Pebble Painting: Christmas and Easter

It seems (on a quick search through my posts and pics) that I have been remiss and have failed to share a project I designed, completed and taught last year. I’ve created another version this month – hence this post. May I introduce my Christmas and Easter pebble painting…

Pebble painting - Christmas
Pebble painting - Easter
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AAA Cards challenge: January’s sketch

Well, here’s a thing. I’m no longer on the AAA Cards design team but I thought I’d join in their challenges now and then when I wanted something creative to do that wasn’t ‘work’. January’s sketch design is the first for the year – a prompt for your card layout. Here’s my entry:

AAA Cards Challenge: January's sketch
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AAA Cards DT: Black, white and gold

A different colour scheme this week at AAA Cards challenge blog. We’ve gone for the fairly classic black, white and gold. The prompt guide photo has baubles, and I have also gone with a Christmas theme, but any subject matter is allowed as long as the colours are stuck to it and it is a clean and simple design. Here’s my design team card:

black, white and gold Christmas card

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Art Journaling: Up, Up & Away

My next Art Journaling Session is on Monday evening, 6th November at The Studio. If you’re recovered your hearing after the fireworks, do come along and join in! We’ll be working on the theme of ‘up, up and away’ for our mixed media layouts in our journals. Here’s the inspiration example:

Mixed media art journal layout based on the theme of 'up, up and away' featuring a bright ink background and hot air balloon.
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Art journaling: playing with Brushos

This morning’s project was to prep for this evening’s art journal session at The Studio. We’re playing with Brushos, concentrated crystals of watercolour/dye. They give great, largely unpredictable, paint effects and work wonderfully as backgrounds to mixed media work. They are also tiny and get into all sorts of different places, so they come out rarely and take some cleaning up after! A pot once dropped into my distress ink box and took months to get rid of them all… Everything is covered and ready for colour carnage: here’s my example:

Art journal page featuring BrushosThe session runs from 7:30pm, costs £5 and needs to be booked in advance. Materials are included and if you need a suitable art journal to work in they are available for just £2 on the night. Just get in contact for more information or to book your place 🙂

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LIM DT: Under the sea (#488)

Less is More challenge blog is following up their ‘B is for Beach’ theme with a new seashore-related subject: ‘under the sea’. Just enter your clean and simple card designs in the next two weeks featuring the theme for the chance to have the accolade of being shortlisted for our favourite card. I’ve not got any ocean-related stamps, so have created this panel card to fit the theme:

Under the sea themed card featuring a seahorse motif

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Last minute commissions

It turns out that commissions seem to come like stereotypical buses – none for ages and then two at once. I had the pleasure of accepting two very different commissions last week. The only thing was – they were both last minute with a very short time constraint. I did some juggling and evening work but fit them in and delivered both on time. Here’re pics of the projects:

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Bible Journaling: Serve (BJ-23)

This month’s Bible journaling session used ‘serve’ as its theme, with five new illustration templates made available. It took me ages to find the right inspiration for the images, but it was worth the effort. I have also got hold of some new fonts, courtesy of Creative Fabrica’s daily gifts and freebies, so they snuck into the designs as well. Here are the five illustrations:

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AAA Cards DT: Pink Birthday

Over at AAA Cards challenge blog we’re celebrating 9 years of clean and simple card-making. There’s even a money prize up for grabs! The challenge this time is ‘pink birthday’. I searched through my stash and remained uninspired by what I had on a generic birthday theme. Eventually, I settled on one of my flower stamps, coloured it pink and made it a birthday card with a stamped mini-sentiment:

floral pink birthday card with tiny sentiment Continue reading

Arts in Worship: Be Still

I was asked to run a craft table at a recent ‘Be Still’ community event at my church. The aim of the evening was to take the chance for attendees to have some ‘me’ time with massages, facials, mindfulness sessions as well as the craft table. I looked for all sorts of inspiration and didn’t really find any. I then stumbled on some photos of retro signage and decided to go with the theme. I created six different laser-cut wood signs, each with a typical self-affirming phrase often linked to mindfulness sessions. For each, I spent a long time finding a relevant Bible verse or passage to move it from self-centred to God-centred.

Be stil event affirmation signs

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