Make It Work! .... the birth of a new Circle Journal

 

 Anyone who knows me well, knows that I don't watch a ton of TV, but there are a select few programmes that I am nothing short of fanatical about:

• Fringe
• The IT Crowd
• Doctor Who
• Father Ted
• Glee (for my sins)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• and PROJECT RUNWAY!!

Yes, I know it's an odd show for me to get hooked on, I'm not desperately interested in the world of high fashion.  But I DO love to see the way the contestants respond to all the fantastic challenges they get set - like "make a dress out of chocolate wrappers", "take a hideous old bridesmaid dress apart and make something modern and fabulous from it", "make a three piece outfit inspired by a billboard ad", etc etc etc.  I just enjoy watching creative people being forced to think outside the box, and seeing what clever things they come up with.

And I got to thinking, in that respect the Project Runway challenges are very similar to the Take Ten CJ I just finished working on - where we had prompts like "make a page inspired by a postage stamp", "....by a Guns n Roses song", "....by a layout sketch", ".....in shades of one colour only"....

So the idea started brewing in my head....what about a Project Runway themed circle where everyone picks one of the actual Project Runway challenges from a past episode of the show - and instead of applying the prompts to designing clothing, we can apply them to producing pages for each others journals!

I suggested the potential theme over at UKScrappers, and in no time at all I had 9 other sign-ups - enough for a 10-person circle, and we were on our way!

The challenge I chose was from Season 8, Episode 5 - where the contestants had to choose one "concept" and one "material" from two lists provided, and somehow combine them into a garment.

I've used the same lists that the PR designers had to choose from:

My fellow circle-journallers will need to choose one item from each box, and then construct a 2-page spread in my book, on any subject (it doesn't have to be anything to do with fashion or clothing....), featuring their chosen concept and material prominently.

I decided to call my journal Mix and Match - which takes me back to my cover....did you wonder why there was that second helping of coil binding on the front of the book?

So my model could mix and match her outfits, of course!

I made nine separate flaps and dressed her head and shoulders, torso, and legs in a number of outfits based on some of the options in my "Concepts" and "Materials" lists.

For example, above you see Menswear For Women on the top, Tartan in the middle and Minimalist on the legs.

The initial shot of the book, at the top of this post, shows Military with Futuristic and Gothic

And here's Menswear For Women again with Animal Prints and Gold.

Each look is labelled on the back.

I had a lot of fun making this book (out of old Easter Egg boxes covered with painted and stencilled watercolour paper) - and hopefully my fellow CJ participants will have fun playing with it also.

The other main parts of the book, are my sign in pages:

I liked the idea of using little free hanging tags, like clothing tags, in keeping with the overall fashion theme.  And "auf wiedersehen", German for goodbye, is of course the catchphrase of show host Heidi Klum, so it seemed appropriate to put it at the back of the book :)

And also, for completeness, here is the back cover, where you can get a clearer view of the painted and stencilled papers I made and used throughout the book's construction:

Sorry, this is turning into a super long blog post, almost as bad as one of my geocaching write-ups!  (the current one of which I am currently in the process of writing, and it is already up to 5,600 words!  that's longer than the essays we had to write at school, ridiculous)

Just one more thing to show you, and that's my own layout in the Mix and Match journal.

I chose Tartan from the materials list, and Futuristic from the concepts.  And this is where I ended up (please excuse poor photo, this page is super shiny and reflective):

I had stupid amounts of fun making this - who could resist a couple of super cute tartan robots?

The background was spraypainted in silver onto black glossy card, using a very cool stencil of a circuit board that I got from ebay recently

And the bots were cut out freehand from tartan print and gold card, and jazzed up with the addition of a few eyelets.

I was going to add some terribly witty writing to the page, but I couldn't think of anything terribly witty.  So I'm going to leave the robots to talk for themselves (which could be a bit of a challenge for the one without a mouth!)

So that's my journal all finished and ready to go.  First posting date is June 6th.  I'm looking forward to getting the circle moving and getting my creative teeth stuck in to some of those other challenges!

CJs are like buses....

....none for ages, and then two come along at once!

So here's my Take Ten CJ home safe and sound, and full to bursting with great work!

This one started life like this back in July last year, and it's filled out some since then :)

Without further ado, here is what everybody did, and as with the last CJ's photo shoot, please excuse my messy, paint table!

In each case, the stamp that the person chose to use as their inspiration is pictured on the left, and their artwork is on the right (click on the individual pics for a closer look):

This was a really fun circle journal to be a part of - thank you to all the Take Ten ladies.  Let's do it again sometime :)

Hooray, it's HOME!....UK Stampers CJ

Actually it's been home for a couple of weeks, but it has taken me a while to get it fixed up, rebound and photographed. 

But all that aside, here it is - the CJ that I sent out on its little journey way back in November 2009 - it hit a few delays along the way but it finally came back to me last month. 

I'm really chuffed that the covers have survived 12 postings so well - I was a bit worried all that crackle paste might flake off - but it's still solid as a rock (and all the little pebbles held on too, god bless gorilla glue!)

 

Looks great inside, huh?

You can see my own page on the original post (linked up there as 'November 2009') - and here are the rest (sorry about my painty old table in the background):

"Shrink Me" by Tasha (Chicken Licken)

"the gate to another dimension" by Sid (Harpie)

"when one door closes" by Linda E

"Dante's Inferno" by Claireabelle

"Look Inside" by 3D Jean

"Boo!" by Efemera

My bestest pal Alison G spoilt me with a double set of gorgeous hand-watercoloured pages

"Alice's Garden" by Moira (Happy Daze)

Another take on "one door opens..." - there was no sign in tag for this one, but by a process of elimination, it must be by T Ann

"Keys" by Fiona (Magickdiva)

 and last but CERTAINLY not least, a masking masterpiece!

"hell of a good universe next door" by Diane (Morti)

Thanks so much to everyone who worked in the journal - I'm glad you all had fun with the door stamps.

It now has pride of place on my CJ bookshelf :) 

Catching up in my Trip/Travel journal

Thanks to some bloke marrying some woman, we all got the day off work and school today - woohoo!  So I spent some time this morning playing catch up in my 2011 trip journal... I'm trying to document all our day trips and holidays this year, so we'll have something to look back at in the future to remember all the fun times.

So here's the page about our day out at Blenheim Palace - all very posh and regal, and rather appropriate for a day like today! 

None of us had ever been there before, and we weren't sure what to expect, but it was a fantastic place to visit, both the house and extensive grounds, not too stuffy and snobby and boring, if you know what I mean - and we barely had time to see everything there was to see and do everything there was to do.

Not very "arty", these pages, more just a download of memories.  But I did enjoy using my new Copic airbrush system (a birthday pressie from t'other half) to make the backgrounds, and doodling the little maze.

And yes, that's my third orangey/yellow based page in a row - I'm afraid I made up a little too much paint the other day, and I'm too tight to waste it!  But that's it all gone now.  No more yellow for a while, I promise :)

AJED : 75 / 365

The game's up!

And so, this is the end of the Take Ten CJ - and what fun it has been!

The theme of this last journal was board games, can you guess which game I chose to interpret?

Mousetrap, of course :)

I used to LOVE that game, must dig it out, haven't played it in years!

Actually, I say I chose Mousetrap, in actual fact it was chosen for me - as I am the last to work on this CJ and therefore the other nine games had already been taken.  But I think I would have picked this one even if I had gone first, I really enjoyed searching for just the right real-life imagery to represent all the game pieces - the old boot, the rickety stairs, the bath tub, and my favourite, the diving man :)

Here's the layout back in the book, with my sign in tag:

It goes home to its owner next week - and that's when my own book should come home also - can't wait!!!

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Take Ten CJ - it's been a pleasure to host, no drop outs, no delays, no drama - perfect :)

No Waaaay! Really??

 

Woohoo!!  Now that Skullita is in the post and winging her way to the U S of A, I am back to playing in my art journal, I've missed it loads!

And I knew exactly what I wanted to do on my first page back....as I loved this fortnight's prompt from A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal:

 

The prompt: Really?!

The song: Tell Me Something I Don't Know by Selena Gomez (lyrics HERE)
Product/technique: speech bubbles

And it fitted right in with something I'd been wondering about recently....if I had the chance to go back in time and talk to my younger self, before my disastrous marriage, before various other mistakes I've made, what would I say to her?

The more I thought about it, the more I figured that she wouldn't believe a word I was saying anyway - especially if I told her some things about my life in 2011 - I've ended up a very different person than perhaps I would have predicted back then!  But I'm happier than I've ever been, so hip hip hooray for unexpected diversions from the plan :)

This page took much longer than it looks like it took - I spent hours making a lovely, involved, woven book page background, and then promptly covered it up so much you can barely see it, pah! :)

Luckily I took a photo of the background before I stuck and wrote stuff all over it, I love the look (inspired by Maryanne's cards here) - I must try this again, and next time maybe I'll leave a bit showing!

AJED : 73 / 365

Meet Skullita....

....she's the reason I've been AWOL from my blog (and from paper-crafting of all kinds) for a little while.

This young lady is a 12" x 12" quilt square, made for a very good cause - and she has taken me a looooong time to make!

I'm SO slow at sewing!  It's not only the hand stitching that takes me forever, it's the machine sewing too...at least twice I managed to sew the material on back to front and had to unpick the seams stitch by stitch, doh!  And the pieced starburst background?  You have no idea how complicated I managed to make that, and what a pain it turned out to be.

But never mind, it's finished now! yay!  and will be winging its way to Richmond, Virginia tomorrow to the Skull-A-Day HQ (oooh, my pal Jennifer lives there too, hi Jennifer :)  )

I hope this project raises tons of cash for Becky's Fund - and if anyone reading this would like to get involved, it's not too late - you just need to get your square to the organiser by the end of May, plenty of time yet....

A slightly late crusade - my forensic self portrait

Yet another outing for my self portrait stencil - I'm certainly making it earn its keep!

This page is in response to a recent Crusade from Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team:

Due April 1st - oops!

The premise was nice and straightforward - document yourself right now in this moment.

This will be really fun to do once a year, to see how my preferences and behaviours change over time...

I was brave and used fabric and the dreaded sewing machine on this page, it behaved perfectly, I must use it more!


AJED : 72 / 365

Not Broken.

This page was pure and simple synchronicity....

I had this mask left over from my Guns n Roses page, and with its lovely black and gold spray paint treatment it was far too nice to waste.

Then came an unexpected free evening and time to work in my journal...and I spotted the latest three-part prompt from A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal:

THE PROMPT: Love
THE SONG: Not Broken by the Goo Goo Dolls
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Silhouettes

Everything fell into place pretty quickly from that point....I had the silhouette.....a "love" themed page seemed to fit the dancers, plus Jay and I have now been together two years so the timing is right....and "not broken" made me think of not breaking step - dancing in unison - a relationship in perfect balance.

I couldn't be happier, or luckier, to have found my perfect partner for the dance.  Happy anniversary Jay xxx


AJED : 71 / 365

Used to do a little but the little wouldn't do it so the little got more and mowah....

....just keep trying to get a little better, said a little better than befowah!

Yay! I've been waiting for this CJ ever since we started the Take Ten circle, the Guns n Roses theme!  

As I am the ninth of ten to work in this book, I wasn't sure which songs would be left for me to choose from, so you can imagine how excited I was to find that my favourite G n R song ever ever ever was still available - squeeeeeee!!!! I got Mr Brownstone!!!!

I really enjoyed putting this layout together, mainly because on at least two occasions in its evolution it went HORRIBLY wrong, but I still managed to salvage it.

And that somehow is more fun than eveything going smoothly from the get go :)

The song is about the cheery subject of heroin addiction, hence the poppies.

I have just one more journal left to work on in this circle - with a board games theme - and then I'm all done.  It's been a LOT of fun, I'm going to miss it when it's gone!

Download the best from the best!

... the best 2010 projects from the best UK artsy crafty magazine, that is

Craft Stamper, which is the only magazine I religiously buy every month (I really ought to renew my subscription one day, but I'm still waiting for the perfect sub gift! :) ), has released a FREE downloadable e-zine with twelve of the best projects from last year.




Well worth a click: http://www.craftstamper.com/ezine - or hit the piccie. 

Enjoy!

(and no, this isn't an April Fool, the link won't take you to a Rick Astley video, promise!)

(although that would have been funny :) )

Hmmm....a red journal....I wonder, what can I do for red......?

It was a bit of a no brainer for me, this one.... of course this red themed journal was calling out for a tribute page to the fantabulous Red Hot Chili Peppers :)

This has taken a few evenings to pull together, lot of stamping and tearing and glueing and gessoing and painting and cutting and waiting for things to dry....plus I had a night off creative endeavours altogether on Tuesday to go and see the fab Ed Byrne on his live stand-up tour, so I'm afraid I've been slacking on the Art Journal Every Day front again.

But I figure this almost counts, as it's in a circle JOURNAL after all.....?

The photo of the boys on the left forms a pocket for the tag (we were all asked to include a tag on our pages to sign in, and also to explain what red means to us)

Now you've had a close up, 10 Scott Mills points to the first person to identify the writing in the background....

The chilis and the tag were made in the same way, lots of stamped images on heavy watercolour paper, torn into small pieces and reassembled.  Then the whole lot was gessoed over and cut into chili shapes, and then they were painted with a couple of different shades of red and green paints, and outlined with a black paint pen.

This was one of those slightly self indulgent layouts, but I happen to know that the owner of this CJ, Ally, has impeccable music taste, so I think she might be ok with the subject matter :)

Guns n Roses up next, plus a John Frusciante canvas of mine is the current guest post over at the songs in my heART blog - it's all music this week!  Rock on!