Garden - Memories of Home

Well, it is the first day of the year and I wish you a very Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed your celebrations seeing the new year in and where ever you are.

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.

Garden

With the new year brings exciting changes for all. I took time yesterday morning to spend it in the garden seeing what needed to be cut back in preparation for the spring, what needed to be cleared. I really enjoy this time as what you do now can impact the development of the plant and prepares it for the next stage of development.

When we were smaller we lived in a flat (apartment). We had a balcony which was small, but no garden space. My mother loved plants and had a wide array of houseplants dotted around the home. She would take her time walking round to each tending to them applying water and removing the dead leaves. She seemed in her own world and would often be humming or singing a song. Watching her and spending time in my own garden I realise the therapeutic benefits that she enjoyed as she spent time with the plants. 

I too find it relaxing, regardless of what I am doing even if it is getting rid of fallen branches. It is a lovely feeling to know what will be coming and how the plants will take shape as the weather gets milder. I have a plant that produced bright yellow flowers in the spring and yesterday noticed that one of them had decided to come out early and give me a visual taster.

This is the plant in its full glory and the flowers will last until the summer.  It truly is lovely to feast your eyes on it. Whether big or small do you have a space to grow plants, what is your favorite plant you have grown?

I would love to hear what type of plants you have in your own home environment that allows you to be comfortable. I hope you continue to join me on my journey over the weeks, as I share my mixed media houses and look back to the memories of home. I look forward to hearing about some some of your own memories. Blessings and peace to you!

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!