Lucky 13

So, a little belated, but happy new year.

I've been looking forward to 2013. Never been one to shy away from that number, and for various 'first-world problem' reasons 2012 was a bit of a washout (although I can say I'm still happily married, and making good savings from the boring office job I took on).

So, looking forward to it, not in hope, but in determination - because things are going to be different this year. We know what we want and what we have to do. We've made plans. We have goals. There is an unshakeable optimism emanating from me this January - something which January has rarely, if ever, brought out of me - and nothing is going to stop me, or us.

I just finished reading Art Saves by Jenny Doh. That was a good way to start the year, creatively speaking. From feeling a bit lost last year, I now have direction. That book, even if it took only a couple of hours to read, has little gems in it that spoke to me, made me sit up and listen, and most importantly, made me act.

I spent the last few months of 2012 doing a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting, on me and my identity as an artist (in truth, I didn't know what my identity was any more). And I was pretty much blocked in terms of letting it flow out. That book helped me let it flow out - I got unblocked.

I made this little canvas:

...with important messages to me on it:

And I made this, using a ton of Gauche Alchemy stuff, also with a message to me:

These are messages to live by. They've already brought good - I played around with ink and watercolour afterwards, and loved the result. It was one of those rare times when I had a vision in my head, the night before, and the end result looked exactly how I'd envisioned it. That's something I'm keeping close to my chest though for now.  

Oodles of Doodles

So the big news of this year for me so far is that I've gone back to the office. Part-time, mind. I'm still freelancing at home for the other half of the week, but we need a mortgage and the banks need a payslip, so this is what I have to do.

(You can sense my enthusiasm already, right?!)

As a result, I've been 'attending' lots of training sessions this year. The quote marks are because most of the training is issued online, via either CBT or presentations, so I'm not really attending so much as... sitting at my desk.

So, these last two months, when I've not been taking notes, I've been doing this:

they made a mistake by giving me a pen and a piece of paper

Which made me remember what I used to do when I was a lot, lot younger:

can't believe I still have this

It reminded me of this layout that I did recently for Punky Scraps, and how I said I wanted to begin to introduce more light-hearted, hand-drawn elements into my work. So, doodling. Does anyone else out there like doodling on their craft creations?

PS. I also found this from a very long time ago:

how are you? Oh, I'm vine, thanks!

It made me go 'HAH!' because it is evidence that I once was able to cut and rip and stick very, very neatly, and so I have no excuse not to regain those skills!

Inspiration – The Debate

Everyone talks about inspiration – where theirs comes from, what they use to get inspired, whether it’s an overused term or an undervalued part of life, where it touches borders with copyright infringement and stealing…

… but as far as I’m concerned, human consciousness is one huge living entity anyway. It always has been. It just takes, now and again, one individual in the right place at the right time to stand up and put an amazing idea out there, and then other ideas will spark off of that one and other people will have their own ideas and… so on.

Everything we put out there – whether it be our skills, our talent, or even our personality or our words – is an amalgamated, processed version of everything we’ve ever put in. We absorb information (read inspiration), then we recycle it; or, maybe a better word is upcyle.

In the past this process has gone rather slowly. It went quite slowly for quite a long time, in fact; only in the last 200 years has it sped up. And the acceleration is exponential – now, with the web at our fingertips (and probably soon to be linked directly to our brains), the sharing, processing and reusing of ideas has exploded into a constantly moving, ever-evolving quasi sentient thing where if you sit still for one minute you get left behind. Lawmakers can’t keep up with it, that’s for sure. Intellectual property law has been acknowledged for centuries, albeit unnamed, but only became commonplace a few decades ago, and it and its counterparts haven’t moved fast enough to be effective in providing a good set of reactions to the changing environment.

So where do we turn for inspiration? I talked in my guest post here about turning more and more to sketches… although even this is a foggy area: with so many sketches from different sources each week, and a limited canvas, it’s inevitable that overlaps occur. What do we do, then? Should we be concerned?

I think, at least in the online scrapbooking community, that old rules should still apply and be applied: do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. Or, an it harm none, do thy will. It’s common decency, and common sense. Even though when I look around I think I see mostly people who do not live by the same values as me, I’m somehow still convinced that people willing to be part of a community act in that community with these values in mind. There are always exceptions, of course. But those people, I just keep away from.

So, again, where do we turn for inspiration? If we become too scared of breaking the rules, however fuzzy they are, that we can’t move, there’s no point in continuing. Stasis is… inhuman.

This week, Natalie of Punky Scraps picked out an image for us to be inspired by. I had a ball – in fact, such a good time making a layout from this image that I will return to it again and again as I begin to incorporate some of its elements into my own style. And it made me realise: since she’s been running Punky Scraps, Nat has always offered an inspiration image every month. They’re much more than a colour palette, more than a theme or a style. I don’t know where she gets them, but they really work for me.

big, bold and bright - I love it!

printed rainbows - thanks, Sass!

 

hand-drawn rainbows - thanks, Copic!

loving shadows and shading here

And so, I’ve learned something. We’ve all been told to always look outside of the box. But I’ve actually only just come to understand what this means. Like when you look up into the night sky, and you have to not look directly at a cluster of stars in order to see them all; like doing those magic eye posters; like trying to remember something so hard and then it comes to you when you're in the middle of something else entirely; well, this is the same sort of thing. So, to answer my persistent question of where we can turn for inspiration, I will say, for now, that not going in search of it is the best course of action. Just keep all of your channels open, and it will find a way in.

Smart Words

A few people out there in the cloud are talking about the new answer to Wordle (Sian, your finger is on the pulse as ever!) - and so I will too.

Tagxedo is a cute, easy-to-use little app that makes pretty things happen to words. You have to play around with different colour/layout/orientation combos, and different amounts of words and which font(s) you choose, to get a shape that you're happy with, but in the end, you end up with word (sm)art like this:
 

It's pretty. But I looked at it aftwerwards and wanted to bling it up a bit. This is when things get dangerous - I'm liable to ruin something in search of a (possibly unreachable) goal. So I "reined" it in a bit. I kept bling to a minimum and it gave it just the right amount of Christmas sparkle, don't you think?

a sparkly eye for christmas time

You can even create your own colour theme (if you don't know all the HTML colour codes by heart (!) then go here for some simple assistance). 

I have made a couple more but since they are Christmas presents I'm bound to secrecy until after the 25th. Go check out Tagxedo and link back here - I want to see what you create!

Off Celebrating

It's the husband's birthday weekend, and somehow it's turned into a four-day celebration. Lucky he took Monday and Tuesday off work. Unlucky for me: I'm ill, ill, ill.

His card this year is a good reflection of how I was feeling when I made it. I was just beginning to see a bit of colour again, but my head was all over the place: buzzy, frenetic, wishing my cold would fly away.

this is me, ill, in card form - could be worse, I suppose!

I used some Gauche Alchemy stuff of course - perfect for this kind of mood. New punchinella from India, ouchless cardboard and pages from an old dictionary and a music book. Most surprisingly of all, though, was the fact that I busted out my watercolour pencils after years of neglect - and I'm so glad I did. (Even if the red did turn out a bit pink - sorry, husband!)

watercolours, oil  paint and Cosmic Shimmer Mist make up this eclectic background

I sealed it all together with a home-made envelope:

that's the man's name

Happy Birthday, Husband!

No Regrets

Often it's too easy to dwell on the past, to go over things that didn't quite happen the way you expected and analyse them for how they could've been changed or avoided... I'm guilty, sometimes, of this - like most people. But I do make it a daily challenge of mine not to live this way. This year one of my resolutions was to stop worrying about the passage of time and see how much it slows down (it works, by the way), and an aspect of this change was adopting the 'No Regrets' mantra.

this project is subtitled 'my tidy catharsis'

This was put to the test almost precisely two months ago today. Awake at 7.30am on my wedding day, and with 6 hours ahead of me in which to get ready, I was blissfully unaware of the stress that would bring the morning to a close. The car (you've already heard that story, about which I have no regrets, by the way) was due to take us away at 1pm. So, in a leisurely, calm mood, I had my nails painted, and had some coffee, breakfast, and then some champagne. Then it was My Turn - I sat in The Chair and began to have my hair and makeup done. From there, I was facing a clock dead on. I watched with anticipation as both hands approached the 12, then with discomfort as the minute hand hit the 6, and then with rising panic as it passed the 12 again, and passed the hour hand pointing at the 1.

Five minutes later my makeup girl finally gave me a Murray Walker-esque 'Go GO GO!' and I ran downstairs, literally jumped into my dress, had my bridesmaids zip me up, and ran back upstairs to grab my bouquet and my shoes. Outside there was just time for a quick photo and then - uopa! - into the car we squashed, and sped off into the busy centre of Brussels.

It would be two hours later before I realised that I'd completely forgotten to put on my veil - the first accessory I focused on in my wedding planning to embody the image I wanted - and a further 5 hours after that that I realised I'd completely forgotten to write up my vows for our personal ceremony - leaving me with a scribbled piece of paper of half-remembered things and huge gaps where I had wanted to put the love in.

Today, these two issues are still smarting. But in the grand scheme of things, neither caused the world to end, neither ruined the wedding, and neither were unfixable after the event. We will have a 'Rock the Dress' photo session next year, and I will wear the veil. I have written up my vows in full and in the way I wanted to read them, and will give them to him soon. I'm moving on, with no regrets.

...none whatsoever.

For more similarly themed projects, get yourselves over to the Punky Scraps blog this week for the first challenge of November. You'll love what the team have done, and you'll probably love the challenge, too. Thanks for reading my stress story. Now it's out there it feels much, much further away and an entirely tinier problem. See? No regrets!

Art Journalling

Last week I went along to an Etsy lab here in Brussels, hosted by Marta of Dutch Handmade and Julie Ann of Turtlewings. The lab was given by Anna Denise, a super-talented artist-and-more. She talked us through our first few pages of art journalling.

Following on from my (now, evidently pre-emptive) realisation that I could draw, this art journalling business really challenged me.

The first page was closer to what I'm used to - paper, dimension, glue - but then we had to go on our individual journeys and journal about our day.

Anna assured us that if we carried on with our art journals, our self-portrait would eventually emerge. I guess I need to be patient.

I already discover I'm better at journalling than I am at art.

But I am persevering nonetheless, because it's fun.

And because it's interesting to see what comes out of your subconscious when you're in automatic mode. Sometimes scrapbooking can be like that, but the art journalling has made me really think more about placement and colourways in my scrapbooking. I'm looking at another long weekend full of journal-able, as well as scrappable, moments, so let's see what I can come up with...

Time to Rock

When I joined up to Project Restyle, I thought I had tons of stuff to alter; then I went through a phase of not having a clue what I could do; and then one day on the way to the park I found a record on the street. Sort of poking out of its sleeve. I looked closer and saw that it was a compilation of music named after and including one of my fiance's favourite songs. And suddenly inspiration came flooding over me.

It was a question of putting the pieces together: for example, in his stocking this Christmas my fiance found a small wooden puzzle, which he'd already asked me to do something crafty with.

And so after a morning of cleaning, painting, fixing and glue gunning, I had this:

 

 

It's for his music room (when he gets one). Check out the real Harley Davidson badge and Fender pick! What do you think?

Postcards and Previews

The heart month still isn't over, as my postcard this week proves:

I tried my hand at an arty printed postcard this time - taking a photo opportunity from the piles of wedding invitation prep. We have this neat little portable postcard printer, that in theory should be taken with us whenever we go away but rarely is... anyway, it came out beautifully. It's better for photos than our regular printer.

I've also been working on testers for wedding venue decoration. Here are a few peeks:

 

 

 

I am so in love with music score paper flowers right now! And check out that last pic - a tissue paper lollipop!

Adventures

Everything is an adventure at the moment. My husband-to-be and I were talking the other day about how it's almost a year since we went to collect our dog from the shelter. He said, 'You do realise that everything we do from here on in is brand new?' It sounds obvious, but it's also profound. We go on living our everyday life too often without stopping to think that we're experiencing most of it for the first time. It's good sometimes to stop, take stock, pat yourself on the back for not doing too badly under the circumstances. And it's good to not be afraid of adventure.

 

 

I Already Went Postal Once, Didn't I?

Ooops... I almost used the same post title as I did back here. (Hmmm... mini-challenge: come up with 52 different postcard-related blog post titles...)

This past week I've mostly had dancing on the brain. After a 3-week break, our lessons began again and although we could've been rusty and stressed, we did really well. The worst exchange, caused by me stopping every time we made a wrong move instead of trying to recover and carry on, ended with him giving me some advice: 'It's dog eat dog out there in the ballroom. Move, or get off the dance floor!'

So my postcard this week used bits from our teachers' flyer. I am liking paint rings at the moment, too:

 

Ooh, and just a quick note to say that I was given honourable mention for my submission to the Play Date Cafe's competition last week, meaning I get to sport this badge on my blog:

Project Restyle

The other week I came across a great little venture started up by Elsie at A Beautiful Mess called Project Restyle. Since it just happens that I have oh, about a million restyle ideas, it kind of made sense that I would join in. If only to make me actually get onto them and get them done.

My first one comes in the form of a picture frame. Not too adventurous. Just dipping my toes in the water. This is what it looked like before I got started:

It wasn't even wooden. It was coated with some weird vinyl paper with a grain design on. I didn't discover this until I came to stamping on it - my hand and the stamp almost skidded off the edge and ruined the whole thing. Actually you can't even really see the smudge:

That was the Stazon phase. I'm loving the Stazon at the moment - it's going on everything I can find. Then came the Distress Ink and Cosmic Shimmer Mist phase, a short heat embossing phase, and  finally the dressing up the image phase (sadly I can't take credit for the artwork itself- that's thanks to these guys):

 

And a couple of close-ups:

 

And that's my first Project Restyle task. I'll aim for something a little bigger next time.

Oh, before I go, let me remind you that the True XOXO Girls blog's January Lift Challenge is underway - my page here is up for lifting among many others. The sweet and juicy prize is donated by the Sweet Peach Crop Shop and it looks like this:

Postcard a Week Challenge

I have just received the news that the first postcard I made arrived safely at its destination. So, it looks like this plan is going to work.

Week Two's postcard is still on a 'thank you' theme. As I briefly mentioned a few posts ago, my cash-strapped younger brother hand-made our Christmas presents. All his own ideas, he went to the effort of researching his tasks; he improvised when things went wrong; and he even sat down at the sewing machine (and I checked all the seams of the bag he made - they are all very straight and very tidy).

I was, and still am, amazed at the boy. He has certainly kept this talent quiet. Anwyay, postcard number two is for him - to say thank you for the effort he spent on us.

It's a New Year, All Right

Happy New Year everyone. After a little break from blogging and a longer break from my little kitchen office at home in Belgium, I am back, refreshed, renewed and reinvigorated. I hope everyone else is feeling positive and looking forward with the same vigour.

Now, I'm not normally one for resolutions, but 2011 is going to be a big year for us. We'll need to be on the ball all the time, be very well-organised, stay calm under pressure, and not lose sight of the end results. So it seems to me that resolutions are in order, if only to keep the necessary edges sharply in focus.

My resolutions:

Me: 1) Get healthy. 2) Stop worrying so much about the passing of time. 3) Continue to sand down my rough edges.
Challenges: 1) Co-organise our wedding. 2) Increase the amount of freelance work I'm doing. 3) Craft in a more focused way - plan ahead, keep lists, tone down the spending.
Blog: 1) Write more narrative. 2) Make cards (except those which are made to be sold) from paper and materials I no longer like and will never use in other crafting. 3) Sit down on every 25th of the month and make at least 10 Christmassy things. 4) Make a postcard a week, to chart 2011, and send them (more on this below).

 

This is a postcard I made last night. I read one chapter of Good Mail Day, a book I asked for for Christmas after reading about it on Sian's blog, and was so inspired that I had to cut my bath short and go and make something. And with so many ideas fizzing around in my head, I found it very difficult to get to sleep.

Week 1's postcard is a thank you to my mum and dad for putting us up, and putting up with us, in their little house. It's a thank you for letting us bring our dog, and not getting angry at him for making himself comfortable on the sofa when no one was looking. It's a thank you for making Christmas so special, and so homely. And it's a thank you for all the amazing lengths they went to, and the amazing presents they gave to us.

My 2011 challenge is this: to make a postcard a week, at the end of each week (except for this first one and when holidays and other commitments get in the way), and put something of that week into the postcard. That's 52 postcards, 52 little squares of inspiration, 52 miniature records of what I'm doing. I'll pop them in the post on Sundays, post them on my blog on Tuesdays, and hope to spark a little inspiration in everyone who sees them.

Here's looking at 2011. May everyone's year be happy, prosperous and enjoyable.