Happy New Year and Tutorial Tuesday!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Better late than never, I wanted to start out by saying Happy New Year and wishing you a blessed year filled with peace, growth, insight, understanding and much love.  This is my last post of this year and Tuesdays are usually filled with tutorials.  I shared in yesterdays post the changes that will be happening, I am taking a few courses that I hope will bring new knowledge and change will come through in my work.  I want to step up and do more.  I don’t make new year’s resolutions but build on the plans that I made this year which will carry through to next year.

One of the changes that I will continue to work on is my health, getting fit, getting rid of clutter and making sure that nutritionally I have a balanced diet.  I am going to continue to clear the clutter and we are all going to make a big effort at home to get rid of those things that are just there ‘because’ rather than serving a purpose.

Rather than weekly to fit in the new courses I will be posting Tutorial Tuesdays on a monthly basis.  I will have lots to share from the insights and techniques gained on the courses and wanted to make some room for this.  I will be trying my hand at videoing and will try and do some video based technique videos.  There are so many things that I would love to do that there isn’t the hours in the day, but I will try and do a few of them.

If you want to take a look at the past tutorials click on the link below and it will take you to the topics.  

I hope you find ways to experiment and learn new things in the coming year.  As always share what you are doing and remember to be a blessing.

Happy 2014!

Material Mondays - Looking back on 2013 and changes for 2014

I have been spending time over the past few days with family and there have been quite a few late nights.  I am trying to get my body clock back to getting up early, so that I can catch the house when it is quiet and get on with a few things before everyone wakes up.

I have been trying to set myself some schedules, planning my learning for 2014, which starts today with Soul Food.  I feel that it is important to ensure that you do something for your self-development.  I will also be taking a few other courses including Life Book in January and Bloom True which starts in February.  

I am really pushing my learning next year and also intend to learn about quilting, book binding and photo shop.  I am intending on using them as ways to capture stories, my mums, mine and my role as her daughter and carer.  I hope to develop some creative activities that others will be able to use and be inspired to use with those they care for who have dementia.  I will be sharing my journey on the courses and recommend that you take a look at some of them as you think about your own learning for 2014.

I will be changing my posting schedule to make room for the courses and to be able to share what I've been learning and all the new art work that will be produced.  Material Mondays, Tutorial Tuesdays and Recycled Projects will all be posted once a month. I thought I would share with you the projects I have made so far with Material Mondays and put a link so that you can go and take a look.

I started Material Mondays as a way to show some of the creative work that I had done with textiles and crochet.  As I progress in my mixed media walk it is really enabling me to explore and experiment with all the techniques and equipment that I have always wanted to try.  I may find that as I progress there are some that I will not be trying at all, but the main thing is that I will have a taste of many of the techniques then decide if I want to incorporate it within my mixed media work.

I started sharing around October this year and have been posting pretty much every week, here is what I have created so far, if you want to take a closer look click on the image and it will take you to the post:

Crochet Choker

Crochet Necklace

Painted Recycled Fabric

Painted Fabric with Stitching added 

Recycled Bag Journal

Chunky button Fabric Journal

Crochet Neck warmers

Crochet Baby Hat

Chunky Wrist Cuff

Fabric Journal

Crochet Owl

Reusable Crochet Journal Cover

I am quite proud of myself for keeping up with creating and look forward to seeing the projects I make next year, one of which I hope to be a crochet bag and doll that you can keep inspiring messages in.  I hope you do continue to join me in my creative travels.  I am looking forward to the growth and expansion that will come from stepping out and not worrying about what you are creating but enjoying the process. Blessings and much love!

Recycled Projects - Looking back at the Creative projects

I thought that I would look back on some of the projects that I have done over the past few months.  I had been making quite a few things in my studio and once I began to share them I found that I began to have a bit more direction in what I was making.  I have quite a few favorites with the things that I have made so far, I have been quite taken with the mini wall hangings and have been experimenting with a few varieties, which I will be sharing in the new year and showing a tutorial of the process.  Click on the image to take you to the post that gives you a better look at them.  To see how they were made you need to go to the Tutorial Tuesdays posts.

These were great to make, you can use most of the scraps of paper you have in your stash, create little toppers and make some really encouraging wall hangings.  Because the foundation is cardboard they are fairly light in weight.

Mini Wall Hangings

The mini necklaces again use cardboard as their base, with the addition of the seeds or quinoa it adds some weight.  These were topped with air drying and fimo clay pieces.

Mini Necklaces

What do you do with the teabag box when you finished with it - make a treasure box, these can hold trinkets or even the teabag treasures below if you made any

Teabag Boxes Treasure 

These mini toppers are made from the out of date teabags that got lost at the back of my cupboard.  After emptying the contents the bags were decorated and I have used them as part of other projects.

Teabag Treasures

Chunky journals, the basis for these were toilet rolls and cardboard from packaging to make the front and back covers.  The tags were made from recycled card and paper scraps.

Chunky A6 Journal

This was also a favourite making the stamps.  There are so many designs and layouts that you can be inspired by and you can take elements of the designs and create your own one of a kind stamps for use in your journals or artwork.  The stamps were created using the foam from a sleeping bag mat.

Handmade Stamps

Every few months we seem to be getting new phone directory through the mail box, I found a creative use for them and made these journals.

Directories Journals

Another chunky toilet roll journal, these one is quite thick in size, and I made quite a few tags to go with it.

Chunky Toilet Roll Journal

Capturing moments journals are made from card and while they are bound require no stitching.  I really enjoyed making these!

Capturing Moments Mini Journals

Cereal bag journal takes the bag of your favorite cereal and allows you to add different enclosures before sealing with an iron.

Cereal Bag Journal

I hope to continue to find creative ways to recycle and up-cycle the things that we have in our every day life and can quite easily throw away and to see some of your ideas and things that you make, do share things that you have found or been inspired by that you either create for yourself, or give away. What has been your favorite recycled project in the ones above.  Blessings!

Gratitude's and Celebration - Week 25 - The Future

The Future is waiting for you...

....don't be afraid to live in your present

What will define your day for you, how differently will you go about your day from yesterday?  We can sometimes get stuck like a record in what should have happened, what someone should have done, or the other hand finds us making plans for what we do when the kids grow up and leave home or we retire.

We forget to live with the day we have today, right now. I am not one to say not plan, but don't stop yourself from doing something - if you have a book to write, start it, break it down to what you can fit in whether it is 5 minutes or 1 hour or 1 day.

With the rush of Christmas over, and the New Year ahead I am grateful that the coming year holds so much promise.  We have an opportunity to be more than we were, see more than we have seen. I also celebrate the many lives that I may get to be a blessing to next year.

What does your future hold, how can you make a difference, where will it take you.  Remember one small change over a period of time can make the difference. 

I would love to hear from you and share what you will be tackling next.  Blessings!

As this week draws to a close have a blessed weekend! If you want to see how I made the journal (click here)

Children - Memories of Home

Happy Christmas. I hope that your day is filled with warmth as the family and friend get together. If you know that someone is going to be on their own, invite them round, visit and spread joy peace and happiness!.

Welcome to Memories of Home, if you would like to find out more information about the series, Click here

Being in a supportive environment is important to our growth as individuals, not everyone has had that opportunity and as adults we try and create an environment that will nurture and bless our children and indeed ourselves.

As children we used to get really excited at Christmas time. We helped decorate the tree and underneath the presents circled. We tried to get a peek feeling the size and whether anything shook beneath the wrapping. We had to wait though for our dad to get up and have his breakfast before we were able to open any presents and we felt as if we were going to burst because we knew that while we might not get all the items on our list we might at at least one thing. As we got older on some years our presents would be something more practical and a I remember how I felt when I unwrapped the nightey rather than the cassette player that i had my eyes on.

As we have all grown up and have children of our own we tried to hold on to some of the traditions and Christmas would be be spent in each others houses, seeing the children now filled with the excitement that we had at their age.

Our day though is singed with the loss of our brother who was an uncle, father, son, husband and friend. We take time to lift up his memory and think of the laughter, his humour, grace, understanding and love.

I hope you are having a blessed day as you remember those near and far and those who have also lost loved ones this year, do leave a comment and share what makes today special for you

Material Mondays - Blue and Cream crochet necklace

Here is another crochet offering.  A baby blue and cream choker.  This one is designed to sit on the neck and be worn as the main focus for an outfit if you are dressing up or as a casual accessory.

I really like the blue base, which is a crochet circle, made in thinner material.  I added a bead selection to the top of the choker and around the edges.

You can do a variation on the design and create matching jewelry such as a wrist cuff or earrings, which I guess might be some of my next projects with crochet.

If you are considering learning how to take part in creative activity check out Craftsy online courses, at the moment they are doing a special offer on some of their classes, and they are offering some free mini courses. Click here. Blessings!

Creating in Faith - Reflections on the Series

Since July 2012 I have been posting a weekly post called ‘Creating in Faith’.  I started out taking part in a prayer journal hosted by Mika Diaz on Motley Soul and when it finished she asked me I wanted to continue and contribute to the group.  I began to write a weekly series taking a word and writing an encouraging message and insight around it.  I had also decided that I wanted to create what I call a ‘bookmark holder’, decorate it and it would hold a bookmark that I would write my prayer requests for that week.  

Bookmark holders

Here is the post to show you how I made them.  I wasn't sure how I would put them together, but proceeded to paint on them and fill them with imagery that spoke to me.

Each Bookmark holder has a bookmark enclosed

It has been great write the posts and have really allowed me to reflect and share on many things.

Thoughts, prayers and insights are written with the bookmarks holders

Over the year each week I wrote my thoughts and prayers, and I intend to continue to add to them and will be able to look back and see what the prayers were or a specific week, what transpired, the prayers that were answered and really see what other things will come up for the year. 

Who needs a reason to create a piece of art?

It has also been great to be able to create the book mark holders and I intend binding them together.  It will be something I can add to over the year once bound.

Experimenting with materials and colours

If you want to take a closer look at each of the completed bookmark holders and posts I will be putting a tab at the top of the page that will take you to each post.

What’s next?

I am stepping out stretching myself further and in the next couple of weeks will see the start of my video series called ‘Creative Sundays’.

In the same way as the Creating in Faith, posts I hope to give you a shot of inspiration, to get you on the road to creating yourself or giving yourself the permission to create be inspired or just play.

We can often find taking that time ourselves can get increasingly difficult with the demands of balancing life, family and work commitments.

I will aim to create a weekly piece of art and show you the process from start to finish, share some prompts, scriptures, encouraging quotes and uplifting music.

I hope you join me on my next journey and also share what you get up to.  Have you come to the end of a project that you were involved in, let me know how you got on.  Blessings

Recycled Projects - Mini Wall Hangings

What do you do with all your paper and card scraps?  Why not create some mini wall hangings?

Mini wall hangings

I have wanted to make these mini wall hangings for such a long time but kept putting it off and finally got round to it.  

What delights do you have in your scrap boxes

They are a great way for recycling cardboard, scraps and odds and ends in your supplies that are too nice to throw away but are too small to be used on their own. 

Simple additions make mini pieces of art!

I have 3 containers labelled as ‘scrap’ that had come from the off cuts when I was creating other projects and I am determined before the end this year to use them up and make room for other things.

On each of the sections you can also create them and apply a selection of images of your favourite things, encouraging words, even some art work.  

You can change up the shape of the arrangement of the wall hangings....

create a variety of sizes

......depending on where your imagination takes you and the space you have to hang them, choosing to make a feature of them or use them as creative reminders.

They could make lovely presents and you can create some that the recipient can put their own photos.   

Creative reminders

Some other ideas that I might try is trying some transfer images, or making them thicker and larger in size.  Because they are made from cardboard they are also lighter in weight than if you were to make them from clay.  I really like them and look forward to seeing what you create and how many ways you can come up with the layout. 

I hope you have a blessed weekend, and allow your creativity to push back the boundaries in order to allow yourself to really soar!

Come back on Tuesday to see how I made the Wall Hangings in Tutorial Tuesday. Do share creative ways in which you have used recycled materials and leave a comment below.