22 January 2012

A Productive Crop - Scrapping, journalling and laughing







I was at the monthly EK Craft and Crop yesterday and had a wonderful time, I even managed to create 2 and a half scrapbook LOs and a journal page and managed to gossip (I mean exchange fun information) with some lovely ladies. The hardest thing was not eating any biscuits or cakes as I am trying to avoid putting on any weight with my latest attempt at giving up smoking...19 days and counting.
I had taken last year's art journal and my newest one as Suzy is interested in trying out art journalling. It turns out a whole lot of people are interested in this. As I inked and splodged all over my layouts there were various comments about the mess I got into to, created and how it was not for them. Over on UK Stampers we have been discussing how there are no rules in journalling and if you want to be messy you are, if you want to be neat and graphic (see the fabulous graphic pages by Ephemera) you can be. The subject of what you journal is also fascinating and again we agreed you either do or don't. This is a bit of a ramble here but I am going somewhere with this. My biggest problem with scrapping has always been there seems to be rules and I always felt I was getting it wrong somehow. Yesterday I had this moment of insight (or madness) and agreed with Suzy that we don't need rules and why should it always have a title or journalling? I then happily created 2 and half pages that are heavily influenced by my art journalling adventures. I also bought some beautiful seam binding from Angela of Angel Crafts who brings her shop to the crop and some prima resist canvas (and nothing else if you are reading this Lens Guy...)
A little about the LOs. The first one shows our middle daughter aged about 8 (we never dated our old photos...) and my dad. I cut out out the blue cardstock using a borrowed stencil and then added some TH Kraft resist in the middle which I swiped with dylusion ink using a baby wipe. The title was also swiped with ink and the letters were a Prima Lush set.
This was layered onto a gutted piece of Kraft card. I stamped compass, binoculars and text from a Royal Langnickel set, added distress inks and then journalled. I used two beautiful colours of seam binding to provide a frame and a piece of the canvas resist.
The next layout shows our youngest daughter aged 3 or 4 following my brother-in-laws pet sheep back up to their house. I used a lost and found page and spritzed it with dylusions and distress inks. 

A piece of 7 Gypsies card as a photo mount and then used seam binding to create a flower and ribbon strips. I also added a lovely piece of lace. The title was Tiny Alphas from Prima.
Finally and sorry it's such a long post... the journal page began with Claudine Hellmuth foam dot stamps and then I added Studio 490 Steampunk stamps and Lady Audrey from Octopode. There was a lot of ink and acrylic paint here too. The journalling sprung from the conversations we were having yesterday about how art journalling is scary and messy.

 The little feet shape marks beside the boot were from a decorative easter chicken Betty was making tags with but she took the feet off and Anne suggested I should use it so I stamped them on.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I always appreciate the comments people leave, although Blogger is back to being a little huffy at the moment.




7 comments:

  1. My vote is for....NO rules! ! There are lots of different styles but If you are creating something it is personal, so surely it's up to you to do it the way you want....thats my ramble over with.....love the layouts and page!
    Diane

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  2. fab layouts and journal pages! Every now and the Angela brings her shop to our crop too but not for a wee while now.

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  3. I wish I had the courage to try art journalling lol - I am too much of a scaredy cat. Your pages are lovely, and well done on the no smoking :)

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  4. Hi Sally. Great post. Really enjoyed reading this. With you on the rules aspect. Agree with Diane's comment above. There are also far too many labels on doors in crafting these days. Fabulous layouts and journal pages.
    Regards Florence x

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  5. What a productive day! Great work :-) Blow rules I say - it's your art

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  6. Looks like you had a fun and productive day, great LOs!

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  7. Gorgeous layouts & lovely journal page too.
    C xx

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