POSITIVE STEPS FORWARD

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all having a great day. It’s been a bit productive around here today. We’re starting to experience positive steps forward. Now that the tips are open again, I have been sorting and tidying. I expect to make my first trip to the tip this weekend. I’m going to fill the car full of rubbish and recycling and make the trip worth it. My utility room, which housed plenty of surplus to requirement stuff since lockdown began is now looking much tidier.

Today, I will show you my 44^th art journal effort. Today’s theme is under the sea …..

It started off like this …..

I didn’t do too much more to it apart from adding the fish which were cut out of a dictionary page, a bit of pen doodling and water colour shading.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to splodge some paint of fabric with the idea that I would add a bit of fabric appliqué and some simple quilting. Well here’s how it looks after a little bit of stitching …..

You will note that I kept this piece very basic. Even the stitching is very basic. All in all, I am pleased with the piece. My goal is to turn it into a wall hanging of some kind. The edges need finishing first. Normally I would add binding but I want the piece to look rustic. So, I’ll have a little think before I do anything else to it.

After finishing joining all my hexagons together and adding a border, I switched to a hand quilting project. It’s been going quite well. I have so far marked and moved my quilting hoop three times over two evenings making great progress. Here’s a little peek …..

It’s been a while since I’ve done any hand quilting. Once you get going and if you’re in the mood it goes well. This quilt is for Christmas. I hope to get it finished in time for Christmas this year.

The sun has been shining on a off all day here. The temperature seems to be climbing again. Although I must admit that we still need to dress for cool temperature today.

Well, my friends, that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Remember to stay safe, safe alert and be well. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

43 AND COUNTING

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all enjoying the midweek day. We’re almost halfway through the month of May.

There’s not much going on around here today. I settled down at the table with my art supply trolley and soon created another two-page spread for my art journal. Number 43 and counting. Here’s how today’s effort started …..

And here’s how it looks now …..

 

Once again, just a simple art journal page. A little pen doodling, some cut outs and water colour pencil shading. I went on to prep a few more pages in readiness for the next week or so.

Time sure does fly. We are now in our 8^th week of lockdown. The restrictions have been eased a little but nothing affects me for the moment. So, I stay home like I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. Creativity helps with the boredom.

Well, my lovely friends, that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

DAY 42

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all safe today. We all seem to be going into the next phase of something. I’m not sure if we’re going to be safe or not but we have to move forward somehow.

So, today is day 42 of my self-imposed messing around with art supplies challenge. I’ve still got a few ideas on my list. I must admit that I seem to add one or two ideas every day! This challenge is eventually run out of steam but for now it’s keeping me focused on something other than the invisible enemy. Here is how my today’s effort started off a few days ago …..

 

This is what it looks like now …..

To this art journal page, I added a bit more paint, some water colour pencil stems, leaves and shading and some pen doodling. Bish bash bosh, voila! Actually, that makes it sound like it only took five minutes but it actually takes a bit longer than five minutes. Not to mention clearing up the mess after I’m done. Mind you, the time it takes is time that I’m focused on something good. Therapeutic.

I am very happy to tell you that I finished securing the last border to my hexagon quilt. I will be thinking about the backing fabric. I think the shops will open again some time in the next six weeks. So, I think I’ll set the hexie quilt top aside until I can get out to choose backing fabric. It will be a pleasure to see fabric up close and in person. In the meantime, I have some hand quilting to do. So, it’s onto the next big thing for me. I shall post photos of that progress soon.

Well, my lovely friends, that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

CONFUSING INFO

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all well and in good spirits. Sarah and I are still kicking around home and trying to make the most of every day. We watched a televised announcement recorded by our Prime Minister concerning moving forward to the next stage of dealing with the invisible enemy last evening. It left us with more questions than answers. We were left very confused and hoping that more clarity will come when a 50-page guidance document is released this afternoon. What strange times we live in. Enough about that for now.

Before I talk about today’s art journaling effort, let me show you my hexagon quilt top. I was hoping to permanently secure the last two sides of border last evening but only got one side done. I flung it over the fence in order to take a couple of photos, here it is …..

 

I needed almost two metres of fabric for the borders. So, I was a little limited as to what to use from my stash. It came down to two different fabrics, I wanted a reddish paisley type fabric and Sarah chose this blue print. As She’s pretty good with colours, I went with the blue print. I’m going to try to find something blue for the backing as well.

Now for today’s art journal effort …..

Once again, I kept it pretty simple. I layered paint and bits of dictionary pages, did some stencilling, added a wee photo of Maisie all sloshed out in her bed, some cut outs, a couple of strips of washii tape and some water colour pencil shading. I see different household items and the contents of the recycle bin through different eyes nowadays.

The weather has taken a turn for the cold recently. As long as it doesn’t snow I’ll be alright. The washing is done and I even attacked a section of my garden loaded with weeds. Now that I’ve done a few useful tasks I can give myself permission to play. I’m not sure what I will be playing with, perhaps finish securing the last border or splodging some paint around my art journal. Maybe I’ll toss a coin.

Well, my lovely friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

CREATIVE WEEKEND

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all had an enjoyable weekend. With it being a bank holiday weekend, Sarah and I had even more time to be creative. It’s been quite a relaxing weekend so far.

It’s day 40 of messing around with art supplies. So, let’s reveal my new art journal pages. Here are two pages I added to my art journal for the weekend …..

The only way is Up … well as you can see I kept this one pretty simple.

Today’s effort includes a little more layering. I cut out some words from an old Mollie Makes magazine and pasted them down followed by some stencilling, a bit of pen doodling and some watercolour pencil messing around. All good clean fun.

I went on to prep a few more two-page spreads …..

When I look at the pages at this stage, I think to myself what a mess but I know once I start adding extras it will look alright. After all beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

While I didn’t get a chance to take of photo of my hexagon progress yet, rest assured that all the hexagons have been joined together and the plain border has been tacked in place around the outer edges. I am in the process of doing the fine hand stitching which will secure the plain border in place. I have secured two sides and hope to finish the job this evening. If the light is reasonably good tomorrow, I will take photos so you can see what it looks like now. I have been saving up to purchase the backing fabric but at the moment none of the local quilt supply shops are open. Finishing up the quilt will have to wait a little while longer.

For those of you who live in North America and/or any country that celebrates Mother’s Day today, I wish you a very happy Mother’s Day. I phoned my mother in Montreal this afternoon to have a chat with her and apparently the weather has been rather wintry. I must admit that here in the northeast of England the weather has been cold and blustery. The sun finally came out this afternoon but it’s cold. Brrrrr

So, my friends, I guess that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY ON A FRIDAY?????

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all having a lovely day. It’s an absolutely beautiful day here. What a shame we can’t go out and enjoy it. Let’s hope this is the kind of summer we’re going to experience. Most if not all our bank holidays are usually observed on Monday. Somebody had the bright idea to hold the Early May Bank Holiday on the Friday after the first Monday of the month in order to turn it into a celebration for the 75^th anniversary celebration of VE Day. Unfortunately, all the planned big events have had to be cancelled because of social distancing. Just something else to add to the pile of things the invisible enemy has ruined. I for one, planned to make the most of the day no matter what.

I dragged out my cart of art supplies and worked on an art journal two page spread ….. Yes, you read that correctly, my little bucket of art supplies that I started off with has somehow grown into a small cart. It’s amazing what you can gather from all the different nooks and crannies of my home. Things that were never intended as art supplies are being used. Without further ado here’s my art journal effort for today …..

I didn’t use anything I haven’t used in previous pages this time. And once again I kept it simple.

Yesterday I posted about a piece of fabric that I splodged some paint around. This one …..

Well, Sarah turned that bit of painted fabric into this …..

I politely asked Sarah if she had time to turn the bit of fabric into a zippered pouch. She found the perfect colour zip for it in her stash. It happens to be a zip that I surrendered to her a while back when she was looking for zips. Once again, we did not purchase anything new to make this zippered pouch. Now I wonder if Sarah and I can collaborate again in making something free using up some of our stash.

It’s been a pretty good day in my little corner of the northeast of England. There’s always a nice atmosphere on a sunny bank holiday. The sunshine makes such a difference. It gives me the energy to get on and do a few things. The washing machine was whirring a little while ago. Now it needs loading up again with another load. If I keep this up, I will have a weekend free of household chores.

Well my friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I am thinking about having a couple days rest from blogging but rest assured I will keep being creative and post about it on Sunday/Monday. In the meantime, I hope you all have a super cosy weekend doing things you thoroughly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

HAVING ANOTHER GOOD OLE MESS AROUND

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all enjoyed the week so far. It’s been a rather full week doing something and nothing. I seem to keep finding little jobs that need doing and doing them. I’ve even done some baking this week! I’m not a very good baker but I do it anyway.

It’s day 37 of my messing around with art supplies challenge. I’m really enjoying it now. Stepping out of my comfort zone has proven to be quite useful in helping me deal with the lockdown. Here’s my effort for today …..

Let’s fly a kite. We’ve had the perfect weather for kite flying for quite a few weeks. I can’t believe how dry it’s been here in my little corner of the northeast of England. April is usually a rather wet month but we had very little rain. So, today’s two-page spread was done using stencils, paper cut outs, pen doodling and water colour pencil shading. Anybody can do what I’ve been doing. And while you’re doing it, you forget about all the terrible stuff happening all over the world. It’s like being cocooned in a safe place. Creativity takes courage especially if you’re planning on showing the world what you’ve done.

I was planning on splodging some paint on a second piece of fabric today. This is how far I got …..

It’s quite amazing and liberating doing this kind of art work. It’s nothing like an old masters painting but it was fun. It’s just messing around with what you’ve got and seeing what happens. I was ready to give up after covering the fabric with paint because I thought it looked rubbish. However, I kept going with marking making and this is the result. We will be turning this piece into something. I hope to post the final result soon.

Today is leftover day. Whatever leftovers are in the fridge we reheat and that’s our evening meal. There aren’t many leftovers today and to be honest they don’t really go together but we will persevere and have our leftover feast. Don’t get me wrong, we do have plenty of food in but a pandemic doesn’t give us permission to waste food. The fridge will be ready for the next lot of groceries being collected on Saturday. The Click & Collect system works rather well, it means there is no human contact involved. And discovering the substitutions is quite fun too. This is the new normal.

So, I guess that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something interesting. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

ALWAYS MESSING AROUND – DAY 36

Hello my lovelies. I hope you enjoying a wonderful Wednesday. It’s been a very interesting week so far. Everyday just keeps getting better.

As you can tell by the title of this post, I am still messing around with art supplies. Today’s art journal effort started off like this …..

And now it looks like this …..

The prepped background stage looked pretty sad and dark. I added some cut out flowers and tags. Embellished the flowers with a bit of pen doodling and shading using water colour pencils. I added some paint dots in the flower centres. All the little extras totally change the look of these sad, dark pages. Isn’t it funny how the simplest of things make such a difference?

My art journal is nowhere near full yet. Here’s a side view of it …..

There are enough pages for at least another month’s worth of two-page spreads! So, I guess I better keep going. Who knows, I may even get proficient at art journaling.

Well, my lovely friends, I guess that’s my news for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something productive. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

STILL MESSING AROUND – DAY 35

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all keeping busy. The new normal is finally creeping into my life without too much hassle anymore. I am finally settling in to not going out. The downside to not going out is that there isn’t much to report! We keep in touch with our friends and we watch or read the news but that doesn’t give me much to write about. I suppose being creative is my outlet.

Sooooo, I’m on day 35 of messing around with art supplies. Today’s effort started out looking like this …..

And now it looks like this …..

I wasn’t very discerning when I prepped this page spread. I chose two different colours of paint and just splodged it on any which way. My thoughts at the time were that if it didn’t look good, I could just splash some white paint over it and start again. For this page spread I added some stencilling, a couple of cut outs, some pen doodling and some Caran Dache watercolours. Some of the art supplies I’m using at the moment are things that I never used after purchasing years ago. My background paint is starting to running out now. I may be forced to purchase some online soon. I didn’t realise that I would stick to this challenge for such a long time. I’m going to take it week to week and see how it goes.

I have added a little more to my painted fabric project too. I cut out a few patches that make up the house. I just used fabric from my stash along with Bondaweb to hold it in place while I blanket stitched it onto the background. I plan on layering the piecing with wadding and backing fabric and adding some quilting to give it texture. I was planning on framing this piece but I may find it difficult to find the perfect size frame. So, I may just bind it and hang it on the wall.

So, my friends, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x

MONDAY – NEW WEEK

Hello my lovelies. It’s the start of a new week. And hopefully good things are going to happen to each and every one of you. I’ve found the last couple of weeks rather interesting. It seems new challenges are being met by finding good solutions. I find it very interesting how things we thought we needed are no longer essential.

As I mentioned a day or two ago, I will continue my messing around with art supplies challenge for another week or so. I did not create an art journal page spread today but I did prep seven pages in readiness for creating new two-page spreads. I found it quite satisfying messing around with paint, well in fact I just pushed paint around the pages and dried each page with the hairdryer. And once the pages were dry, I did a bit of stencilling. All the pages look pretty weird at this stage but once I start layering things, adding doodles and text, the pages will look soooo different. I’m looking forward to finish my first spread. Here are my prepped pages for the next seven days …..

My style seems to have changed quite a lot lately. I used to work everything so that it was perfectly straight and even. Now my pieces look a little slapdash ….. grungy and sometimes sludgy. I guess that’s me until I find different inspiration that influences my style.

So, my friends, it’s been a pretty good creative day considering it’s Monday. I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you love doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching and messing around with art supplies.

Lucie x