Nourishing a Playful Spirit

Let's not talk about how long I have been away from the blog, let's just get on with this . . .

I am so so so blessed!  By combining my Christmas gift from my hubby with my birthday gift from him and adding in the money I made on craft sales in December, I was able to sign up for a 6 month online craft class called Soul Food.  There are 2 classes every week with a wide variety of teachers and I am having a blast.  I think so far I have managed to get something done for about half of the lessons, but that's OK, because we get to download all the class materials and keep them.

The first class was by Mystele and titled Nourish a Playful Spirit.

Mystele used a gel plate to make her first back ground layer. While a gelli plate was also on my Christmas list, Santa didn't bring that, so I had to make my own (watch out for a blog post about that coming soon).

There were then various other layers involved, gradually building up the background, and yes at times it looked like a mess . . .

until finally I got to start figuring out what shapes and faces were there on the page.

She's certainly not got a pretty face, but I really do like her.

What do you think?

One last thing.  I just have to show you the book paper that I used in the flower/sun in the top right.  My husband has been spending some time out in Germany for work and in November I got to join him for a few days (watch out for a blog post about my travel journal too) and I picked up this awesome book in a second hand shop in Frankfurt for just €2, don't you just love that font?

It's not too late to get involved in Soul Food, check it out.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Blessing

I'm still carrying on with the Made eCourse.  Still up to date, although this week was hard.  We had to answer all sorts of questions for ourselves about ourselves.  Funnily the one about my skills and what I am good at was not a problem for me although others found that one difficult.  No, what I found difficult was the questions about our passions, about the things that excite or anger us.

I think I am still mask wearing a lot of the time because whenever I come to answer questions like this I don't know whether the things that come to mind are the real me or the answers I am giving because I think they are the acceptable ones.  Does that make sense?

So, the end of this week's class was to write a blessing over ourselves, and that's what I did, but I thought others might want to read this blessing over themselves too, so I am sharing.

May you know what it means to be loved.
May you know in the depths of your soul, the bravery of standing as who you are, the joy of removing that mask, the delight of tearing down those walls.
And yes, may you know too the fear that comes with that, for in knowing this fear and doing it anyway, we learn that we are loved.
May you know the fear of not being accepted, and step out anyway, because you know the One who ultimately accepts you.
May you know the fear of really being seen and step out into the light anyway, because you know the One who Is light.
May you know the anxiety that comes with trying something new, and try anyway because you know the one who promises to go with you.
May you know all these things because you began the journey of knowing what it means to be loved, a journey into the very heart of God.  A journey that begins with loving and accepting yourself.

~ Zoe Gregg
10th October 2013


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Proverbs 31 Art Journal Page

I am still managing to stay more or less caught up with the made eCourse.  This coming week will be week 6 and I honestly don't think I have ever stayed caught up this long on any online course before.  That is an indication of how good this course is.

This week we were doing an art journal page based on the Proverbs 31 woman and taking a fresh look at her.

I made a couple of alternations to the suggested supplies for this class.  Around the edge of the page there was supposed to be Washi tape and while there is a store locally that sells it I couldn't bring myself to buy any.  There wasn't a roll that really leapt out at me as the ONE I wanted.  So I grabbed a spare piece of the drop sheet from my desk and cut that into strips which I then glued around the edges, over the leftover ink from another project that was already there.


Then I grabbed an old map I had in my stash, so put down on the page.


Did you know old maps were on paper that was glued to a mesh fabric backing? No neither did I, but I tell you it is a gorgeous surface to work on.


I glued that down and put a thin layer of gesso over it.


Hmmm, think it's time to get a new pot of medium to use as glue. I resorted to cutting the top off this one to allow me to access every last bit. No wastage here.


These are the colours I used for the face.  The class was taught using Copic markers, but I don't have any of those, so I used what I do have instead.  

I did follow the directions of how she formed the face as closely as I could.  And yes, it scared me at first putting this big dark grey line in there!

But once the colour started going on over it I began to see how it was working.


I forgot to take a picture before I added the hair, you'll have to forgive me for that but I was so enjoying the process.
These are the colours I used on the hair, although the red proved too harsh and I dropped it in favour of an orange.



After that I added a black marker line around the edge, inside the line of paper. I feel like it really lifted the image.


Finally I added some circles.


and some text inside the circles from the thoughts I had on the passage.



So, tell me. If I were to list this page on my Etsy store, would there be any interest? Or if I were to do a similar page without the text?


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Travel Journal

In a few weeks time I am going to be joining my husband on a business trip to Germany.  He will be out there for 2 weeks the first section of the trip and then 4 weeks the second section of the trip.  We have managed to persuade his company to fly me out instead of flying him home during that second section.

Since I will have to occupy myself while he is working I thought it would be nice to take some art supplies with me and so this travel journal was born.


The book initially was a gift from a friend but I have made some alterations to it and explained in the video.


It is a basic paper bag book embellished with scrapbook papers in a lovely green.  I adore these papers and if anyone recognises what range they are from I would love you to leave a comment so I can get some for myself.


Initially the paper fasteners held the whole thing together and so the pages on opened as far as this.  I changed things up a bit and added some extra pages, so now the paper fasteners only go through the front cover.

You can see I have added some sheets of artist paper in between the layers of paper bags.

Each of the pocket pages had 6 tags in it, a different colour in each one.





It will fit nicely in my handbag and I will take no more than a pencil case of supplies to go with it (see the video for details).


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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Yes, it's ANOTHER Journal

Shhh, don't tell anyone but I made ANOTHER journal.  Well actually I prepared this book for journalling many months ago, but only started using it this week.  This week on the Made eCourse we were talking about art journalling as prayer and about pouring stuff out on the page, then petitioning, then listening, and I decided this book would be IDEAL for that.
I picked this book up a few years ago in a budget book store.

Then, some months ago I prepared it for use in art journaling by covering some of the text with gesso and some of the pictures with just a layer of gesso to tone down the image rather than cover it completely.

When I came to do this project, I wanted to see some of the words that I had covered, so I tried wiping off some of the gesso and while it did work, to an extent, in some places I took too much away and had to add a few of the letters back in in pen. I drew lines around the areas I wanted to reveal.


Then I did some writing around the edge of the page, pouring out some stuff to God and so on. I did this in blue biro, which is not waterproof. I went all around the page twice, in various different directions. Then I took a damp songe and wiped all over that to blur the ink.


After that I took some gesso and sponged that into the same area to further blur the ink and writing underneath.


I grabbed some pastels and added more colour in one corner then took an image from a magazine as well as a quote and glued those in along with some alphabet stickers.


The quote at the bottom is from The Horse and His Boy, from the Narnia series of books.


As are all the quotes on the other page.


So, there you ahve it a finished page of art journaling as prayer. I am looking forward to doing some more of this.

If you don't know why I made the comment about yet another journal, check out my recent posts about some of my other journals by clicking on the images below.




You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

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