Warts and All!

I had a great time yesterday ... mainly hopping ... and a bit more journalling ... but more of that in a mo! I feel exonerated ... loads of you would spread Korean Tea on your toast ... so my crispinacupofhotwater saga looks a little less daft now does n't it :0) Of course ... Sharon goes right to the top of the class for her comment! She said "It's Citron jam .. In Korea, it is used to create yujacha, a type of Korean tea. The fruit is thinly sliced (peel, pith and pulp) and soaked or cooked in honey or sugar to create a chunky syrup. This syrupy candied fruit is mixed with hot water as a fragrant tea, where the fruit at the bottom of the cup is eaten as well. Often preserved in the syrup for the cold months, yujacha is served as a source of fruit in winter. :) and it is way yummy iced too :)". Which is indeed what it is! Way to go Sharon!

Now I need to warn you that today ... well I feel quite nervous posting this ... for all my bravado on Tuesday ... of how I was going to do whatever in my journal and blog it regardless ... well ... it is actually a whole lot harder to blog it then I realised! I have no idea what you are going to make of this page! Do I like it? Not really! But I totally loved doing it ... I felt totally at peace doing it ... so that makes me really want to like it ... and it is all part of the journey ... one day years from now ... maybe I will look back and laugh at how naive the page is ... and lets be honest ... Picasso I aint! But then I already knew that ... they would n't let me do "O" Level art at school ... Mr Nix said I just had n't got the "required level of skill" ... I am guessing Picasso was in the top set! Not the same year as me I hastened to add!
Anyways ... That is Lord Tim of Holtz's weathered clock ... let's hope Kay has the right glasses on ... and of course his gadget gears ... you know Tim ... the man that can cycle to the Moon in his lunch hour while reciting War and Peace with just an ornate frame and a blending tool!
Okay ... so now I am begging you ... don't leave me hanging ... love it or hate it ... say something ... I am pushing publish post ... erm ... Now!
Laters!
P.S Kirsty Wiseman is having a raffle for the best of causes ... click here to read all about it!

A Bit of This and an Itty Bit of That!

I have had a bit of a play today ... Well you have to sometimes ... don't you! At the airport in Holland I found some fantastically priced Moleskine notebooks ... it would have been rude not to get them ... and the paper is just so lovely ... well to be honest ... several A6 and a few A5 just fell in my basket!

So this morning ... I decided to follow Dina Wakley's advice from an art journalling magazine ... basically she starts her pages with no agenda or set idea ... and lets the page talk to her! I have found my journalling style just does n't really flow ... I have to do that whole plan the page before I begin thing ... and as a card maker ... well ... it is actually really difficult to let go! But today ... well let go I did!

I promised myself that however the page turned out I would blog it ... I struggle with that too ... but the plan was to basically let it become what it was ... no set plan ... and no necessity to like it ... just a fun thing to do! I had so much fun ... I even did the whole journalling thing ... discovered stuff in my head that I had no idea was there ... and now I feel like I have admitted it ... So I can go do stuff about it! Sound like I have got the bug? I think I have! Today I finally actually "Get it!"

Anyways ... enough with my ramblings ... the page was taped down the centre with masking tape to stop any colour bleeding through the spine ... I gessoed it all with a credit card ... dried it with a heat gun ... happily accepting the lines and the bubbles. Then I gave it an Antique Linen Distress Stain wash. Once that was dried I used a Crafty Notions 12 X 12 stencil and coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Finally to complete the background I used Faded Denim Distress Ink and a Prima corner stencil.

Next was the really fun part ... stamping ... I used Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions stamps ... LOVE the spider ... LOVE the toadstalls ... actually it is probably quicker to tell you the ones that I don't love ... erm ... that will be none of them then :0) Lord Tim of Holtz's Itty Bitty Grunge set was used too ... you know Tim ... the man that can beat the land speed record on a pair of roller skates while modelling the latest fashions on a catwalk with just a Jet Black Archival Re-Inker and a 1" square of Cut and Dry Foam.

The best thing about the whole process is that I now have about another ten ideas I want to try ... best I get started before I forget what they are!

Oh yes ... I have a Korean gift that I need to show you ... let's see if you can all guess what you do with it! Actually ... I will save that one for tomorrow ... Have a great evening people ...

Laters!

Anaphylactic Shock!

I spent the day at Olney today ... not as warm as it has been ... but still pretty nice! I was doing a wonderful Lin Brown journaling class with the lovely Karen ... not much to show you to be honest ... just a couple of bits of first level backgrounds ... but I had a reeeeally good time ... great fun as always ... and that's what matters  ... right?

Anyways ... at lunch time ... I was eating my ham and mustard rolls and my crisps ... then went outside for some fresh air ... as you do ...  when I felt what I thought was an insect bite my tummy! I went to brush it away and this sharp bite happened again! Now this may come as a big surprise to you guys ... but I can be a bit of a drama queen ... so ... at this point I am starting to panic ... it won't brush away and it bloomin' hurt ... I am thinking anaphylactic shock ... a large bee ... a wasp ... possibly a hornet!!!

On further investigation ... I realise it is in my top ... so I hot foots it back up the stairs to the workshop and runs into the toilet ... totally panic stricken at this point... ready to run out of the loo half undressed if needs be to seek medical assistance ... I pull my jumper out from my jeans and ...

A smallish ... but very sharp you understand ... piece of McCoys Cheese and Onion chunky crisp falls out!! I did tell you I was a bit of a drama queen... I maybe should have mentioned my very low pain threshold at that point too!

If you are wondering why am I waffling on late on a Saturday night ... well Mary and the lovely Karen said I did n't blog enough anymore ... so here I am ... showing willing :0)

I am off to the NEC tomorrow ... so early to bed for me!

Let me know if you are going ... we could meet for coffee or summink ...

Laters!

Who'd a Thunk it!

Seriously ... who would have thought ... that I would find solace in a Ranger Inkssentials White Gel Pen ... I certainly would n't ... but I have!

Today is the third Wednesday that I shall be nicotine free ... I would like to say it is getting easier ... but sadly it really is n't!!! The ... Nicotine Replacement Therapy did n't work ... so I have stopped taking it ... the Quit pack that the NHS send you ... you know the free one that will help all us poor addicts kick the habit ... the one that you can order 24 hours a day ... well ... that still has n't turned up ... and eating my way through the cravings ... just is n't an option ... I can't be turning up at Luton Airport on Thursday requiring two seats for my mahousive butt instead of just the one that is booked!!!

So ... I have turned to the White Gel option ... and so far it has worked a treat. The background of this page was made with water colour pencils and water ... I was a bit rough with the pencils and the page looked a bit yuck and very scratchy ... so I tried smothering it with a Crafty Notions spray ... with a stencil ... sadly the dark green border that I really hated just kept on showing through. So ... in true crafty style ... I turned the page and started again!

But then ... I wanted to experiment with stamping The Wendy Vecchi's leaf ... colouring over it in Black Pitt pen and then doodling in a white gel pen ... so I turned back to the offending page and ... it worked ... so I did it again ... and again ... then I realised that the whole process was soooooo cathartic ... well I just kept on doing it ... and that ... as they say ... is that!

I am totally in love with the shade of yellow on the journalling squares ... they are Vanilla Custard ... a Dylusion's Spray ... such a great colour ... then I have used the stencil again and popped a bit of Broken China over the top ...

I did have some really cool lines around the edges of the squares too ... but I got carried away with laughing at Dom Jolly and his "Look at me ... I'm a Mango Smoothie" comment ... well ... basically I slipped ... so I ended up doing the whole scribble thing all over again.

Hey Ho ... Take care people

Laters!

It's Good to be Back!

No ... scratch that ... it is GREAT to be back. Thank you to everyone for the warm "we missed you" messages from yesterday ... you guys certainly know how to make a girl feel special!

Anyways ... after telling you all about the fab Lin Brown journalling class I attended on Saturday ... I suddenly felt brave enough to share one of my pages with you! I am not sure if I have finished with it yet ... clearly I still need to do some ... erm ... actual journalling on it ... I mean apart from that ... I kind of think some gold apples would look good on that there tree ... but where to find some ... appropriately sized ... gold apples late on a Monday night is currently an enigma :0)

The best thing about journalling is that regardless of whether I like the page or not ... it is just layer upon layer of pure unadulterated fun ... it is also a great distraction from smoking to boot ... yes yes I am still off the evil weed ... some days are better than others and some days are still an absolute blimmin nightmare ... I wake up craving and go to bed craving and don't stop eating in between ... so I am piling on the pounds ... I reckon that pretty soon I shall need to start frequenting the local weight watchers ... which should be interesting coz to stave off my desire to eat I usually light up ... what will I turn to instead I wonder .... could this be the slippery slope that ends in copious amounts of alcohol and rehab I wonder !!!

Anyways ... I stray from the page in question ... it would probably be quicker if I told you what I have n't done to it ... it started off with my first ever play with pastels ... then a rather generous spritz with some Gold Glimmer and a stencil ... some sequin waste ... Wendy Vecchi background stamps ... Lord Tim of Holtz paper and a black pen. The rather lovely tree is indeed a wonderful Lin Brown creation covered using all manner of collage paper pieces ... and the scribbling ... well that is all my own work :0)

OK ... I have kept you for long enough ... I am off to catch up on Dr Gillian P.I ... the drama queen ... throwing herself at the bug invested jungle floor for attention! I heard she is the same age as Nigella Kitchen ... so ... if you are what you eat ... I am off to Maccy D's!

Laters!

Sunday Snippets!

Splat!

Well I fell firmly on my face with that one people!

Last week I announced that I would answer all my blog questions regularly on a Sunday coz I get loads .... and this week ... I got ... precisely ... erm ... one question ... and that was ...

"Ben and Jerry's ... What flavour?" and the answer is ...

Strawberry Cheesecake!

I say one question ... lots of you asked the same question :0)

So ... What now? ... Well I shall just have to tell you about my fab day yesterday ... I went to one of the Wonderful Lin's Book of 10's Journalling workshops at L.B Crafts ... I had a great time ... sat next to the Lovely Karen all day ... got abused by Michelle ... who also got me into trouble :0) and indigestion from Noisy Mel ... due to the fact that she did insist on making me laugh while I was eating my lunch!!! It was a fabulous day! Lots of product to play with ... paints and pastels and sprays and paper ... What more could a girl want! So here is my first completed Book of 10's Journal page ... I say completed ... I am not entirely sure ... I think it still needs something else ... but I can't decide what ... perhaps that is a question you could all answer for me!

I must away ... I have unfinished projects all around me ... and the journalling bug has well and truly bitten ... have a good one ...

Laters!