Do you want to get your Creative Juices flowing? ....#101010

Hey there, we are counting down the days for the start of the online Course – One BADASS Art Journal.   It officially starts on 6th February 2017. There are some great teachers, 19 Lessons with lots of juicy videos, inspiration and lot and lots of FUN!!

Sign Up HERE

With only a few days left before we start the course I wanted to give you a great opportunity before the class starts - totally FREE - 10 prompts, in 10 days for 10 minutes #101010:

Take part over the next few days with 10 mini exercises to kick start your creativity - every day for 10 days I will be giving you a creative tip/prompt/idea.  I want you to spend a minimum of 10 minutes, longer if you can to do the exercises and let me know how you feel after the 10 days.  

While you prepare yourself for the BADASS Journal course, or if you are still in-between stages of making up your mind I wanted to bless you over the next few days.  These 10 prompts  to kick start your creativity come from my bigger publication of 65 Ways to kick start your Creativity, and you get 10 different ways for free!

The great thing about these ideas is that anyone can do them, you don’t need to be an artist, so if you are looking for ways to unwind or give yourself that much needed time then these are things ideas that you should try.

For each activity you can try it using different mediums or surfaces, colours - do not limit yourself.  I want to give you ways in which you can experiment if you want to.  You can adapt it anyway you like to suit, and there are no right or wrong ways to create, so do not put any boundaries on yourself. The most important thing is to have fun. 

I am really looking forward to have you join us on the One BADASS Journal and I have a lovely lesson to share with you, and some of the creative tips you can take part in over the next 10 days will help loosen you up a bit, and whether or not you take the course they will be useful to you as you embark on your creative journey.

When you take the opportunity to purchase your class through my link you will get two great bonuses sent to you and they include:

25 Way to fit Art and Creativity into your life and is filled with some great ways to find the time to be more creative.  

Canvas Embellishment art class with over 2 hours of training and together they are both worth over $30.  If you have taken this class before don’t worry there are additional hints and tips that I have added, a great workbook, with lots of process photos for you to see as you create your work of art.  In the class you will see the way I approach painting on a canvas and embellishing, and you are totally welcome to do the painting as I have done, or you can use the tips and create something of your own.  You will walk away from the class with a selection of useful tools that you can go on and use in other paintings.

While you make up your mind for the BADASS Art Journal course you can play around with these tips. 

Join me HERE tomorrow - totally FREE - 10 prompts, in 10 days for 10 minutes #101010 You will get the first tip tomorrow, if you don’t want to miss a day and get them straight to your inbox, then you can sign up to my Mailing list for the 10 prompts, in 10 days for 10 minutes #101010.  

I will also be giving you some inspiration via Instagram so check me out there as well, and if you are sharing what you do over the next 10 days on Instagram add the hashtags #101010 and #realityarts

Stay blessed and be a blessing!

Art Journal - 31 Things to Create with Recycled Materials -

John Lewis Journal

I picked up a while ago a John Lewis catalog after a visit to the store with my sister. I had also joined their loyalty program and received my complimentary tea and cake voucher, which they send out I think 4 times a year – which was yummy by the way (everything in moderation)!

Recycling can come in all shapes and forms and as you would have seen over the last few weeks if you can think of a creative problem or something you need to make you can probably use a majority of the things you have around you.

After looking through the catalog it sat around my house for over a week. I thought of some of the things that I could do with it and making a journal was what I really wanted to do, but I wanted the kind that you could use the background images as a place to start, and you could also completely go over the page with gesso and create your own image. 

John Lewis Journal - Recycled creatively

What I liked about the pages was the feel and the thickness, it holds gesso well, and it had some interesting images, and this allowed you to add to the image using art supplies. 

Page to add gesso to

So where you say have an image of a bed,

Were you allowed to jump on your parents bed?

I added to it and drew in children jumping on the bed, something we were never allowed to do as kids.  With each stage a part of the process you can enjoy the separate parts or the whole.  An enjoyable exercise was to block out some of the picture for the next stage, adding gesso and a bit of colour and then adding a figure

Here are some other ways in which I altered the pages, I enjoyed placing the characters within the picture and thinking about what their story was.

Some stories tell of hope and looking to the future.....

thinking about the past, and being present.......

So now I have a set of great pages at different stages that I can use when I have time to spend finishing off a piece

Why don't you check out your local store and their catalogs, you might find one that you will be able to use as your own journal. Here is my original post that will give you a closer look at some of the pages.

31 Creative Things to do with Recycled Materials - Tea Bags

Teabag Treasures 

Tea as you know like many people is something I usually drink every day, and I have my favorites that I like. Every now and then we buy a different variety tea, and for some reason or another no one in the house wants to drink it and it passes the sell by date.  Now I am sure you can guess what is coming next…there are so many things that you can do with an empty unused tea bag!  They are really versatile, and I will show you one of the ways in which you can put them to good use.

The tea bags by the way can go in the garden and depending on the bag decompose quite well (great for roses I hear). But you want to make something creative with them don’t you?

Tea Bag Treasures

Check out my post HERE for some step by step instructions. With the bags I have I enclosed them with words of encouragement, added texture and paint. On these ones I added the quinoa – I had so much (again out of date) to get rid of! 

They were then painted and an embellishment made from either fimo clay, or shrink plastic and then it was added to the bag.  Again, with those little bits of broken jewelry you may have laying around you can bring new life into them and add some sparkle. There are countless possibilities using the altered teabags in different projects, check out my Pinterest board to see some of the ways that I found that other artists are using. 

Can you see a creative possibility in more things now? 
There are so many things you have around you are screaming to be altered, reused and re-purposed, and I often tell Alan and Sekani that if they stand still for too long around me I will be seeing if I can find a creative use for them as well (smile).  There are a wealth of possibilities when we experiment with recycled materials, come back tomorrow to see what else I have got up to with my supplies.

Why not join me on some of my other platforms, and sign up to my Mailing list you will be getting information about what I am up to in my creative journey, tutorials, Arts and health advice and resources, giveaways and more

Stay blessed and be a blessing

Amanda

Myeloma Cancer - What can you do?

Happy Birthday Robert Lloyd Trought

Robert, my brother would have been 48 today.  On 2nd June this year it would be 4 years since he passed, I look at the picture and it feels like he was just here.  I never told him enough that I loved, admired and was proud of him.  We can't wait until our loved ones die before or get sick before we tell them how treasured they are.

Robert was loving and encouraging and had 3 gorgeous children and in 2009 he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. He fought the disease for 4 years in the percentage of people where the chemo and other debilitating drugs had little effect, the cancer spread all over his body. 
Surely we thought, a Bone Marrow transplant would help - as his sisters we were initially encouraged only to be told we were not a match - how could it be?  

As I look back I there were many things that I could have done differently, and we can't beat ourselves up as we did what we could at the time, I didn't want to deal with the possibility that he wouldn't pull through and hid behind caring for my mother.  The guilt creeps in, the 'would haves', 'should haves', and 'didn't do enough' start to ridicule you for being less than you thought you were.  But you have to make room for action, we will not accept ill health and disease as our fate and fight to find remedies, cures and prevention measures.

Death will come to us all, and we don't want to face it with any regrets.  So now that you have time on your side, be it a day, a week, month or even a year, make the most of it!

I share some of the journey of the time we held on to hope that things would be alright and he would stay with us in the following posts:

Prayer

Update

Understanding

In the Memories of Home posts I share memories of growing up that I shared with my brother and sister.

Memories of Home

What you can do?

Where ever you are in the world YOU CAN make a difference, find your local organisation and support their work.  

Here in Barbados one of the organisations we have is The Myeloma Lymphoma & Leukaemia Foundation of Barbados you can support by becoming a member $25 and support the events and initiatives that they put on.  We attended their Annual Tea Party, they have a number of acts performing, and it is a lovely event, a lot of work goes into organizing it.

Tea Party, always well attended!

Tea Party Dance Troupe

Co-Founder/President - Hyacinth Grimes

Tea Party Young Steel Pan Band, excellent!

They also do a lot of much needed fund raising as well at different events, malls etc, sharing information about the disease and help available.  So many people who are diagnosed in Barbados face very high medical bills, and are unable to afford some of the treatment that may readily be available in the UK or US.

Information available at their stall in Sky Mall

Member - Daphne Springer sharing her knowledge of blood cancers in Barbados

Contact the The Myeloma Lymphoma & Leukaemia Foundation of Barbados at:

• Mailing address is P.O. Box 235, Bridgetown, Barbados, or Pine Medical Centre, 3rd Avenue, Belleville, St. Michael, Barbados.
• Office phone number is (246) 435-3990.
• General email address is: mllf.org@caribsurf.com

As an artist I will be creating a set of 3 Prints and Cards that you can purchase and 30% of the cost will be donated to the organisation.  I will tell you more in another post over the next few weeks.

Why not think of ways that you can donate or raise funds and do your part.

Donation

We also have a fund raising page in Roberts memory which is supporting Myeloma UK, and Cancer Research please help raise funds for more research, if we all do our bit we can one day find cures to prevent others from loosing their loved ones.

Give Blood/Bone Marrow

Become a bone marrow donor

Give Blood - If you have had a blood transfusion prior to 1995 you will not be able to give blood see HERE

Check out the following Organsiations

IF YOU WISH TO REGISTER AS A POTENTIAL BONE MARROW, BLOOD OR ORGAN DONOR VISIT: 

ACLT Office - Tel no. 020 8240 4480, 7A Rathbone Square, Tanfield Road, Croydon, CR0 4HA  Please call ACLT office to book a 30 minute appointment. 

NATIONAL BLOOD SERVICE; BLOOD DONATION CENTRES Tel 0300 123 2323

Anthony Nolan Register Tel no. 0303 303 0303, You must be aged between 16 and 30 and generally healthy

DKMS - DELETE BLOOD CANCER Tel no. 020 8735 4230To everyone over 30 who can't join the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register. You can now join via DKMS ‘Delete Blood Cancer' Please CLICK HERE They will register potential bone marrow donors from 17 to 55 years. You must weigh over 7st 12Ibs in weight

Robert, see, your memory lives on in our hearts through your children, family and friends!  So too all those who remember family members and friends who have died from Cancer.

What ever you can do is appreciated, do it today, don't wait, don't put it off, think creatively how you may be able to support, it could be money, time, skill, bake sale, car wash, art classes - we can do it together!  

Stay blessed and be a blessing.