January Joy in Fodder School

January in Fodder School has been glorious... and that's not an adjective I often apply to January!  The wonderful Megan Quinlan shared some classes which were definitely up my street, and I had a fabulous time shopping my stash for stencils and stamps which had been neglected for far too long, as well as current favourites.  Here's the inspirational deck that emerged on my craft table...

Amongst other things, Megan encouraged us to create a deck whose theme would have personal meaning for us.  

You won't be surprised to learn that I dived straight into nature.

These cards will be a reminder to me of how important it is to keep sacred the moments of stillness, solitude, and heart-opening beauty which nature offers. 

Time spent in nature is what allows my creativity to breathe and flow, despite the troubled times we are living through.

These were the backgrounds, created in the Make Fodder sessions, before adding the Use Fodder detailing which came later.

There are 32 cards in total in my deck, so here they are broken down into groups of eight so that you can see them more clearly...

You'll spot plenty of my own PaperArtsy quotes in action, as well as some of my botanical stamps, mostly from the Fodder Berry and Rosemary Editions.

There are other PaperArtsy stamp sets, as well as some by Seth Apter for Impression Obsession, and lots of Donna Downey stencils, as well as some of her stamp designs for Unity Stamp Co.  

The paints used are almost all PaperArtsy too - mostly from my Background Blues collection - with some added Daniel Smith Moonglow providing those haunting purple tones. 

If you want to see individual close-ups, I'm afraid you are going to have to visit me on Instagram for that.  It would be a massively photo-heavy blogpost!

It really has been an extraordinary month in terms of creativity - with phenomenal inspiration decks appearing from my fellow Fodder School teachers as well as the participants... so much beauty on Instagram and in the Fodder School FB group, which is a really supportive and informative environment (hate to say nice things about FB - but this is down to the people in there!).  I offered up a little bonus session to add to Megan's classes, as did several other teachers.

If all this tempts you to join in the fun (there's still so much more to come, including my own teaching month!!), then just follow this link to find out everything you need to know about joining up for Fodder School.

I hope January has brought you some joy too.  I know it can be a hard month, but I have found real solace in creating my deck, and I know it will continue to bring me a sense of calm and beauty throughout the years.  Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

Feeling a little blue in January is normal.
Marilu Henner

January is the month for dreaming.
Jean Hersey

January, the first month of the year. A perfect time to start all over again, changing energies and deserting old moods, new beginnings, new attitudes.
Charmaine J. Ford

Thoughts and Tidings

Hello all, I'm sorry for the week-long absence.  As you might imagine - with having just moved to a new country and with Christmas right around the corner, plus trying to build new income streams - there's quite a lot going on.  So I'm just dropping in to share some pictures of a pair of tags which make me very happy.

When I have had a bit of spare time, I've been trying to spend it doing something constructive rather than internet-browsing... so I had a lovely time converting these Rustic Wilderness (the gorgeous new Distress green) backgrounds into this finished pair of tags.

This is the splotchy green and blue pair from the array of Rustic Wilderness backgrounds I shared recently...

I love what they've turned into thanks to the lovely pine and berry branches from the new Forest Floor stamp set.

For the berries, I stamped, added the white embossing powder and then used a brush to brush the powder away from the stems as much as possible before heating.  Then I used a brush pen in brown to give the stems a bit more presence.

I kept the embellishing very simple with some twine and wooden snowflakes...

... and the seasonal Clippings stickers provided the thoughts and tidings to go with them.

There's some background text stamping (because there has to be!) - the amazing advertisement stamp from the Professor #2 set.

And I doodled some borders with my dip pen and grey ink followed by white ink. 

I'm keeping things simple partly because I have no access to 95% of my crafting supplies (Box Mountain will stay Box Mountain until the flooring can be laid - which may well not be until the New Year)...

... but mostly because it didn't feel like they needed anything more.

The deep rich green of the Rustic Wilderness with the paler inky highlights of Speckled Egg and Broken China in the background...

... the beautiful detail of the stamps with those snowy berries and amazing pine needles...

... the simple wooden snowflakes and those Idea-ology Tokens dangling from the twine...

... seemed to me as though they were doing the job pretty well!  I hope they make you as happy as they do me.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'll hope to see you over the festive period if not before.  Stay safe, stay well, stay cosy and creative.

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
Thomas Merton

I'd like to share these at Country View Challenges where the theme is Anything Christmas

And at Tag Tuesday they're playing Christmas or Anything Goes

Happy in sunshine and in rain!

Hello all.  I'm on another round of quick sample-sharing from the recent launch of my latest PaperArtsy quote stamps (you can see all the samples in one shot at the end of the post).  I opened my Stowaway Heart to you earlier in the week, using EAB12 Travel & Journeys, and today's post is doubling up with quotes from both EAB13 Sunshine & Rain and EAB14 The Happiness Edition.  Why do the double?  Well, because it's Zinski time...

Somehow, at some point in the sample making, I always find I want to put some words in the mouths of one or two of these quirky characters.  As I had always hoped when I originally had the idea of word stamps, they can be adapted to all sorts of styles and genres.  So although the Zinskis are out of my usual crafting style, it's fun to see what they have to say for themselves!









The Sunshine & Rain tags are, of course, in the blue/yellow/purple colour palette assigned to that stamp plate.


















And the bashful little guy in this tag has the happy blue/green/turquoise/yellows of the Happiness Edition samples.
















The backgrounds are done with some more watery brayering.  For the Sunshine & Rain tags, there's Summer Sky, Periwinkle, Forget-me-not, Cheesecake and Haystack, and I left quite a bit of white space for a brighter effect.















The Happiness tag was done with a bigger spritz of water onto the paints on the craft mat (Summer Sky, Aquamarine, Cheesecake, Haystack, Lawn) before brayering.
















That high water content got me this fabulous effect, almost like an Impressionist painting.

I'll confess to being more than a little bit in love with this background!















I used the stamping platform for these tags.  It means you can stamp the figure, paint with opaque as well as translucent Frescos, and then re-stamp to recapture all the extra little details... the stripes on the jumper, the buttons on the jacket.















The quotes are stamped in Jet Black Archival on the Sunshine & Rain pair.  When I'm playing with the Zinskis, I generally leave off the actual author of the quote... after all, it's meant to be the character talking.












I usually do this by inking up the words and then putting a small scrap of tape over the author's name.  In this case, it's the poet Walt Whitman - sorry, Walt!













The quote paired with my favourite little Zinski girl is by writer Katherine Mansfield.  I doodled frames around the words in both black and white ink.













The black word stamping looks very bold and full-on to me, given I hardly ever stamp in black.  It's balanced by some dark tissue tape shadows underfoot.

The figures themselves are stamped in Watering Can Archival, just that little bit softer than black.














The words I've put in the mouth of the other little chap actually belong to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  If you've not read his book The Little Prince - which these words are from - I highly recommend it.

I just think his expression is perfect for the words!













This time I've stamped in Olive Archival (much more my comfort zone!) for a lovely tone-on-tone look.














The grassy hillocks under his feet are also stamped in green. 

















And the stamping platform was in action again to get the nice clear stripes on the sun, both on his tag...

















... and on the sunny one of the two Sunshine & Rain tags.

















Some framing with a couple of the border stamps (all the stamps used here are from ZA02 and ZA03), stamped in the complementary paint colours, and plenty of splatter, and we're pretty much done.
















All three tags are mounted onto white card...

















... and have some white twine to top them off, so that they all co-ordinate nicely.










Speaking of co-ordinating... here's just a quick insight into my thinking on these colour palettes.  I wanted to give each stamp set its own look, but the samples all needed to work together on the PaperArtsy display boards for the trade shows.

Having the same colours but in different combinations from collection to collection means you can quickly tell which stamp set the words come from, but there is a cohesive and hopefully attractive look to them when they're all mixed up together too.

We're back to some more autumnal crafting next.  If I get time to write the post, I hope to be with you at some point over the weekend, but in the meantime thank you so much for stopping by and happy crafting all!

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.
Anthony J. d'Angelo

Doodling with watercolour

Hello all, and thank you so much for your lovely comments on my Holding On, Letting Go journal.

After that mammoth post, I'm here with something much shorter today.

I'm just sharing a couple of watercolour/doodling pages inspired by CeeCee Creations on youtube - particularly this video about being creatively stuck.


It's not so much that I'm stuck at the moment as that I'm slightly flooded with possibilities, and so don't really know where to start with things I'd like to try.
















And then just as I get really fired up and ready to play, I realise I have some sort of deadline (not always crafting) that needs meeting and it all slips away again.

But with these pages I just played with CeeCee's combination of watercolour brushwork and pen doodling.














Actually it's mostly brushwork doodling on these pages, with a very fine brush, and the odd bit of white pen highlighting later.






















I was also keen to try out some new handmade watercolours ordered from Jazper Stardust on Etsy.

They're really beautiful...

... lovely shades with some really nice granulation in some pigments, and great for mixing.



















I stuck with my favoured organic and nature motifs for the most part.
















I'm not as pattern-oriented as CeeCee is.  To be honest, I was mostly just enjoying the colours.



















And then I did a larger page flower doodle, also borrowing inspiration from some of her doodled flower videos.

These are all in a 6 x 8 inch watercolour sketchbook, by the way.

I think it's pretty, and I did enjoy doodling with the pens, but I'm not sure the end result is quite my thing.

But that might just be because I strayed into the pink and purple zone, so it just doesn't feel like home!



















But it's always good to try stuff out and see where it takes you...

... and there's always something to be learned along the way.
















I hope you've enjoyed my light-hearted doodling- it's nice to create without an end product in mind.






I hope you find some time for light-hearted creativity this weekend, and I'll see you again soon.

To practise any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.
Kurt Vonnegut

I'd like to play along with the June Watercolour Challenge over at Happy Little Stampers