Hi everyone.
a few months ago I was invited to write a post
for the
Somerset Blog as a guest designer .
I am feeling very blessed indeed.
My Art Journal Cover
I am so excited and grateful to have been invited to share
one of my Art Journals with you .
I have journaled most of my life and love to look back and read
about my memories, words and feelings .
In 1999 my treasured son Mark, age 22 was killed on his motorbike .
as you may imagine this left a huge hole in my life.
I was absolutely consumed by pain and grief....3 years along my grief journey
I discovered scrapbooking in 2003 and it has changed my life .
"To me this craft is the perfect combination of art,
photography, beautiful paper,
and glorious words.
I especially love to choose some elements,
cast a spell
and see what happens, to create a dream and follow it through.
Subtle shadows,
light and color are all ingredients for casting the spell.
I am inspired by colour and texture …which I weave
into my works
I love to include stitching, chipboard, journaling,
muslin,
fabrics, metal elements, inking, masking and texture paste..
Getting messy brings out the kid in me
Mark is always in my heart and Art Journaling
is a wonderful and powerful way of keeping his memory alive .
I made a promise to myself to honour his memory
by living my life to the best of my ability"
For this particular journal I chose 4 colors of the chakras
Orange, Yellow, Blue and Blue.
why may you ask ?
Orange
is the color of emotion. passion, pleasure and health.
Yellow
is the color of self-esteem, self-worth, confidence and personal power
Blue
is the color of self expression, nervous system, communication, will power and creativity .
Brown
is the color of transformation.. being grounded and in touch with nature.
releasing the old/detachment and beginning the transformation into a new state of awareness .
MY COVER
Memories Documented
I have created lots of layering and texture.
The layers represent my grief and pain.
I find by journaling and creating my heart is healing little by little .
The metal, spark plugs and cogs - Mark's motor bike
The numbers represent the years of my journey
The Graphic45 pen-nibs are for my journaling.
Materials used
Art book /We R Memory Keepers
All the chipboard is from
Dusty Attic .
Golden texture paste
Tim Holtz
Distress inks and sprays/metal name plate/tissue tape/collection stencils
Graphic 45 nibs / metal plate
Golden texture paste
Prima patterned paper
Kraft paper
"Write to yourself "
Make the next book you buy an empty one
fill its pages with the thoughts. feelings and stories from your life
written words can capture a feeling forever.
record JOY and a decade later you can read it over and feel
THE HAPPINESS
you felt on that particular day.
"Record despair and one sad day you can read it once again
and know that you can RECOVER just like you did before ".
Being a student of your own history you can design a better future.
capture in words your life's journey
before TIME steals away it's lessons.
I love to use the ring bound journals .
they are very sturdy
and also makes it very easy to
change and rearrange my pages and pockets.
Lots of pockets with tags, holding memorabillia and journaling .
above is a shot of some of my pages in this journal .
TUTORIAL
A step by step to create one of my tags found in this Journal .
Firstly Gather the ingredients for the Tag
Graphic45 black tag
Distress crackle paint
Distress rusty hinge spray/tissue tape
Versa color turquoise ink
Stencil
Golden moulding Paste
Pallet knife
A quote and paper.
Complete the tag with more distress ink to create richness and depth
add crackle paint and string. .
thanks so much for looking at my work .
I hope I have inspired you to have a play with an art journal
they can be on any subject / theme you choose .
happy scrapping and
warm hugz to each of you xoxo