ByHand Loose Pages Swap loose no more

After a long journey my loose pages finally made it home. A group of us from the ByHand Yahoo site started this swap in March 2005. The theme is an idea journal where you can share your favorite technique or show how organized your workspace is or whatever strikes your fancy. Everyone poured their heart into their contribution. It was 2 years on the road, but it did make it home safe. Well I telling you it was worth the wait!

I decided to make the binding really simple and used those binder rings. The cover is book board covered in masking tape and then painted, sanded and painted some more and then stamped on. I inked my hand with a permanent black stamp pad for the hand print.

The bird buffet or How do you handle a hungry flock?

I just couldn't resist those new images from Michelle Ward http://www.greenpepperpress.com/ with the eggs and the black birds and the sketchy nest. They arrived in today's mail and I opened them and had them mounted before dinner was on the table. I did one spread in my wings journal using every stamp on the plate plus a few others. What a great theme plate this is. I just love it! I know I will get lots of use out of it.

And speaking of birds, we have feeding stations for the wild birds and get a large variety and good quantities too. My husband Tim is a bird photographer extraordinaire and he enjoys having the birds so available for photo ops but they have been feeding their young and seem to be coming to Tim's birdie buffet in record numbers. The down side is they are costing a considerable amount to feed. It is wonderful have this Eden for the birds. We have meadows and ponds and lots of trees and brush coverage for nesting opportunities. Not all the photos on Tim's website are from the yard but you would be surprised at how many are. Check out his amazing photos on his site at http://www.timzphotography.com/ Some of my favorites are the Hummingbirds, the Flickers and the California Quail. Eek its late must go to bed. :)

Lazy Daisy days

I picked the daisys and arranged them for the picture. I played around with it in Photoshop and used it on a card for my brother Larry's Birthday. Happy Belated wishes Bro!

Daisy's are so cheerful. There is hords of daisies in our yard at the moment.

I went back and looked at my heart and there was happy bee's on it. :)

Go with all your heart

Playing in my Gargoyle journal. I attached an altered postcard to the page with out glue. I used mini brads and punched the holes around the perimeter without damaging my postcard. Yay! its the weekend!!! I am enjoying working on my art. :) Some place I would love to visit. It would be a blast to gallop my horse down this road!

I was trying to keep to the same colour story for this journal but I am bad at maintaining themes. I want this journal to look like it is hundreds of years old. I just love this image of the blue flowers I think they are Hydrangea's.

Welcome to my journal

This is the introduction page to my newest journal. I posted the background earlier. Having a Scottish ancestry I used some Celtic imagery to personalize it including the Munro crest. Inside the door is a photo of my great, grandmother Munro. The text is done with rubber stamps from Quietfire Design, calligraphy by Suzanne Cannon. Suzanne was very clever putting the alphabet together and including extra letters of the ones you use most often. You can spell many words in one go, without having to split words in half. It makes your job so much easier!

Here is the detail around the door showing great grand mum is peeking out.

Monique has transformed

Monique has been in the garden again and this time she picked some pansies.

The top pansy is a watercolour I did years ago and the bottom one is from some wrapping paper. The birdy is an asian style on rice paper with a real feather tail. I stamped text with a green chaulk pad in the background and with a wine chaulk pad on her face. I adhered the pansies and birdy with yellow bees wax and went over face and and added texture to her hair with the wax. I stamped the one quote in black ink to stand out. It says "Dream with your eyes wide open" is a Stamp by Suzanne Cannon of www.quietfiredesign.com

Playing with Journals and backgrounds

I bought a new journal, 9 x 12 inches. This is a watercolour journal with a nice hard cover. I was looking for something nice to glue on the cover and then I thought, lets throw caution to the wind and draw and paint a face right on the cover. I used acrylics and added an escutcheon and key from Lee Valley. I can always glue something over top if I don't like it. So what do you think? I am not sure if it is finished yet. I may stamps some lettering over it or add a quote. . . Meet Monique.

This is the first page in my new leather journal I bought at Artfest. It is made by Keith and it also has watercolour pages in it which is awesome.

For a background to these pages I added ephemera and acrylic paint and a skeleton leaf.

This is my nature journal that I did a background for I covered only part of the page with acrylic paint and then went over it after it dried with walnut ink. Oooo that walnut ink is yummy!
Here it is a little closer so you can see how the walnut ink goes into all the valleys of the painted surface.

And this background is from the Monique journal, ready for what ever may come next.