Grateful Journal

My friend Sarah gave me a beautiful journal for my birthday and I thought it would be fun to turn it into a 'Grateful' journal.  I'm going to try and do something every day in it for the whole of November to coincide with Art Every Day Month and also The Heart of Gratitude Journey  which is for two weeks. 

Having a grateful heart is so important, no - more than that - its necessary!   It helps make us positive people, who will always see the best in everything and everyone and won't let us take things for granted.  Dominic (my husband) and I have a cup of tea (made by him :) ) every morning before we get up and have a chat and a pray and we start off by giving thanks to our amazing God for the good things that happened the previous day, or just for whatever we can think of.  It gets the day off to a great start!

Here is the title page for my Grateful journal:

I used autumn colours again, can't seem to stop using them!  I love them and its also the theme for the month at Art Journal Journey.  I started off by splodging paint and spreading with a baby wipe then stencilling.

I remembered I had a thank you stamp which seems perfect for this journal so its going to appear in lots more pages!

I stamped some more and stamped the title which I wanted with the bright yellow in the backround:

This is going to be fun!

I'm linking up at:
Art Every Day Month
Art Journal Journey
Create with Joy Inspire me Monday

Friend Triptych

Here is a triptych which I have made for my friend Sarah, inspired by the current challenge at PaperArtsy which is Triptychs.  I have only ever made one before for my daughter, see it here.  They are really fun to do and I am definitely going to be doing a lot more of them! 

Its also the first day of Art Every Day Month at Creative Every Day.  This will be the second year I do this.  Last year I didn't quite manage every day, but the idea is to give it a go and if you miss a day - it doesn't matter.  The whole point is not to get stressed but to have fun with it and encourage creativity.

Here is my triptych:

I cut the backround out of thick cardboard packaging and added tissue paper and layers of paint:

some stencilling - including a Crafters Workshop houndstooth which I love:

and stamping:

texture paste through a gorgeous PaperArtsy stencil and finally the words which were all on friends:

 

I love using texture paste with this stencil, although I made a bit of a mess in my haste!  I initially sponged in a creamy colour and edged in black but didn't like it so I put the stencil back over and sponged again in white.

Friend quotes are great to include on gifts and cards for friends and I hope Sarah will like this triptych.

Now I'm off to start my next one!  There's lots of inspiration on the PaperArtsy blog.

I'm linking up at:

Art Every Day Month at Creative Every Day

PaperArtsy

Create with Joy - Inspire Me Monday

Thankful

The current Glory Art Scripture Challenge is 'Thankful'.  This is actually a topic very much on my heart at the moment.   Nurturing thankfulness is so much an attitude of heart.  We need to be thankful for the little things we take for granted in our life - the sun, light, running water, green grass, beautiful flowers and a world of colour, good food, the list is endless.

 The bible tells us to be grateful many times.  Its easy to be thankful for the good things but we are to 

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is

the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thess 5: 18

 That means no moaning and complaining!  - oh dear! I'm afraid I can lapse into that all too easily!  If we thank God for all things no matter what is happening in our lives we will keep a grateful heart and trust Him and I guess this is what He wants - a relationship with us where we really truly put our trust in Him knowing that He brings all things to good.  

Here are my scripture cards:

I started off sponging paint:

Adding a little stencilling:

Stamping a script:

and finally stamping a flower stamp repeatedly in the corners:

Every day when I wake up I've got into the habit of thanking God for at least 5 things which happened the previous day.  I've found that the benefit of that is that it makes me focus on what is positive and sets me up nicely for the day.  It has helped me this autumn while I have been unwell with a flareup of chronic fatigue following a virus.  I'm much better now although still having to pace myself.  I'm sure staying positive and looking at the good things has really helped.

Yet another thing to be thankful for!

I'm linking up at:
Glory Art Scripture Challenge
Create with Joy Friendship Friday

More Autumn Colours

I can't get enough of autumn colours at the moment.  I love working with reds and yellows and orange and rust.  So this month's theme at our monthly craft group this coming Friday is just that - Colours of Autumn  and yes, it was my idea :)  Here is another card I made.  This time I wanted to include lots of texture and layers for the Country View October Challenge - Add Some Texture and Try It On Tuesday - Lots of Layers challenge. 

This started off as one backround which I had sponged with different shades of yellow and red acrylic before adding layers of stencilling and stamping:

Then I added my home made texture paste through a PaperArtsy leaves stencil and sponged colour over the texture paste, I like the white edging this leaves.  I didn't like it!  The leaves simply didn't go on the backround. 

But I had an inspiration to cut the backround up and use the pieces as tiles and it worked!  I really liked it:

 

Excuse the photos, the light was reflecting off something.  I find it hard at this time of year to get decent photos.

This was really fun to do, especially since I managed to 'rescue' it - always extra satisfying. 

If you are anywhere near Northampton on Friday, come and join us!  Scrap and Yap at 10.15-12.30 at the Jesus Centre, Abingdon Street.  Everyone is welcome and all materials supplied.

I'm linking up at:

Country View Challenges 

Try it on Tuesday 

Colours of Autumn

The theme this month at Scrap and Yap, a monthly craft group which I help run, is 'Colours of Autumn'.  Every month we concentrate on a different theme.  Although we started off as a scrapbooking group we found that our members wanted to make cards and other papercrafts so we choose a different topic each month and bring along examples which we've prepared.

Every since the leaves started changing colour I seem to have been using autumn colours so this challenge has been really fun.  Here is one of the cards:

This is a simple distressed ink backround, sponged and flicked with water.  So simple and still one of my favourite kinds of backrounds.  I stamped the flowers, gorgeous Inkylicious Alliums, and added the white highlights.  My husband saw it and loved it and said I absolutely couldn't add anything else.  So I left it at that.  Sometimes simple is the most effective.

I often look at nature and marvel at the richness and incredible variety of the colour palette which our amazing Creator God came up with.  He must have had such fun - a giant easel and limitless and inspired creativity.  I'm so grateful for colour!  Thank you, Father God.

I'm linking up at:
Craft Stamper
Creative Every Day
Create with Joy Friendship Friday