Ooops - forgot to post this here

I just realised that I have posted pics of my latest circle journal entry over at Collabor-ART, but not on here

This is for Virginia's desert island discs CJ.

Being a collaborative project, before I got to work on my own entry, I had fun defacing enhancing everything that had gone before :)




The box containing the CJ - I added some highlights to the wording in a butterscotch-y colour paint to complement the purples, and then stencilled a dotty pattern around the edges of the box in the same colour:

Next I added some black and white geometric washi tape to both the front and back of Virginia's page for Roxette's The Look (as the journalling was about a black and white dress):

I *carefully* added some colour to Donna's gorgeous drawing of the pregnant lady:

I wasn't sure what I could add to Sherry's fab page featuring Motley Crue's pretty boy frontman Vince Neil, as the page was already pretty full.  But then I remembered he was not one to leave the house without lipgloss, so out came the Diamond Glaze :)

Don't worry it doesn't look this heavily applied in real life, I just took the photo at a glary angle as from full on you couldn't really see the lippy



Next up, Pam's Pink page - I added a border in oil pastels to ground the two hands a little, and then a line round the perimeter with a purple paint pen:

And finally, my own page and sign in tag:

Not the best photo but this was the one that best captured all the sparkle and shimmer from the metallic and interference paints.

The song is One Last Breath by Creed, one of my favourites.

just collage, no cheating....

Over on Collabor-ART we've been having fun with collage recently.  Well, when I say "fun", I mean that we were all painfully dragged kicking and screaming from our comfort zones :)  But I think most of us enjoyed it in the end, at least a bit.

The challenge was a two stage collaborative project to make purely collaged postcards - absolutely no paint, ink, pens and pencils even, allowed.  All we could use were cardboard for the base, printed papers, scissors and glue.  It was hard work!

Everyone did two postcards each, so here are the backgrounds I made for Vicki to work on:

And this is a get well soon card I made for my friend Pam at the same time:

(that one isn't "purely collaged" as the get well plaster was stamped, but I won't tell if you don't ;)  )

This is what Vicki did with my backgrounds, love them, especially the dude on the straw:

And for my part I was sent these backgrounds by Jean:

and

And my final collaged postcards:

and

To see more of the amazing collages that resulted from this little experiment, click here

And if you fancy joining in some fun, collaborative projects like this (and you are European based) - then why not join us over at Collabor-ART?  We are always on the lookout for new members....

Desert Island Discs circle journal - Crazy Little Thing

It's circle journal time again - and what a joy to take my turn with Donna's most excellent desert island disc box:

Isn't she a beauty??

The premise of this CJ is slightly different to most of the others doing the rounds - instead of a book with pages, we have a box with little file folders for us to fill - and instead of choosing a song to "artify", Donna has done the choosing for us.

This worried me a little to start with, but as it turned out, the song I was allocated - Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen - was exactly the one I would have chosen for myself from what was left on the list, so all's well there.

Working on my entry kept me amused over a snowed-in weekend, I've had a lot of fun with it.

Here's my file folder / envelope thingy:

I've given Freddie some sparkly jewels in his crown, they suit him :)

Inside the envelope:












The brown outer wrapper with the hearts on comes off to reveal my "crazy little thing called love" in all his glory:

Cute isn't he, in a slightly demented, evil-looking way :)  I drew him in India ink with a nib pen and coloured him in with watercolours.  There's Diamond Glaze on his eyes to make them nice and shiny but you can't really see that in the photo.

This part opens up to reveal some stamped lyrics from the song, and my little sign in tag/disc

<--------














And on the back, a stitched double heart:

And here's all my bits together:

Like I said, it was an enjoyable one to pull together

But the fun didn't stop here, as this isn't just any old circle journal, this is a COLLABOR-ART circle journal (please don't sue me, Marks 'n' Sparks!) - so that meant I also had free licence to play with all the previous players' work..... I love this part :D

I added a "USA" button to Donna's Blondie entry, to go with her I <3 NY sticker:

For Sherry's tribute to a song by 'Louise and the Pins'?  What else but some colour co-ordinated safety pins?

<----

And finally, I couldn't resist adding a literal Primal Scream (aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!!!) to Pam's rendition of the band's logo:

Top 2000 Blog Party

I've had so much fun playing along with Marit's Top 2000 Blog Party this year

I was hoping to submit an entry for each of the seven days, but I ran out of time :(

Here's what I did get done - complete with links to each day of the party, so you can see what everyone else got up to too:

Day 1: December 25th #2000-#1840

#1953 : The Kinks - Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Day 2: December 26th #1839-#1518

Day 3: December 27th #1517-#1202

#1372 : Robbie Williams - Rock DJ (you might have seen this one on my blog before as I did it earlier in the year)

Day 4: December 28th #1201-#890

#995 : Ralph McTell - Streets of London

Day 5: December 29th #889-#574

Day 6: December 30th #573-#270

#330 : Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street 

(peeps from Collabor-ART will have seen this one already as I multi-tasked and used this for a circle journal entry over there)

Day 7: December 31st #269-#1

#123 : Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower (this one will only make sense to fellow Battlestar Galactica fans)

Next year I'm hoping to play every day!

Have you ever watched 'The Bridge'?

Nope, nor me ....

It's a Scandinavian crime drama, that has been enthusiastically recommended to me by a few people whose viewing tastes I trust, so I think I'll give it a go.

And it's also the subject of my entry in Pam's Desert Island Discs CJ - as the song I chose from her list is the programme's theme tune:

Hollow Talk by the Choir of Young Believers

The series starts with a female body being found, in two parts, at the centre of the bridge which joins Denmark to Sweden - half in Denmark's jurisdiction and half in Sweden's - and so that's the rather gory inspiration I took for my embroidered piece:

Not having seen the programme yet I have no idea if the actual body looked anything like this, am taking a bit of artistic licence :)

I do love working with material and embroidery for a change - which is just as well as the next journal coming my way in this circle is another fabric based one.....

Oh - and talking of making little pieces of art based upon / inspired by songs ...... can I interest any of you lot in taking part in Marit Barentsen's Top 2000 party this year?  It was so much fun last time around .....  go check out the list, there's at least one song there for everybody :)

"My Soundtrack" circle journal

It's new circle journal time, yay!

I love starting a new circle and sending a fresh empty book out into the world ..... all those possibilities :)

This one is taking place over at Collabor-art and is based on a "desert island discs" type theme - there are 10 of us taking part, and we have each chosen 10 songs that mean a lot to us for whatever reason.

The other participants will each complete a page in the book inspired by one of those songs

This should be fun!

To see lots more pictures and my full song list, you'll need to go and read all about it on Collabor-art

But, here's a peek at my own page, can you guess which song I chose?

Finally some creativity to share

I had a little time off from making stuff in the first half of this month, I think I was a little burnt out by the Index Card A Day thing - I don't think I have the energy for daily creativity.  Not if I still have to go to work every day anyway :)

I'm back on it now though, fully rested, and have completed a couple of pages in Shirley's "one word" pair journal this week, ready to post back to her before I trot off on my hols.

The "sing" page above I'm actually quite pleased with, I think it is the first face I have ever drawn/painted that I don't hate.  And I love the way Shirley's collaged background looks underneath

And here's my page for "reflect"

The only other things I have done in the book on this round are a new background for Shirley to work on:

And I added some bubbles to Shirley's diver:

Are you sitting down....?

....because I'm about to post something that is neither ICAD nor RYWF related....shock!

So here is an update on how my Collabor-ART Pair Journal is coming along

This is the shared art journal that I am working on along with Shirley (Done At Last)

I love my book already :) :)  and we are barely getting started!

This is my second round working in my own journal

First of all, I tweaked my original first page as it looked a bit plain, by adding some little label stickers that I had "splatted" on with distress stains:

Next another minor tweak, this time adding a bit of black outlining and an orange harlequin pattern to Shirley's "eye for colour" page:

Then I added straw blown seaweed and a school of fish to one of Shirley's gorgeous backgrounds:

Next, this photo of two geishas paddling is from the 1920s and has been sat in my collage pile for a while waiting for the perfect time to use it, I love it:

And last up, the beginnings of a page for Shirley to run with:

Next I get a second turn in Shirley's own book, can't wait to see what she has done to it this time around....

A couple of new pages in my pair journal....

The first two pages are fairly finished (although my pair journal partner, Shirley, may well choose to add to them):

And these two are works in progress, am passing the ball to Shirley on these ones:

Can't wait to see how they end up :)