Life update and art journal share: How meditation works for me

Hey guys. Ive been super busy lately. June is a very busy month for our family. We have my father-in-laws birthday, my fathers birthday, Steve's birthday, my birthday, fathers day, and our wedding anniversary. This is the card I made as copper is the traditional 7th wedding  anniversary gift.

We purposely kept all of the days pretty low key. On my birthday I binge watched criminal minds episodes, Steve did the school run for me, I had a NAP, and went out for a great meal. The perfect day for me. Here are a few cards from my lovely friends at card club:

 and out for dinner:

Now we are back to normality for a few weeks. I want to get the garden tidied up before my MOM COMES BACK FOR A VISIT! That's right, my mama is coming.  I'm really exited if you haven't noticed by my dramatic use of ALL CAPS. She will be here for the last week of school for Scarlett, and her last week we have booked a week in the Isle of Wight. None of us have been there and everyone tells us its beautiful. We booked a cottage about a 1/4 of a mile from a sandy beach. You better believe I will be blogging all about it.

Ive also been playing in my art journal. This has been a difficult page for me. By that I mean I really liked it, then I didn't, then I was annoyed with myself for overworking it, and then I fixed it. It has been a great learning experience though. That's the amazing part of art and art journalling. All those emotions over some paint on a page.  It can take you through a range of emotions and you come out the other side learning something about yourself.

I started by putting a few stencils down, and then completely white washed the back round using gesso. Then I just continued stencilling and layering. Paying attention to what colours are over what and keeping in mind the overall composition.

I put a prima stencil down and used a distress tool with a victorian velvet distress ink to outline a
flower towards the center of the page. I then just used a mixture of gelatos, white and black posca pens and even a red sharpie to get the flower how I wanted. Now, I'm not in anyway a professional and I dont claim to be with my colouring. Meaning, im not going for realism.

Then I coloured in a stamped image of a Prima bloom girls stamp with prismacolour pencils. I cut it out with scissors and a cutting blade for the fiddly bits. I pasted it down using studio multi medium.

Then.....I ruined it. I put some awful lettering right above the flower and it looked..bad. I was mad at myself for an entire afternoon. I even mentioned it to my husband about the page screw up over dinner. Of course he said it looked great. He always does, bless him. I had a mini temper tantrum within myself saying how much I suck and I should just give up on art journalling right before I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and it was a Saturday. I had no rush so I like to start my day with some meditation. Whilst I was meditating I completely cleared my mind. It allowed me to shed all of my insecurities and get over my hurt ego.

When I was finished I approached my journal in a new way. I fixed it. I pulled some sheet music pages apart, and pasted it using white gesso giving a whitewash coat over it.  I took a script stencil and used some yellow distress ink over it, and stamped a Dina Wakely stamp using blue archival.  I used the archival ink as it stamps a more sharp image then the distress ink.

Ta-Da! I like it again. I mean I know its not perfect but I like the composition and I fixed it. That means something. I like the journey I went down with this page.  That's what its all about.. the journey.

speak soon lovelies!!

                                                                         Always, -Kass

Memory keeping: Project Life (an introduction).

A couple months ago I was looking for a way to store my family memories. A plain photo album seemed to boring to me. And I'm not completely into "scrap booking". That big 12 x 12 blank page staring at me was just to intimidating. Also,I couldn't find any scrapbook papers and supplies I really liked. I was looking for fresh, clean, modern. All I could find was cute, flowery, and sentimental.

I finally figured out a solution with project life. It is a simple, easy, clean , memory keeping system by Becky Higgins.  All you need is the page protectors, a basic kit, and some pictures. You can just slot everything in and be done. Or you can colour and embellish till your hearts content.

Now, where it gets a bit confusing is with all the different cards and "editions" you can buy. First of all you don't need any of this. If you want to spend less money. you can use any paper, and a corner punch to make cards to slot in the pockets. I, do use a lot of the project life theme cards. I like them, and I'm way to lazy to cut them all out. It would make it more time consuming and I probably would not get as much done. That's just how I work. Also, the small packs are not that expensive. Less then a tenner.

Basic terminology :

Page protectors: The plastic covering for your cards and pictures. They come in a range of sizes and styles. They are labelled " Design A" "Design B" ext.. Just make sure they are 12 x 12 (If that's your album size) as they do a few sizes.

Album: Your main cover album you are putting all your pages in.

Page: A single page you are working on

Spread: When you are working on more then one page of the same theme.

layout :The arrangement or design of either your page protectors or journaling pictures and cards.

core kit: An edition of papers of a certain theme. ( example: school, dreamy, jade, blush, midnight)
that contains 616 cards both 3x4 and 4x6. usually around £30.
                             
Value kits: Packs of  180 cards 60 4x6 and 120 3x4, sometimes with some embellishments around
£15

Theme cards: Small packs of  40 double sided cards on a particular theme. 32 3 x 4 cards and 8 4x6 cards. around £5

Title cards: Cards with graphics and pictures on them one section usually open so you can write a title or word.

Journaling cards: Cards with lines on them and/or open space so you can place them with photos and write whats happening in the photo or just a little journaling.


Becky Higgins is constantly coming out with great new stuff for this system of scrap booking. She also has guest designers come out with editions like Amy Tangerine and Heidi swapp.

 I hope this helped you understand a bit more about the project life system. It is really easy, I swear! I also love that is something I can bring up to bed and do. Most of my other crafts are messy and inky. With project life I can sit up in bed and cut,design, and journal my butt off. (much to my husbands dismay lol). Here are a few more examples of some different pages, spreads, and layouts I have put together.

  I Cant wait to show you guys more about the project life system. To check out all the products to buy here is the link to craftie charlie. They have great free shipping in the u.k on orders over £40, and ship worldwide as well. This is really only a sample of the products. They sell the components to build your own day planner using the PL slot in style. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Ill save those things for another post. Thanks so much for stopping by today and don't forget to follow me here, and also on instagram.  x

                                                               Stay creative, -Kass

Childs book recommendation : Journey by Aaron Becker

Journey is one of mine and Scarletts favourite books ever. full stop. The story is an intriguing, captivating, and imaginative. It also happens to be a book with no words.

This was the the first book I have bought for my daughter that has no words at all. I was intrigued by the idea when I saw this book advertised somewhere and for the life of me cannot remember where. I thought it was a great idea letting the child make the story up as they go along. But to be honest it was a bit different then just making up a story. It was more like an observational journey you took with someone. Having to rely only on pictures and gestures to get clues as to what was going on and watching the story unfold.

Journey is the story of a young girl who is bored at home one day. Her family is seemingly busy doing other tasks, and activities.

(on the picture above Scarlett always reads it as her mummy is cooking ,her daddys working, and her sister is "on facebook".)

She finds a red marker on the floor and draws a door. A door that transports her to another whimsical steampunk world. Her first glimpse of this world is a magical looking forest. There are fairy lights and lanterns hanging from the trees and it is my favourite page in the book. The forest looks scary and beautiful at the same time. I would love to get lost in it for hours.

She gets to a pier and can go no further. She has to solve a problem using her imagination. Her decision leads her to a world filled with citadels, flying ships, and flying carpets.

She must overcome obstacles armed only with her marker and imagination .At one point in the book she even nearly loses her magic marker! A mysterious bird turns up and helps her along the way but where did it come from?

 I wasn't sure how scarlett would react to not having words in her bedtime book. She really took to it right away though. As soon as we were finished she asked "can you get me more books with no words?" Its amazing how observant kids can be! Little details I didn't think she would pick up she would notice right away.

 The pictures in this book are so beautifully detailed. I'm thinking of possibly getting some of the pages in print form to hang on the walls of Scarletts room. They really take you on a journey and tell the story wonderfully. I think everyone should  try a book with no words. With your kids or even on your own. Its okay to read kids books. I do. They are some of the best stories ever written. I'm just glad I have a child now and I have a viable reason to be hoarding childrens books.

You can purchase this book on amazon here. Thanks for reading. stay creative!   -Kass