Happy New Year (belatedly!)

Hello all!  I thought I'd better hop over to wish you a happy New Year before January is over.  We're going to need all the happiness, creativity, light and beauty that we can get in 2025.  So here are some 2024 highlights to start that off... 

(First up - the top nine IG posts by numbers.)

Things are very busy behind the scenes. (When are they ever not, these days?)  I'm heading off to Frankfurt in early February, to make an appearance (or two) on the PaperArtsy stand at Creativeworld, the last of the large craft trade fairs, now that the US one is out of action.  

(Next up - my personal favourite top nine tag posts.)

And then in March, if you're in the Netherlands, you'll find me at the Art Specially fair in Nijkerk, demo-ing with some of my PaperArtsy stamps for De Hobby Studio - one of the Dutch PaperArtsy stockists. 

(And finally, my personal favourite top nine non-tag posts.)

And of course there are lots of exciting things bubbling in the pipeline at PaperArtsy that you'll need to keep an eye out for in the coming weeks...

For now, I'll just share a few links to recent YouTube episodes over at Words and Pictures (YT version!).  There's a new midweek series called Tag Time, as well as the usual Few Minutes of Fun to enjoy every Saturday.  Click the links below to join me at the craft table...

Long-time followers may notice there's a new colour creeping into focus!!

Tag Time - Birch Beauty

A Few Minutes of Fun with Tissue Paper Art Journal Covers

Tag Time - Rusty Mixed Media Tags with dried flowers

A Few Minutes of Fun with Mattints and Gel Prints and more

Tag Time - Grungy Rusty Cog Tag

A Few Minutes of Fun with Crackle Collage ATCs

Tag Time - Stamped Embossed Hedgerow Tags

And once I'm done bopping around Europe, there will be some news about more UK workshops coming in the spring too.

I hope you're all surviving the winter cold (or the winter heat if you are on the other side of the globe), and finding time to be creative.  Happy crafting, all!

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instil in us.
Hal Borland

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
Helen Keller

Farewell 2023

Happy New Year, all!  I know I haven't got around to sharing any December Fodder School creativity yet... stamp releases and Christmas got in the way!  I'm already in the middle of January's classes, so I will catch you up with all of that soon.  But for now, here's a little look back at last year's journey.

I like to take the time each December to see where my creative journey has taken me over the course of the year, identifying new directions as well as continuing passions. 

Obviously Fodder School has loomed large, but I have also done three PaperArtsy stamp releases this year - Spring Botanicals, Summer Botanicals and the Festive Minis, six full size sets and eight minis in total.  Those PaperArtsy designs have been a real creative engine underlying my year, and you'll see how they play a huge part in my work now.  All in all, it has been quite an eventful year so I gathered together several "collections" of highlights rather than trying to whittle it down too far.

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So the first batch is Dimensionality and Watercolours... 3D projects, including plenty of recycling (Camembert cheese boxes for the win!), and some glimpses inside my watercolour journals.  Lots of my stamps in action here too.

Nature is the linking theme in all of it, as well as in my ongoing watercolour explorations. Texture, dimension, recycling, and organic inclusions all continue to be core elements, but I can see that the colour palette is expanding.

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The second collection is Tags (of course!). I don't think I'll ever stop creating tags, and looking over the year I can see more continuing passions than new directions as far as tags go.  I still love working in duos and trios, balancing the composition, and the colour palette is as you would expect. (There were other colours in my tags - even some yellow ones - but they didn't make the favourites list!)

Nature is the linking theme here too, along with texture, dimension and natural elements. And of course as well as my own PaperArtsy stamps, there are always heaps of Tim Holtz products - Idea-ology, Stampers Anonymous stamps and stencils and, above all, Ranger Ink Distress products.

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Next up, Botanical Panels - a whole new category for 2023!  I found great joy this year in combining my PaperArtsy botanical and ephemera stamps with the Tim Holtz 3D embossing folders... so much joy, in fact, that I found I had a whole grid of nine just with these projects!  The Tree Rings, Brickwork and Pine Branches folders by @sizzix make the perfect backdrop for my botanical sketches and ephemera labels.

In some of these panels the botanicals are layered over old book covers or real bark backgrounds, but in almost all cases they're all combined with plenty of Idea-ology ephemera and Sizzix diecuts, as well as natural elements - twigs, moss, pinecones and so on.  Nature is absolutely at the heart of these makes, of course, along with texture, dimension and the natural elements. And they make me happy, so I'm making no apologies for having a whole extra grid dedicated to them!

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The fourth collection (appropriately for number four) is Quartets and Sets.  This remains one of my favourite ways to create - in sets and collections and quartets. Some of my favourite works of the year are here - minimal collages on watercolour and mixed media backgrounds. Backgrounds are at the heart of my creative process, and sometimes I just don't want to cover them up much!

Lots of my PaperArtsy stamps are in action here, with Tim Holtz dies, stamps, stencils, and Idea-ology elements of all kinds, and as always texture and natural elements are a vital part of the creative process.

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And finally, here's grid number five, Journalling and Journals.  As you might expect from someone who calls herself "Words and Pictures", books continue to play a huge part in my creative journey, whether that's art journalling, altered books or handmade ones.

Most of the journalling here is done in an old hardback book - and where would my page spreads be without the Tim Holtz Paper Dolls and Photobooth snapshots?! The tag books are based on the fabulous class shared by Megan Quinlan in the Fodder Challenge back in July; and I had to include the Coptic bound, handpainted book with my PaperArtsy stamps, made in the first month of Fodder School thanks to the lovely October sessions with Di Venter. 

I think you've probably got the idea about the recurring themes and elements in my work by now - nature, texture, and I'm going to add storytelling to the list too... this grid really captures it all, I think.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope 2024 will bring a little more peace and compassion into the world (though I'm not holding my breath), and that all of you will enjoy a creative year ahead, full of whatever gives you joy.  Happy crafting, all!

And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.

Meister Eckhart

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Albert Einstein

Long time, no see...

I know, I know... I'm sorry, it's been a shamefully long time since I posted here.  Life has been overwhelmingly busy, mostly in a good way.  There's so much to deal with when you move to a new country, try to build new income streams, and also start tackling gardening full scale.  I have been creating, but - cards on table - the speed of posting on Instagram as opposed to creating a blogpost (I've never really come to terms with the Blogger changes) has meant that has become my platform of choice while I've been so busy.

I love my blog though, and Craftyblogland will always be a special place to me - so I'm going to try really hard to put in an appearance at least once a week, and there are various things coming up which will kick me into keeping that resolution, so fingers crossed!

For now, let me catch you up with just some pictures of what's been going on creatively in the meantime... mostly tags rather than bigger creations (that busy-ness problem again), though I hope you'll like the Easter nest of eggs, and I've just (literally) dusted off my watercolour brushes and started doing some painting again.

I've also been doing quite a few tiny pieces in series - altered cash envelopes, altered teabag sachets and so on.  Keeping it small means I'm more likely to get finished!  And there are some pieces responding to the dark news from Ukraine (all too immediate here in the Czech Republic, where the Russian tanks were still a presence only thirty years ago).

Take a look...

So that's a taster of what's been going on... (and you're getting a debut with that second rose painting - it hasn't appeared on IG yet!).  I hope you've all been doing okay and that, wherever you are, you are enjoying some sunshine (either spring or autumn).  I'll aim to do some visiting soon too, but June is going to be a very busy month in a number of ways, so it make take a while to get round to everyone.

Stay safe, stay well, and I'll see you again here soon.  Happy crafting, all!

Time is the longest distance between two places.    It's good to be back after all this time.

From The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.

Robert Southey

Highlights from 2021

It's been a crazy year - relocating to a new country (well, I actually did that in November 2020, but it's been an ongoing, transitional process!).  I didn't get to start unpacking until April of 2021, and setting up the craft room took quite a long time.  There are (confession time) some boxes which went onto shelves still needing sorting, and they still need sorting now... but I'll get there eventually.  

In the meantime, a whole new couple of vanloads of belongings have turned up here towards the end of 2021, as my mother has downsized in the UK, so lots more stuff needs to find new homes here at the Czech end of operations.

Although I've found time at the craft table, it's mostly been for fairly small, quick makes - lots and lots of tags! - and not many major projects.  But there are highlights to share all the same - especially since quite a lot of these didn't make it as far as the blog.  So I hope you enjoy this little journey through some of my 2021 crafting journey.  (Click for a larger view on any of them.)

 

(Please forgive the little white squares in the corner... they are the symbol from Instagram telling you that on that platform there were additional photos to see close-ups and angles.  If I ever get round to proper blogging again, I'll share some of those here too!)

And, of course, I'm very proud of my Inktober collection of drawings and paintings...

And the December collection of tags make me pretty happy too...

So here's wishing you all a healthy, happy, hopeful 2022.  I'm aiming to start finding that work-life balance that allows me to continue to grow in this creative work, and also to give this blog and all of your blogs some more of the attention they deserve.  I hope your plans and dreams will come into focus in the coming year, and look forward to the fresh challenges and adventures to come.

Stay safe, stay well, keep crafting!

Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather than what you think, consider instead how you feel. Look to the nature of things. Feel your choices and decisions. It just might change everything.

From The Nature of Things by Jeffrey R Anderson