WOYWW #656: Last pages in my Advent Journal 2021 and more ugly art

The last WOYWW of 2021! Christmas is pretty much done and dusted. The days are short and going fast, especially when you sleep until 10 am, like I do. I enjoy not having to get up early and dreading the return back to drudgery in January! But we're not quite there yet! Here's a shot of my desk with all my Christmas pressies staged:

Some Tim Holtz stamps and stencils (I've been wanting the Stamp Collector set for absolute ages, how did Santa know?), some mini Archivals just for using with those stamps and a very nice book that I accidentally stumbled upon. 

Also on my desk is a stack of  "ugly arts" - more about those later - but first the last three pages in my Advent Journal: 

The last page is my word for 2022: freedom. I'm looking for my creative freedom where I don't have to fuss about small details, just play and enjoy the process. I've come a long way, but I'm still not quite there yet. 

The Ugly Art Club's 5-minute challenge helps me achieve this freedom, though I must say I still spent way more than 5 minutes on some of these pieces, sometimes overworking them unnecessarily.

The Ugly Art challenge runs for only another 5 days, but fear not, there's a brand new challenge on the horizon #happyyouin22 which runs throughout January. I'm planning to take part, even though I told myself  that I wouldn't! How could I resist? These challenges give me such a creative boost and I get so much inspiration from others. 

Hope you all had a good Christmas and got lots of pressies from Santa. Here he is delivering ours a few minutes past midnight! 

Wishing every one a happy, healthy and creative 2022! 

WOYWW #655: Advent Journal 2021 Week 3 and Ugly Art Challenge

I'm terribly late today. Although I'm off work now, I woke up with a debilitating migraine. Nothing unusual, it happens all the time - and thankfully never lasts too long. I'm back to my normal cheery old self again. A quick show of my desk late last night:

That's my latest page in my advent journal - only 3 more pages to go - which means just three more days till Christmas! I'll just show you my pages for days 15-21. Some of them are double spreads. 

On Monday a new challenge kicked off by #theuglyartclub. You have 5 minutes to create something - anything - ugly or not - doesn't matter. The challenge runs for two weeks. Here are my pieces for the first two days, just using my scraps on a brown paper bag (my butterfly ban was lifted for this project!): 

I'm glad I made it today after all - I couldn't have left without wishing you all a lovely Christmas!

I plan to be back before the New Year! xx

WOYWW #654: Advent Journal 2021 Week 2

Have you noticed how we get into a time warp around Christmas each year? It's spooky, really. On Monday I realised that we didn't have anything to put under the Christmas tree yet (I know, I'm not very well organised and most of the responsibility falls on me, even my own presents!) so I headed out to town and came back with three bags of stuff, mostly practical. Let's just say my family is now fully stocked with socks, underwear, slippers, pyjamas and snuggly robes and I'm getting myself some crafty stuff as well. 

My desk shot this morning is a bit staged - I wanted to show you the delightful cards I received from LLJ and Cindy! Thank you, ladies - you're ever so kind. In the foreground is my advent journal, which is filling up nicely. I'm following the prompts posted by @artjournaladvent on Instagram - one of the organisers, Michelle, used to be a desker - some of you might remember her from years ago! 

Here are my pages from week #2. So far I've managed to keep up to date, although it did involve some late-night art sessions, sometimes in the 11th hour! There's lots of gold in all of these! (there are some tiny little butterflies smuggled in again - just to break my own self-imposed rules - what can I say, I'm a rebel LOL!)

I even managed to put together a lightening quick slideshow of my previous scrap journal, in the "add 27 photos" trend format (doesn't look so good on the desktop though). 

Happy #654! 
I'll be around soon - if not today then later in the week! xx

WOYWW #653: Advent Journal 2021 - Week 1

The week has gone so fast! I can't believe we're a week into Advent already.  And that means 7 pages in my new journal completed. My desk doesn't look quite as tidy as it did last week - that's a week's worth of junk accumulated already - I really must learn to tidy up each day - it would only take a few minutes.

I'll just quickly show you the 7 pages/spreads completed. When I start a new journal, it always takes the first few pages to settle into a style - you'll see here where that's happened - where I found my feet - it's not something I do on purpose - it just happens. So here are my pages in chronological order (click to enlarge):

I know I said no butterflies in this journal, but I had to sneak in a tiny one (see if you can spot it!)  - only because Julia said she'll eat her hat if I can resist - and I didn't want her to have to do that! 

I played a bit more with the snowy photos I took last week - we haven't had any more snow since (insert sad face). This was edited with a fake sky and fake birds! (click twice)

Hope everyone's ok! Happy #653

WOYWW #652: Advent 2021

Ladies and ...erm.. ladies! In honour of December 1st, I present a tidy desk! Tada! I does happen, you know, however rarely. I've even changed my paint water! 

On the left is my completed scrap journal and on the right is my advent journal for this year. I will follow the prompts from Michelle and Tamara on Instagram. The prompts are not necessarily Christmas related - it's just a way of spending some creative time during the run-up to Christmas. 

I'll show you a before photo as well, just for good measure: 

And here are the last pages in my scrap journal. I might do a flip-through later. I've finally found an easy way to repost photos/videos from my Instagram feed to my blog. For those who are interested: you have to copy the post URL into this website and download from there. It finds all the photos and videos related to each post. By the way, butterflies, moths and dragonflies are banned from my advent journal! I think I've OD-ed on them. 

I also have a couple of photos of Oreo to share. In this one he's posing with our advent village - there are Lindt chocolates hidden in each of these little houses (ignore the clutter in the background - that's our "utility" area - the rest of the house is, of course, spotlessly clean and tidy [insert snigger]) 

And here is his "official" 2021/2022 portrait:

We've also had some snow! (this is reposted from my Instagram Stories, see if it works - I think you'll have to click it twice)

So there you have it - Happy December and Happy #652!