a little of my life

Bi-Polar Strikes Again!

sorry for going missing for a few weeks but my Bi-Polar kicked in with vengeance, just as i thought I had a handle on it and with the blow-up came a bad dose of anxiety and creative block. so I've been hiding  from the world beyond a very superficial facebook status update thing. Trying to get back to a decent equilibrium that works for me short term while trying figure out the trigger points to avoid long term is turning out to be more difficult than i thought... another journey to explore.

I am feeling a little better but that is becuase i've ramped my drug regime back up a little so hopefully that will allow me to get past the block and on to pretty things.

so while i'm battling the monster voices in my head, i'll leave you with the gallery folder of Barcelona Street Art if you want to have a look through :)

This is my current favourites:

 

Playing with new stamps - steampunk and octopuses!

We love Steampunk in this house and it has so many cool artists and makers involved with it. One of our favourites is Brian Kesinger - he draws awesome girls, and cute tankgirl/steampunk and then he does some with Octopuses!  *check out his blog for everything. We love octopuses nearly as much as steampunk and coffee, so it is kinda of an injoke between me and ian, that he is decendant from one!

So when I found out that he has licenced a bunch of images to Viva La Vegas Stamps to be made into rubber stamps, I was delighted!! I was gifted the unmounted plate as a christmas present - you can see the options *here*.

I was finally able to mount them on some cling foam and play this weekend. I made some background papers to make layouts from.

I played with some Stencils - some were waste form other things and some were bought specially as stencils.

So I made some layouts with the made papers and the crepe papers from yesterday's make things post. 

 details of the stamp:

and a second layout:

Last week marked 15 years for our friendship. Ian gets me and for that I am amazed that its only been that long.

details of the stamp - its slightly naughty but worked for me - you can see it *here*:
so there you got, new stamps and crepe flowers and making you own patterned papers to make it all gell together!

MTM: Crepe Flowers

Crepe Paper is super cheap - normally about a $1 per roll and from that you could make 100's of flowers or miles or ruffle streamers!

I have used crepe before to make flowers - at the time i used Melissa Frances's scrapbook specific ones - those layouts are *here*.

You can make flowers by hand with a regular needle and thread but I was playing with crepe for making ruffles for another project with my sewing machine and thought it would be fun to make some flowers aswell.

I make the ruffles by sewing on the biggest stitch and then gentle holding the Threed reel so it tightens up and as crepe is cheap, you can practice to get comfortable with your technique.

so I went with regular ruffles, layered ruffles, folded over and some varietion on all.. and then i edge punched and made some flowers with that :)

I adore these swirl ones - you  sew it on a diagnonal and then cut it on the line to ensure it spirals easily when you stick it down.

So there you go, some easy flowers for your scrapbook layouts and cards from a cheap and colourful resource.

 

Scrapbooking: Saturday Sketches (01)

I have always had a big love for sketches - and after 5 years of providing sketches for Manufacturer's such as Prima and My Mind's Eye, Magazine and the App aswell as a few challenge blogs along the way, I took a break from everything - especially sketches.

But now I am back scrapbooking again, I've had a bunch of requests for more sketches so i thought I'd try them as a weekly addition to my blog - no design teams or anything - just my sketch, and my layout and hopefully that will work for everyone.

Here is the first of my "Saturday Sketches"

if you do play along I'd love to see your result so please leave a comment and if you share the sketch ie on Pinterest or Facebook etc, please credit me. thanks :)

This is my completed layout

This is our home here in Barcelona and we have been lucky in our connections to be here as tenants as this home is filled with amazing artififacts from the owner who is a photogprapher for some of the big Science and Nature Magazines.

There you go ... I'll be back with another sketch next saturday, see you then.

 

Photograph 365 - Day 52 (February 21)

A flying visit from a good friend who is a talented and funny girl! It was nice to talk crafts and industry and ideas and frustrations and joys and giggles and paper and good food with someone who gets it all :)

Unlock Scrapbook update

The first Layout Lesson went live today as part of my Unlock Scrapbooking course over at Art Geeks. Art Geeks is a non-drama, chilled out palce for people to grab free and paid for classes on art subjects such a figure drawing, art journals and a variety of mixed media art forms.

This is a second layout which is adapted from my sketch.

Photograph 365 - Day 51 (February 20)

Went back to school today - nervous but kinda excited to learn a language :)

Sharing more memories

Danielle Flanders often makes up awesome card kits with Pink Paislee products and other bits over on her blog - you know they are going to be filled with loveliness based on her work! but I am not a great card maker so I used her kits to make layouts instead :)

some other layouts from the kits are: "Happy Love"  and "Thankful" and I have more left for a bunch of layout bags ready to go when i get a few minutes to stick them together.

 

also don't forget, if you want to start scrapbooking - check out the free on-line course I am running over at Art Geeks.

 

 

Layouts to share

because I don't think I shared them on here yet...

The Metal heart is a flattened Maya Road Heart Tin Case.

these have been made with 2012 ScrapaGoGo kits - a very neat UK Scrapbook Kit company.

The Crocheted Flowers on this were made by the very talented  Sarah Paine - if you like crochet and fanatasy artwork - check out her patterns.

Photograph 365 - Day 50 (February 19)

We have awesome friends who sent us awesome gifts for the girls but this time Rhomany might die a most painful death for the current noise machine aka fire-truck Lily has just acquired except that Fay would protect her due to the awesome t-shirt she was sent.

Lily's shirt was send many moons ago by the awesome Sarah for Fay to wear... the same one that is in this very old layout of Fay aged about 2 1/2 ...