The truth about Mondays.....

So here's a very appropriate circle journal page to post in the early hours of Monday morning, just as I'm off to bed and sooooooo looking forward to the working week! :)

This is my entry in Gill's CJ - her theme is 'the truth about Mondays', she wants us to fill her book with quotes and quips about everybody's favourite day of the week, and she plans to keep the completed book on her desk at work to cheer her up

Neat theme, but I am glad I am one of the first to tackle it, as there don't seem to be that many good Monday quotes out there!

Rocking January - and introducing my Year of Firsts.....

I pretty much failed last year at playing along with Virginia's awesome weekly gratitude party, Rocking Your World Friday - weekly just proved a bit much for me as I slipped first to fortnightly and then ended up settling with posting every three or four weeks.

So for 2013, I thought I'd take the pressure off myself and aim for monthly roundups instead.  And so here we go, kicking off with my rocking January.

It's been a fairly uneventful month, we haven't been out too much as the weather has been a bit pants, and we lost a couple of weeks to the lurgy, first Connor then me.

But it still had its moments :)

- it's been a great month for hockey, we haven't won every game we've played but they've been a lot of fun to watch

- we've won a ton of new business at work - which means we are crazy busy but it's all good on the job security front

- the January sales - I didn't go mad, but I did have fun buying up half of Paperchase's sticker department :)

- the snow - it arrived, looked pretty, and went away again without turning to dangerous ice or causing too much disruption.  Perfect.  The only pity was that it came while I was all flu'd up so I didn't get to play out in it, but I did enjoy watching Connor through the window making snow angels after school :)

- and on the subject of the weather, winter sunshine!  it's been a little few and far between but we have made the most of it when it has showed its face

- for example, we had a brilliant day out in Stratford upon Avon on the 6th - and the weather was very kind to us.

Shakespeare's birthplace

We had a good stroll around town and visited - and I quote Reece - the two best museums ever! First the creaky cauldron / magic alley / museum of witches and wizardry (it seems to have three names) where we delighted in the Harry Potterish surroundings, solved (with help!) the potion puzzle, found a polite TARDIS and sent ourselves some letters via owl post.

Then the MAD museum - Mechanical Art and Design - two floors of crazy kinetic and interactive sculptures and machinery - it was awesome!

And then we had a nice walk down by the canal and found an art gallery on a boat, a lovely day out all round

- Connor's new graffiti career :)  He had to make a piece of graffiti art for homework, and he made a canvas inspired by his favourite graffiti artist, El Pez from Spain.  He sent a photo to the artist himself and got a really nice email back, plus it's now on display in the school reception.  WTG Connor!

- Darcy's Artful Readers Club - I am so enjoying this new challenge, I had really slacked off on my reading last year, but this has reawakened the urge big time, I am fairly ploughing through my list of books - I'm reading March's book now having already finished February's - and I'm also listening to Game of Thrones on audiobook whenever I'm in the car.  I don't know why I've never tried audiobooks before, they are awesome, SO much better than listening to all the awful noise that passes as music these days on the radio (god, I'm so middle-aged!!)

- I finally finished my months long marathon viewing of Battlestar Galactica - I'd been terrified of the final episode because so many people had told me it was AWFUL and how they were still smarting from it years down the line - but you know what?  It wasn't that bad :) Sometimes it is good to have your expectations lowered so they can be exceeded :)

- and, more TV, I watched the first series of Danish/Swedish crime drama The Bridge while I was off work poorly.... it was amazing, highly recommended.   And I'm now hooked on the Channel 4 series Utopia- which is not for the faint hearted but, in my opinion, the best short drama series to hit British TV screens since The Fades

- playing with new toys - one of my christmas pressies from Jay was a set of pom pom makers, and I have gone a bit pom pom crazy this month :)  I am looking to make enough for a big garland to hang above the double doorway between my front room and kitchen/diner/craft room.  Here's one in progress <------


- another trip out on a sunny winter's day : we headed over to Bourton on the Water - the Venice of the Cotswolds, as they call it because of all the bridges.  Our first stop was the model village - in all the time I've lived in the area I've never been there, and we had great fun staging "giant" photos :)

Jay modelling his new beard :) I love the fact they even have little to-scale sized trees here

posting a postcard home :)

and admiring the model village within the model village - very fractal ;)

Afterwards we had a lovely lunch in a quaint little tea room, and then a walk around the village.  And we were going to do the motor museum too but it was closed for the winter, so we'll come back to that one another day.

- my eldest son finally adding me on Facebook - yay, I'm not shunned any more :D

- getting our accommodation booked for Barcelona ....exciting stuff!  can't wait!  we arrive really late on the first night so we have one night in an airport hotel and then 4 nights in a gorgeous 3 bedroomed apartment right next door to the Picasso museum!

all three bedrooms have a double bed and their own balcony :)  lush!

- back to telly again - my guiltiest watching pleasure is back! :)  Gentlemen, start your engines, because Ru Paul's Drag Race season 5 started this month (along with my favourite judge, Santino).  From the one episode I've seen so far I totally want Detox to win, girl is fierce!

And that's it for my rocking post ..... but, I also have something new (and to an extent, overlapping) that I want to share with you.

For a while in blogging circles it has been the done thing to choose a word in January that sums up what you are hoping to achieve that year.  After some humming and harring I settled for "brave" as my 2013 word.

I'm not talking "wrestle a lion" levels of courageousness, I just want to encourage myself out of my rut a little. Silly things like I always order EXACTLY the same meal when we eat out, because I know I like it, and I'm scared that if I order something else it might not be as nice.

Or, whenever I start a painting, I agonise about the initial stages of it for ages (days usually), whereas I wish I could just get on with it! :)

So, to support my efforts to be brave, I have challenged myself to do, eat, visit, experience 100 brand new things in 2013.  They can be big or little.  But they have to be things I've never done before.

And here is the opening chapter of my Year of Firsts:

1) first cooking of an actual chicken in the shape of a chicken  (I very rarely cook meat at all and whenever I have done a roast dinner before I've always cheated and bought one of those decidedly non chicken shaped joints in a tray).  Connor had to help me with the carving as I could barely get any meat off the thing, it's all hidden behind bones!   

2) first visit to Magic Alley and MAD Museum in Stratford upon Avon (see above)

(as an example of a classic missed opportunity to be brave in the first week, we went to a fudge shop while in Stratford upon Avon - I dithered for ages over lemon meringue flavour but chickened out in the end and bought safe old chocolate and vanilla because I already know I like them.  LM flavour might have been AMAZING!  but I'll never know....)

3) first time published in Featuring magazine

4) First visit to the model village at Bourton on the Water (see above)

5) First use of pom pom makers (ditto)

6) First visit to Leominster.  Not that I saw much of it as was just for a work meeting but it looked purty in the snow

7) First time taking part in the Artful Readers Club

8) Tried a fancy type of roll for lunch instead of the one I always get. It had sundried tomatoes and walnuts in. Didn't expect to like it.  In fact was grumpy about buying it.  But it was lovely :)

9) First time opening my car bonnet! I've had the car well over a year but Jay has always kindly done anything that needed doing. But I ran out of screenwash and in the spirit of the year of the brave, he encouraged me to pull up my big girl panties and do it myself :)

Not a desperately exciting list so far!  But let's hope that as the weather improves and we get out and about more, that I'll have more opportunity for interesting "firsts"

For those that managed it, thanks for reading to the bottom of this mammoth post :)

What's on YOUR bucket list?

And so, having vowed off signing up for any new circle journals on UKScrappers, I found myself nevertheless volunteering for the final vacant spot on an art journal themed CJ over there, with the words "I expect I'm going to regret this....."

And there was never a truer word spoken, as no sooner had I signed on the dotted line, the first posting date was announced, eight days away.  Eight days???!!  I usually spend a month on and off getting a new book ready, plus I already had a few existing deadlines to hit before the end of the month.

I panicked accordingly and the host was kind enough to put the start date back five more days to Feb 1st, but I still couldn't quite hit it, finally finishing up today, ready for posting tomorrow, the 4th.  I hate missing deadlines, grrrrr :(

But it's all done now, hooray :) :) :) So here's my journal - it's an accordion book with 7"x7" watercolour paper pages held together with washi tape - the whole thing closing up with a ribbon

The front cover is a simple watercolour painting with some colourful cardboard letters that I've had for yonks and can't remember what make they are, and little washi tape pennants stapled on.

The theme of my book is 'what's on your bucket list?' - here are the instructions for those taking part:

In short, I've asked people to list ten life experiences they would like to achieve in their lifetime, on the back of their page, and then to choose one of the ten and create their main journal page about it - in the style of a travel journal

Here's my list and sign in tag:

I chose point 8 - take a ride in a hot air balloon - to illustrate:

Can you spot mini me in the basket? :)

And that's about it for my book so far, other than an "outtro" page at the end:

And now I send it off out on its travels, and I can't wait to see it come back to me full of everyone's goals and dreams....

Artful Readers Club January - Heartstone by C. J. Sansom

It's time for my first book review and associated arty piece reveal for the Artful Readers Club

The book I chose to read in January is Heartstone - the fifth and most recent title in a series of period crime thrillers written by PHd historian (ie. he knows what he’s talking about!) C. J. Sansom

The five novels revolve around a fictional lawyer come amateur detective called Matthew Shardlake, active during the reign of King Henry VIII.

I have read the first two Shardlake books – Dissolution and Dark Fire – but am yet to read #3 Sovereign and #4 Revelation – despite the fact I have them sat on my bookshelf – so I’m really not sure why I skipped straight ahead to Heartstone, I think I thought this was the next one – I will have to go back and play catch up at some point.

This is an ambitious book, and a long one at over 700 pages – but none of those are filler as there is a lot going on.  There are two separate cases of wrongdoing for our clever lawyer to investigate, both of which attract multiple twists and turns (and dead bodies) along the way  – and all of this is set against the backdrop of the war against France, and in particular the French navy’s arrival at Portsmouth and the ensuing battles at sea.

I particularly liked the part of the book about the Mary Rose as I remember a trip to see the remains of  the ship when I was little

The author’s real skill, as well as writing a cracking story that’s extremely entertaining to read, is in bringing the sights and sounds and smells of Tudor England to life, and also in perfectly explaining the social norms of the day, how people of all classes from beggars to the Monarchy behaved around each other.  He creates a really believable and immersive world.

And our lead characters are believable too – Shardlake, clever as he is, and seemingly in possession of more ethics and morals than the rest of Tudor England combined, doesn’t always make the right deductions or the right calls, in fact sometimes he gets things quite spectacularly wrong.   And his dogged determination to solve even the cases that nobody wants solved, despite the fact that his continued meddling endangers himself, his clients and everyone around him, is rightly highlighted by his manservant / right hand man Jack Barak as a major character flaw.

All in all, another great book from an accomplished and well rounded author – but I would definitely advise you start with one of the earlier books in the series if you would like to try a Shardlake novel for yourself – they are shorter and punchier than this one, a little faster moving, and most importantly provide important background for the lead characters which help you to understand their motivations in their later adventures.

Oh – and as for the title of the book itself – which will hopefully help make some sense of my accompanying artwork – one of the key scenes in the book takes place on a deer hunt – and the ‘heart stone’ is a heart-shaped bone from a felled stag that is given as a good luck charm to the huntsman who brings the stag down.  One of the main characters in the book wins the heart stone and ..... it's barely mentioned again for the rest of the book :)  (I kept thinking it would end up being hugely significant seeing as it's the title of the book, but no). So I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that little snippet.

And here's my arty thang:

I've decided to make individual 7" x 7" loose pages - artwork on the front, details of the book and a copy of my review on the back - and at the end of the year I'll bind them in some way (probably a stab binding of some kind - there's a one inch flap of paper on the left that you can't see as I have tucked it under for the photo)

This one has a watercolour and charcoal background, with a bit of stamping (the manuscript lettering, to represent one of the lead character's legal documents) and a stag hand cut from black card overlaid.

His heart is nice and glossy as it is topped with diamond glaze, but you can't really see that in the photo.

Now to go and link this up over at Darcy's blog, and to get blog hopping to read everyone else's reviews!

Next month I'll be reading America Unchained by comedian Dave Gorman, which will be quite a different experience to Heartstone, I think :)

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

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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?

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