Zentangles

I was sitting watching TV last night and was wondering what to do in my journal; decided to do a zentangle, don't know if I have done it de riguer but hey I enjoyed it and loved the effect I achieved. More to the point I did a page for the journal and tried something new.

As it is Halloween today I would like to wish all those that take such joy out of this holiday a very Happy Halloween - hope you get lots of treats and don't have to do too many tricks!!!

Tomorrow here in Spain it is a national holiday, being All Saints Day or the Day of the Dead. All of Spain treats this as a national holiday so my last day here will not be spent shopping. Packing will be the order of the day in preparation for an early departure on Friday.

Today was spent in Alicante going around all the shops, husband and son went one way, me and daughter went around all the perfume, make up and fashion outlets - FUN!!!!

Homepage Art

Well I was in a state of shock this morning when I checked my mail and saw that I had been chosen to grace the Homepage of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artchixstudio/ what an honor for me....Thank you....I shall smile all day....!!!!

There are such fantastic artists in this group and for that reason I am amazed that something by me has been chosen. My family think I am nuts but hey so what, maybe I am, but I don't care.

Ribbons and Lace

Today I got up determined to make it into the merceria in El Campello, and I did. China came with me and was totally bemused by my excitement at so much choice in Ribbons and Lace. To be honest I could have spent so much more time and money in there but didn't because I felt guilty. Not guilty for buying the ribbons and lace mind you, more guilty because a few people came into the shop just as I started to make my choices and as there was only one lady serving I felt that I should hurry it up and make my choices quickly; the upshot of this is that I shall have to return.....mmm that will be so hard for me!!!

I think because there is not such an aladdins cave of ribbons and lace where I live I should make the most of what is available to me whilst here.

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This afternoon, I went for a walk up into the hills behind the house with Stuart and Stamford, took some photos of the villa from a totally different perspective.

Looking at this picture, The taller tower on the roof is my art room, for those of you who have never seen my villa before. That is where I go for my me time - sea views and mountain views and endless sky, what more perfect place could there be to work than that!

And here is my gorgeous dog Stamford, who absolutely loves the freedom here in Spain, he is such a big softyhe has come home and collapsed with exertion of running around in the hills. That is him settled for the night and that is the end of my entry for today. Going to see about doing a bit in my journal now, even if it is just prepping backgrounds.

Journal entry

Well I did say that I would try and do a journal page everyday, and so today I did just that.
I had thought of doing a page full of eyes because that is what I felt I should be doing. However,
once I started it all changed and I ended with the rainbow and random thoughts that popped into my
head. To be fair I am quite pleased with this page because I didnt get stressed doing it, I just went with
whatever I had a feel to do, so there you go Journal page 25th October.

Journal pages

I bought myself a lovely journal a while ago, and ever since it has scared me....I dream of lots of things I want to do with it, but then I get scared about spoiling it so it never gets done!!!

Anyway now I have managed 3 pages and thought I would share them with you all - I have made a promise to attempt to do a bit of journalling everyday, hopefully I will succeed.

This is the start - so each day should hopefully see an improvement......

Well it rained.....so I finished the canvas

So with the rain persisting and hubby stuck up a mountain somewhere between here and Alicante I decided I could finish off the canvas shown in previous post.

Here it is, a small homage to LOVE....hope you like it.

So what have I been up to today

This morning I was determined to create "SOMETHING", I didn't want to let another day go by and go to bed wishing I had created a piece. So as the family were all out doing their thing I thought I would make a start. I have brought some canvas board with me to Spain so I applied some gesso to that and then painted over it with yellow ochre.(it actually looks beige in the picture but it is ochre, believe me). Then I stared at the canvas and decided that I would bite the bullet and try and do an image transfer. I selected an artchix www.artchixstudio.com picture to use and crossed my fingers as I applied it to the canvas. Hey ho it worked, the image transferred. I was so cock a hoop; I am still grinning as I write this lol.
Looking closely I realised that the clock and little bit of script was back to front, but hey in the scheme of things that is not so bad, at least the transfer was successful - and the piece has inadvertently named itself "If I could turn back the hands of time" - now I just have to develop it.

I also prepped a page for my journal which I am trying to develop.I have been inspired by Patty van Dorin (http://ramblingrose.typepad.com/journal/) who does such beautiful pages and Suzi blu (http://suziblu.blogspot.com/) who takes the fear out of journalling with some great tutorial videos. Another piece to develop!!!

Oh yes, whilst I was waiting for the gesso to dry etc. I created a little piece using artchix products again entitled "Mother Nature" which is at the top of the page next to the image transfer picture (must get the hang of putting pictures where I want them lol....)

This morning I am hoping to get to the merceria (haberdashers) here in EL Campello to pick out some laces, beads and ribbons such a beautiful collection is available, then I want to make a start on a matchbox advent calendar to decorate the villa at Christmas.

I am going to escape to my art room first as the rain is coming down so much, my lovely husband has gone out on his quad again, can't see him being out for too long so I shall do what I can whilst I can. I shall have a mountain of muddy clothes to wash when he gets back...boys and their toys!

Glorious sunset

Hi, I thought I would share this most glorious sunset with you, taken from my patio on Monday 22nd October, the sky looked as if it were on fire - absolutely breathtaking. My little piece of heaven in Coveta Fuma.

Lovely to be back here; the drive down was one of the best yet. France was like a ghost town, no traffic on the roads which was surprising as there was a strike on the public transport system, but hey, it could be that the French people were enjoying the Rugby World Cup final even though they were not finalists themselves.

China was on top form, singing all the way down, hence she had no voice by the time we arrived LOL. Jazz flew out on Sunday night as he played football for Croydon Juniors (beat Coney Hall 4-1).
When we got to the villa there was signs of all the rain that the area has had in the last few weeks, flooding in parts of the villa so insurers to send out assessors this week - seems to have been so much rain that it came off the mountain too quick and caused flooding - it will get sorted.

Brought lots of stuff with me to do crafting, shall get on to that tomorrow. Got a couple of projects that I need to start work on.
That will be it for this blog entry - just had to share the pic, xxxx

My Family

 

Thought I would share a picture of my family, taken at Steve and Toni's wedding.

Clearing my head....

I decided today that I need to clear my head to enable me to get crafting. So to do this I had to once again organise my craft room - I bought more storage boxes with drawers; I CANNOT work in my room if it is in mess, if the stuff in the cupboards is not in order then I can't function - hence the reason I need to clear my head.
My sister had visited from Devon earlier in the year and did a fab job of organising my stuff, but unfortunately, or fortunately for me I have acquired more stuff so I had to rearrange certain stuff and re- label containers.

The paper images I have from artchix studio, paper whimsy now have there own storage area; I also have some lovely images from b-muse (www.b-muse.com) and tuscan rose (www.tuscanrose.com) and they too are housed in their own drawers.

The hardest part is going to be sorting all the beads,ribbons,buttons, bows etc. into their own compartments but hey if I persevere it is possible - what do they say on the ad "impossible is nothing".

Got to make a few asian atc's for a swap and get them in the post this week - looking forward to that.

I love the friends I have made on my yahoo groups and would like to say a big hi to Charline, who has moved over here from the States and I wish her much happiness and laughter.
Carol Stocker and Caryl H another 2 fab ladies and Linda MF and Angie, you all make my days brighter - there are others and I am going to update my fave blog lists to include the ladies to whose blogs I subscrbe.
The www has a wealth of lovely ladies....

Check out my Guestbook!

And the Bride wore pink - she was stunning

I just thought I would share with you the Bride and Groom - Toni and Steve as she got married in pink which is unusual but hey did she look FANTASTIC!!!!

Hope they have many happy years together xxxx
Others in pictures are mothers of the happy couple and Steves 2 girls who were fabulous bridesmaids along with Toni's sister

Flowers and the cat

I received these beautiful autumnal flowers from Bruce and Trudy - they went to France for the weekend and Bill and H came to stay, these are my Thank You flowers. As they live in the Midlands I thought I would post to my blog so they could see them.
The vase is just crying out for me to "alter" it at some point - nothing is safe!!!! if my kids were to sit still long enough I would probably try and alter them.

My cat seemed to enjoy the sunshine sitting on the sill so I thought she made a nice addition to the scene.

My Omaha ATCs from Carol

At last I have had a chance to upload photos of ATCs sent by Carol to me in our swap.
The sepia ATC is a mosaic of "The Old Market" in downtown Omaha - I love the way Carol has cut this up and them re mounted it with spaces; to finish she has put a script transparency over the top and then added the Key to the city - really neat!

The second ATC has images of the old and new of Omaha with lots of lovely embellishments. The wording says "Omaha" comes from the Indian tribe of the same name and means Above All others on a Stream.
So there you have them my lovely ATCs.

Happiness Is....

I entered into the www.artchixstudio.com Lottery with the theme set by Gina of Happiness Is...well my Happiness was compounded today when I opened my e mail box to see that I had randomly been drawn as the winner - how cool is that, how lucky am I :-)
I then had to set the theme for the next lottery and I decided on "The year I was born", self explanatory make an image with artchix pic included depicting an event from the year you were born....I shall keep you posted as to how that goes, hope a lot of people enter.

I am so looking forward to receiving my ATCs from the other participants. Mind you I hope the post men sort out their problems and that the current strike action ends soon (we had no post Thursday and Friday, none expected today and tomorrow and more strikes forecast if resolutions not met). The downside to the strikes is the inability to send receive mail, therefore no internet shopping possible - it is like having your arm cut off.

1st ATC SWAP

THANK YOU to Carol Stocker http://www.spiritsjourneydesigns.blogspot.com
for inviting me to do a 1:1 swap with her based on where we live.
I did not want to post the images of the ATCs I created for her until she had received them; this evening I had an e mail to say that they had arrived in the U S of A so now I will show them to you.