Winter Journal IX

Hello all!  I hope you've been enjoying a lovely weekend, or at least a busily productive one.  I'm getting there on the Christmas-readiness stakes, but I'm still carving out time at the craft table.  In fact, I suspect it's the time at the craft table which is keeping me sane in the face of everything else.  This next page in the 8x8 kraft journal certainly took me on a journey away from reality and into fairy tale.  Yes, I count that as staying sane.

A couple of times, with these pages, I've spent just a few minutes before bedtime starting up the following day's page - particularly when I've had an idea involving some texture paste.  That way it can dry overnight...





Honestly... five or six minutes to glue down some TH tissue wrap, scrape on some gesso, with some texture paste snowdrifts over the top, and some more paste added through the TH Falling Stars stencil - and this is what awaited me the following morning, ready for the fairytale to begin.  "Once upon a time..."











There's a Hänsel and Gretel feeling about these two children for me.  (They also featured in my Star Light, Star Bright tags, in their slightly bigger version).

They may be wrapped up warm for the weather, but surely they're too young to be out alone at this time of night?













Those shadowy woods in the background look a little ominous.  Strange thing about woods... in the daylight, with sunlight dappling through the trees, they couldn't be more inviting; but come the night time - oh, so foreboding and eerie.













I think it's very little wonder that so many fairytales involve a journey through the forest - there's definitely a rite of passage about having the courage to go into the woods.













It is a starlit night, to be sure...

... and those might even be some shooting stars or the Milky Way you can see in the (superheated gesso + Chipped Sapphire) night sky.













Of course, the stars and the moonlight reflecting on the snow will make it all the brighter out in the open.

However, none of that will help you once you are under the shadow of the trees.













But if the path through the woods is the only one available, then that's where you have to go.  And it's best to be bold about it, turn it into an adventure.













And you just have to hope you're in a story with a happy ending.














I really hope that's not thin ice they're standing on, and I hope the stars will light their way home, even along the path through the woods.
















Thank you so much for stopping by today.  It's time for a Sunday evening hot chocolate, and the lighting of the third Advent candle.  I hope you're wrapped up warm somewhere too, and not headed out into the dark woods.  Have a great week, everyone. 









Into the woods,
It's time to go,
I hate to leave,
I have to, though.
Into the woods-
It's time, and so
I must begin my journey.
From Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge they are looking for Warm Winter Wishes
And of course I'm playing along again at Art Journal Journey for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's themes of My Favourite Season/Tis the Season - yup, it's still winter!

I'd also like to share this at Mixed Media & Art where the moodboard in this month's Winter Melody challenge is right up my street, both in colour palette - the blues and whites and browns - and the wintry atmosphere, especially the night sky