Crafting weekend #2...

I had the most amazing time this weekend at Chelsey's Creative Events Scrapbooking event. A full weekend, a full room of scrapbookers, card makers, and art journalers, and it's like a little piece of heaven... that disappears in what feels like merely minutes. Here's a shot before we started:

And... well... all of my writing supplies:

Here's Christina and myself. She put a tattoo mustache on for the day. What fun.

Here's one of my Documented Life Project challenges:
"Draw a shape, repeat, add colour"

Chelsey was always is so kind and caring throughout these events. (And I'm sure in her daily personal life too, she's just one of those good people) I made this for her as a small gesture of my appreciation:

Then, smarty pants Roxanne decided she needed one so I whipped this one up in the final minutes of our weekend. (I feel like it's unfinished... I may have to give her a do-over):

Finally, I tried to work mostly on redoing my online classes I've taken over the past year. I started with Letter Love 101 and made my way to Letter Love 201:

I focused more on the lessons rather than the colouring. Now I have a ton of colouring to complete:

Can you see my name in there? It'll be easier to spot once coloured:

Remember all those stickers I had? This was finally my chance to play with a few of them without having to share... (I'm so selfish with my stickers... well, I want to be but I end up letting the girls use them before I can so this was a little bit of sticker selfishness for myself)

And more classes, partially complete:

Some lyrics from The National:

And some pieces of happy mail I received, turned into a journal spread:

I also finally finished the cover to my Documented Life Project book:

And made a picture of my two Prima girls. I see the left one as Addison and the right one as Emily.

And I got home to the first signs of spring!!!

Documented life project and Lettering classes...

Over the last year I've learned more and more, making me more comfortable with my art journaling and lettering. Something I've been meaning to do for a while now is go back and retake each online art journaling or lettering class I've taken in the past year. I want to fill up one journal with all my classes, back to back. Redoing all projects, whether I loved them or not. Partly for additional practice, partly for a beautifully documented journal at the end of it all. Speaking of 'documented', I'm also part of the Documented Life Project put on by Art to the 5th. Five amazing artists, part journal, part planner, weekly challenges, you name it, this project is fantastic. You're supposed to use some type of agenda or planner for the project. I found myself too stingy to pay upwards of $20 for an agenda so for the first 15 weeks I just used a regular journal. Last week I found a discounted agenda and decided I should move my work into it and continue on with the year in it. Well, low and behold, I wasn't loving the small size of the agenda I bought. Today I came across an 11"x8.5" agenda/planner at the dollar store for a whopping $2!!! After juggling through a typical Sunday with my girls and then not so typically getting to take them to my mom's for a sleepover tonight, I got a few hours to get this new journal/planner ready for the year. It's going to take some catch up now (17 weeks worth - 17 art journal challenges - 17 weeks of empty calendar/agenda pages) but in the end of it all, I think it's going to work out very nicely. Here's how beautiful it looks before even starting!! All this is is a mini workshop through Art to the 5th on how to prep your planner for the process. It's so chunky and delicious already!!! I'm excited. Isn't that so yummy?!?!

Some other projects I've been working on this week are for my National Letter Writing Month group. Here's an envelope I made out of a piece of wallpaper from a wallpaper sample book my sister scored for me. How awesome!!

The full journal of classes I've taken over the year will be inside a new journal that I decorated like this:

I figured since 95% of the classes I took are Joanne Sharpe's classes, there's a good chance I may even fill the journal with just her classes anyway. So it seemed like a good choice of cover.

On a side note, I walked past this picture at the mall last week. I love it and I need it. So I checked the price... $1400. Yup. Not happening. I wish I could have captured a better picture of it but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take pictures in there so I snapped this quick one with my phone and bolted.

journal pages and stickers...

I guess if there's one good thing about having to sit in the hallway while the girls "attempt" to go to bed at night is it gives me a good 20-30 minutes of (heavily interrupted) drawing/colouring time. Here's some of what I worked on this weekend while getting the girls to bed...

...oh, if letters grew on trees...

...ahhhh, yes... coffee rain...

I love stickers. Especially letters and cutesy stickers. I can't help myself. So much that I actually hide them from my girls so I don't have to share. That's so horrible of me!! But, if it makes it any better, I always am sure to buy stickers for the girls too. Probably too many, too often. But I just looooooove stickers...

I didn't like the cover of my Dylusions journal so I took an idea off Pinterest... I don't love it but I do like it...

Fabric Journal

I was on a mission yesterday. I got this idea that I was going to make a fabric covered journal. So, I went to Value Village, found a set of two placemats, brought them home, and sewed my first journal masterpiece! (I really don't sew so this is a huge accomplishment for me.)

Inside I added a pocket and some handwriting. It's a personal note to a friend who doesn't know it's coming so I had to hide the writing inside but here's what I will allow you to see...

What is NLWM, you ask?

 April is (or was?) National Letter Writing Month = NLWM
To celebrate the lost art of handwriting and mailing actual letters, I've joined a group this year through Lindsay Ostrom - Creator of Cuteness blog and Facebook page. We have an amazing group of 138... ish letter writers, card makers, ephemera senders, art journalers, friends that will be sending mail to each other (some to all, some to only a few) for the entire month of April. I started my April 1 off with my first two pieces of NLWM mail... one from my designated pen pal and one from another writer in the group:

 The head chief of this fun, Lindsay Ostrom, sent me a postcard that I received yesterday but it looks like a dog chewed it or something...

 In fact, I'm even surprised it showed up at all!!! I'm guessing it must have ripped after the mail was sorted and already on its way here... look at this!

I look forward to a VERY fun month. ...fine time for Canada Post to raise postage prices, hey? Oh well.

creative evening with a friend...

My loving husband allowed me the 'night off' from the kids and some 'me' time. First thing I did? Called a fellow crafty friend and we spent the evening in my craft cave.

Inky fingers... I love it. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our work because I was too focused on just that, our creative work!! I will say though, this is something I would ADORE to do on a weekly basis. (Heck, if I didn't have kids, I could do this on a daily basis!!) Christina, thank you so much for our evening last night. I really needed it!