I'm saying YES! to new adventures!

Having never really done art journalling before, you can certainly say that "I've got the bug"!  I've joined up as an Adventurer with Wanderlust 2016, a year-long (online) journey through mixed media and art journalling.  Already I've been inspired to let the rules go and just get more creative, and it's been incredibly liberating!!  Here is my second art journalling spread:

I came across the saying "I'm saying yes to new adventures" somewhere online on New Year's Day, and I thought it suited my fledgling art journalling career perfectly.  This is all a new creative adventure for me and I'm excited to embrace it.

When I thought of this saying, the beginnings of the Yellow Brick Road immediately came to mind.  I can remember watching Dorothy in the ruby slippers beginning at the inner point of the road as it spiraled outwards.  Eventually the road comes to a fork, and each path is a different and new adventure.  Thus the inspiration for this spread.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope everyone finds (or makes) the time to get a bit creative every day - it's good for the soul!

Cheers!
Deb.xx

Birthday Card fun with Penny Black and Inktense!

Happy New Year everyone! 

I've been busy creating some cards for Combat Cards Victoria today, using adorable Penny Black stamps, and colouring them in with Inktense pencils and blocks - so much fun!

I have made two of each design to send along to my local facilitator of Combat Cards in Victoria, so they can be sent to our amazing troops who are serving overseas.  Just a small way I can say 'thank you'.
Cheers!
Deb.xx

A new creative outlet (and passion...)

EYES

I admit it - I'm pretty hooked!  Given my addictive personality, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, really...  I've just completed my FIRST EVER art journal page and I LOVE IT!

I'm about to embark on a year-long adventure through mixed media and art journalling, called WANDERLUST.  It is an online adventure over 50 weeks in 2016 starting on 1 January.  There will be a new video each week detailing different aspects of this amazing creative outlet, including videos on products and techniques from 2 resident teachers, as well as videos from 24 guest teachers (each one downloadable and with PDF instructions provided).

I can't wait to get started!!

D.xx

The Caring Hearts Card Drive 2016 ~ Wrap-up

Well, the Caring Hearts Card Drive is over for another year!  I've managed to collect a total of 380 cards from local cardmaking friends in Melbourne, and these have been packed up into deliveries to go to five different aged care facilities across the suburbs.  To combine these with the cards sent directly to Linda, that makes a total of 1,100 cards collected and distributed across 13 aged care facilities in Australia for 2016 - such a great effort!

For my own part, I've made roughly 200 cards for this cause, with over 130 of them being utilised in a mini-fundraiser at my children's primary school.  Below is a photo showing some of the beautiful messages written by the primary students:

They're so very colourful!  Here is a quick photo showing a group of different designs I made for the school:

This is such a fantastic initiative, and I hope to be involved again next year!!

Deb.xx

Pixels and Paper ~ December Challenge!

2010

WOW, I blinked and November was gone!!  What a busy month!!  Well, we're definitely on the downhill run now, gathering speed towards the festive season!  And Christmas time is exactly what I thought of when I first saw this month's inspiration photo at Pixels and Paper!

This image is so much fun!  I was firstly drawn to the beautiful bright green and red, and to the chocolate and the gingerbread.  I also wanted to incorporate the overall Christmas theme of the bikkies into my layout!  Here's what I came up with!

On a piece of heavy-weight white cardstock, I splattered some watered down 'Melted Chocolate' Dylusions paint and let it dry.  Next I used the Trees stencil from TCW and 'Cut Grass' Dylusions paint with a stipple brush to stencil the trees randomly on the page.  Again, after this was dry, I used 'Postbox Red' Dylusions paint and a fine-point brush to put red dots on the trees.

Next, I used two adorable little gingerbread people stamps from Imaginisce and stamped and white embossed them onto 'ginger-coloured' cardstock.  I fussy-cut them out and arranged them in pairs on the page.  I used my 'Little Numbers' dies from Stampin' Up! to cut out "2010" from the 'ginger-coloured' cardstock, and added some squiggly lines with my Versamark pen and heat-embossed with white.

I used a piece of candy-cane paper from a Kaisercraft paperstack to go under my photo.  I also distressed up some of the 'ginger-coloured' cardstock and put that under where the photo was going to go.

I matted my photo of my kids' Santa photo (from 2010) onto white cardstock and used the 'Postbox Red' Dylusions paint around the edge.  The photo was then popped up over the layers to give dimension.  I also used a diecut from the Kaisercraft paperstack (it was green [tick!] and had Santa on it [tick!] to journal the details of this Santa photo.

I was relatively happy with the page, but it did seem like it was missing something.  I used a mask of an ornament die by Nini's Things and sponged some 'Real Red' ink by Stampin' Up! over the mask and removed it - I did this randomly on the page and I feel it picked it right up.

I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with this month!!

Cheerio!  Thanks for visiting!!

Deb.xx

Caring Hearts Card Drive 2015 - Mid-November update

To see my original Caring Hearts Card Drive post, click here.

We're getting to the 'pointy end' of the Caring Hearts Card Drive for 2015.  The lovely Linda Langes has provided an update on the Australian-based component of this drive on her blog.

From my end in Melbourne, I have so far received 15 cards from a wonderful crafty friend of mine, with another 10-12 friends providing me with cards at a crafty event next weekend.  I am also hopeful that some other friends of mine on the other side of town will get into the spirit of the CHCD and send me some cards in the not-too-distant future as well.  Any other Victorian crafter who would like to send cards locally for Victorian-based aged care facilities are welcome to send cards to me as follows:

Details now deleted...

I have so far arranged for up to 300 cards to be delivered to five separate aged care facilities across Melbourne. I stopped at that point as I didn't want to promise cards that I wouldn't necessarily be able to deliver (!).  Once I get cards in from local crafters, I can then set about contacting additional facilities on my list across the broader Victorian area.

For my part personally, I am busy creating cards for students at my kids' school, Bundoora Primary School.  We use this drive as a mini-fundraiser for the school.  I donate the cards to the school, the school then sells the cards to the students and families at $2.00 per card ($0.70 for postage costs back to the CHCD and $1.30 profit for the school's fundraising endeavours).  We had orders for 105 cards as at last Monday - I'm hoping for many more by tomorrow.  Here are some samples of cards I have created this year:

I've had a real thing for 'Christmas Trees' this year, hence these three designs...  I always like to put some 'meaning of Christmas' designs together as well...

I've been having fun playing with my Flitterglu and MegaFlakes from Indigoblu, and using masks of ornament dies to create a reverse effect:

I've also had some fun with some cute little Santa Stamps and my Prismacolour Pencils:

The wonderful students at our school will be sitting down in their classes one morning within the next two weeks to write/draw their messages of festive cheer in these cards.  I'll be sure to post some pictures of their gorgeous work once they're done!

I'm off now to create some more designs - I think I'll do some poinsettias next!

Thanks for visiting!
Deb.xx
#caringheartscarddrive

Pixels and Paper - November Challenge!

"live gently upon this earth"

 Welcome back to a new month at Pixels and Paper!  We have a fantastic inspiration photo for you to work from for this month's challenge:

I was immediately drawn to the tree and the sense of the changing seasons.  I decided to create a canvas for my piece this month.

I began by drawing pencil lines to break my landscape canvas (9"x12") into quarters.  Next, I used Gelatos and water to create my background sky and ground.  I moved from the deep blue hot sky of Summer into the overcast coolness of Autumn, to the blustery grey skies of Winter, and into the renewing freshness of Spring.  The grass has been modified to match my impression of these changing seasons as well.  After I'd finished the 'watercolour' phase of this process, I then sealed it all using Tim Holtz' Distress 'Micro Glaze'.  This allowed me to keep building on the base images without damaging them.

Then, using the bare tree image from the 'Sheltering Tree' stamp set by Stampin' Up!, together with Dylusions Paint in 'Melted Chocolate', I stamped out my tree in all four settings.  I mixed Dylusions Paint 'Cut Grass' with some Memento 'Tuxedo Black' reinker to get differing shades of green for my leaves for Summer and Spring, and then mixed it further with some 'Melted Chocolate' for Autumn.  I also added some 'Crushed Curry' SU! Reinker for the Autumn leaves as well, and have then built each tree manually.  I added flowers to Spring by mixing 'White Linen' and 'Postbox Red' Dylusions Paint and dabbing the resulting pink randomly.

For a bit of texture, I've added smatterings of Whipped Spackle into the grey skies of Winter, as well as adding some puffy white clouds to Spring.  I also wanted to add some ribbon flowers along the lines of last month's October Training with Tone-Lill - using some 3mm pink ribbon with white cotton to gather them in.  Each of these ribbon flowers has been finished off with a small yellow rhinestone.  I also added a few other rhinestones to the paint flowers as well.

I used some dark green seaming ribbon (different to seam binding ribbon) to segment off the seasons where the pencil lines had been, and I added the phrase "live gently on this earth" from the Tim Holtz 'Small Talk' sticker book.

I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Thanks for visiting!
Deb.xx