visiting me today. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

Alison

When We Were Young

 Hello All.

I'm sharing a page today, in memory of Twinkle my childhood cat, for Chris' When We Were Young theme at Art Journal Journey. She was a lovely tortoise shell tabby, who lived to 19. 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Alison

August Art Journal Calendar

Hello Everyone. Happy August to you all.

Here's my art journal calendar spread for the new month.

I started with torn pieces of collage fodder that I recently made. I added some pieces of green crepe paper. Then I stamped the numbers with Prussian Blue acrylic paint, and the tiny circles with white acrylic and a piece of Lego.

On gessoed book pages, I stamped my hand-carved birds, stamped the titles with Darkroom Door Alphas & Numbers, and used a lid to stamp the journaling circles, added some splatters of Prussian Blue acrylic, then cut them all out and glued them to the pages.  

I'm linking my pages to Chris' When We Were Young challenge at Art Journal Journey. I got the Ornithology bug as a young teen, and used to head to the local woods early on a Saturday morning with my binoculars.

Before I go, here's my July calendar, with its windows all filled in.

Thank you so much for visiting. I'll be coming over to catch up with your blogs now. Blogger seems to have given up on sending notifications of anyone's posts now!

Alison