My first hallowe'en post of the year

but I guess there'll be more to come.

This is the front and back of a book page for a swap at the Altered Gypsies. There are 6 of us in the swap, so I have another 5 (almost identical) pages to make and then they are off to Alaska to be put together with the pages from the other gypsies, before being returned to us in time for Hallowe'en/Samhain (hence the early post).


Although personally I celebrate Samhain, I love the colours and fun of Hallowe'en so I'm sure there'll be more posts as we get closer to the day (in fact one is just waiting for a stamp to arrive to finish it off).

Keep watching this space :)

More whimsy from me - PDCC44

It's been quite a while since I've done a challenge, but when I heard of this challenge something clicked and I had to join in.

It's another page in my 8x4 mini art journal, and was one of those pieces of art that just flowed out onto the page, complete with narrative - no doubt That Woman will be passing comment on my mental processes again :D

Stamps are Mushrooms and Moon Girl from Stampotique, grass from Artemio.
Colours are Distress Ink - Mustard Seed, Hero Arts Dark Blue and a pink highlighter pen.

If you want to see the original challenge and other people's take on the colours, have a look at the Play Date Cafe.

Lancelot Q Fotheringay's Guide for Gentlemen

You have to admit, it's a heck of a title :D

Yesterday was another Sarah Anderson workshop at the Cubby Hole, and this one was to make a steampunk inspired journal from scratch. In this case the 'scratch' was an old book cover and several sheets of card inked up and sewn into it.

Steampunk is something that's been lurking in the background of my crafty ideas but I've never really done anything about it. It's a theme/genre that's difficult to pin down, so i'll just point you in the direction of The Steampunk Workshop and then recommend that you go and drool over this!

Anyway, back to the workshop. Once we'd created our books, we were free to decorate and fill them in any way that we liked. I didn't finish the cover as I wanted to use a couple of bits that I had at home, so I worked on a couple of the pages instead.

One of the books that had donated it's cover was an old engineering book, and there was also an encyclopedia volume. These provided me with plenty of old drawings and charts, and inspired the idea of a combined handy reference book and journal for my intrepid new victorian hero; one Captain James P Hemmings.

Birds and bees

A recent blog post from Sue Roddis reminded me of a quirky 90s song "Birdhouse in your soul" from They Might Be Giants.
It's one of those songs that sticks in your head, and the only way to get rid of it was to journal it. Thankfully today was a playday at the Cubby Hole so I've managed to get it down on paper, as well as a couple of other things that have been floating around my brain.

Parental Advisory, Contains Strong Language

or maybe not LOL

Another piece from Saturday's playday. I have no idea where I picked up this saying, but there are times when it comes in useful - especially with little ears around :D

Possible origin.

It's not square :)

Yesterday was a Play-day at the Cubby Hole. Basically, come along with some of your stash and spend the day (or part of it) crafting with friends without any of the usual distractions like kids, PC, TV, etc. It's amazing how much you get done without distractions, and somebody usually has the essential crafty item you've forgotten lol.
I managed to finish two raven pages, and a couple of random art journal pages before running out of steam.
This one is the first page of my new journal, and it's not the usual 8x8, it's 8x4. The last batch of journals in the shop included a couple of different sizes and I managed to snaffle this one before anybody else got to it :D
The words are taken from an article in the latest issue of Somerset Studio and hopefully they'll remind me to just 'go for it'.