WOYWW #586: Mini journal on a whim

I wasn't sure if I would be in a position to post today for WOYWW as I hadn't done anything up until the weekend and I didn't have anything projects planned either. Then out of the blue one night, I felt the need to smudge some paint around, which is how I ended with this: 

Not very exciting in itself, so I tore it up into smaller pieces, which always makes these backgrounds more appealing somehow. (The colours are a bit exaggerated in the photos.)

This probably would have been enough to share for today, but then - completely on a whim - I made a mini journal using one of these pieces as a cover and a left-over tea-dyed sheet of paper for the inside pages. Then I thought I'd better do a sample page inside and I couldn't stop myself until I had half the journal filled! So here are the pages I've made so far in a random order:

I have actually made a few other bits and pieces of art since, but I'd better keep them until next time. Instead, here's a quick shot of my little plant nursery on the patio - I will try and over-winter the coleus as the one we got last year perished in the first frost! It's a shame they're not more hardy. Poor plants got a bit battered in the winds last night, but no harm done. 

Thanks for visiting today! I'll be around today or later in the week. 

Happy # 586 xx

WOYWW #585: Journal page 'Spirit' and lots of rain

What a difference a week makes - we've had lots of rain since my last post and the temperatures are a lot more comfortable as well. I am definitely a confirmed pluviophile - rain always makes me happy - provided that I can stay indoors - which I can today so yay, I'm happy!

Sometime last weekend I made a journal page. I started by randomly sticking pieces of collage in one of my neglected journals. This is as far as I got when I took the photo for WOYWW.

I was stuck at this stage, then decided to add some imagery from a Stamperia collection (Cosmos) that I'm using for my son's birthday card this year. I still have a whole month to work on it, so I'm way ahead of myself! I'd previously scanned in the imagery and printed them on matte photo paper. I love Stamperia papers, but they're so stingy - they only give you one double-sided sheet of each design - so you always end up wasting one side - and they're not cheap enough to just buy another pack!  That's why I had to resort to using my scanner and printer to get my money's worth out of the pack. So, this is what I ended up with after adding the cut-aparts from the collection. All the other bits were just random pieces lying around (some of them destined for the bin). I came across the "spirit" pebble that I'd made a while ago while looking for my gold ink for the splatters. I thought it was a perfect fit as you could interpret the imagery as spirit animals. The shape in front of the moon is meant to be a boat signifying the journey through life guided by the spirit animals. I didn't plan this page - I just went with the flow. 

I thought it looked atmospheric next to the rainswept window! Much as I like rain, I realise we need sunshine too - so here's a sunny shot of one of the marigolds in the tub you can see outside the window. Nature's the best artist - look at that blending of the colours! 

Happy #585! Hope you're enjoying the rain as much as I do! xx

WOYWW#584: Resined dominoes and other things

Is it hot enough where you are? I couldn't even sleep last night it was so hot - I got up in the middle of the night to watch a film about Alaska and imagined running through the snow! It definitely helped and it was a couple of degrees cooler downstairs as well. I'm just not a hot weather person. However, I'm not here to moan about the weather, but to show you my desk for WOYWW. Here it is a few days ago while I was waiting for my resined dominoes to cure.

I'd made these colourful dominoes years ago and frankly I don't remember how - they may be gelli prints, but I'm not sure. I found them at the bottom of my cupboards while looking for something else. I'd never posted them because they looked a bit naff but the resin gave them a new lease of life and now they're masquerading as fridge magnets. 

I've also cobbled up one of my scrap pieces using bits and pieces on my desk. The rule is to use whatever is within arm's reach without having to get up looking for stuff. It only took 5 minutes! One of those rare projects that just fall together.

And now onto some other photos. I realise that my regular repertois is quite limited and goes something like this: desk, artwork, cat, garden, sunsets in any possible combination. So here are the last three items on the list - with three for one on the sunsets! 

First off, here's Oreo sitting on the fence a few days ago when it was still reasonably cool early in the morning - notice those giant claws on the left side of the photo - the camera angle is deceptive - they're not that huge! 

Second, our half barrels newly planted in the front garden. We are a bit late in the season but we still have at least two months to admire them and the holly in the middle is supposedly winter hardy. There will be new bedding plants around it next year and we'll be ready to go sooner. 

And last but not least, the three-in-one sunset shots - they were taken just minutes apart but the sky changed dramatically in that time. 

So there it is for today! Posting three weeks in a row - must be a new record for me this year! 

Stay cool and thanks for your visit ! xx

WOYWW #583: Random projects

Hello again everyone! It's unusual for me these days to post two weeks in a row but technically I'm on holiday this week, so I have a bit more time on my hands. First off, a rant: I don't think I like this new format Blogger, do you? What was wrong with the old one? It's so unintuitive - took me a while to figure out how to add photos (and I regard myself as reasonably tech savvy) - it would have been a good idea if the editor didn't default to the HTML view! Argh! Anyways, I seem to be back on track after my initial panic of looking for the upload button and not finding it. 

Today I'm sharing some random projects that were totally not planned. I couldn't sleep in that heat last week, so I got up in the middle of the night at around 1 am and started playing randomly. I was up again early the next day and continued - the photo of my desk was taken that morning. Still very messy busy!

 

Below are my completed random projects - I only used things I found lying around on my desk (gelli prints, scraps from previous projects, postage stamps, washi tapes etc) - this seems to be my go-to method and the reason I need to keep my desk busy at all times, so I have plenty of things within arms reach to play with. 

These poppy heads are stuck on wooden bricks with washi tape. The bricks were decorated with gelli prints first: I just stuck them on with gel medium, sanded the edges and inked them and then painted the sides black. I will definitely make more of these as you can stack them on each other like building blocks, as you can see on my shelf.

In other news, we went cycling last weekend and I fell off my bike into stingy nettles - no harm done other than some minor bruises and stingy nettle burns - at least I can tick off the "silly accident for this year" on my to-do list. (If you remember at around the same time last year I fell down the stairs at work, so it seems to be an annual occurrence). My son told me he thought if anyone was going to fall off their bike, it was going to be me, given that I'm the one always dishing out safety advice LOL. What can I say, I was just demonstrating what not to do. 

Look at these petunias in my hanging basket. When I bought them a few weeks ago they looked sad and neglected with just a few flowers, badly in need of watering but they recovered nicely. 

Thanks for visiting today! Let me know you've been around to make sure I visit you back!

Happy WOYWW!