ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY AND ARC - MARCH

Good Morning/Evening/Afternoon

For those visiting for the Artist's Reading Challenge scroll down if you don't fancy reading the Rocking Your World element of my post.  So your question - what is 'Rocking Your World Friday?' - a brief summary of the little glimpses of positives that have made life easier and better and happier during the last 7 days!  It's our way of acknowledging the positives and we are a small band of Rockettes (although Rockers welcome) who put a post together each week to acknowledge the same!

Crikey it's a dig deep week if I'm honest, time with hubby and son this week has been in short supply due to work but there have been some positives (just not as many as I would like).

• Terry Pratchett's book Snuff (next month's ARC book), thoroughly enjoying the same.
• Spending time with said 12 year old.
• My colleague at work who has been an absolute star this week despite bad news - she really is an utter star.
• Hubby for finding a mini-book on line that I wanted to make but couldn't find the instructions - he's an angel.
• Hubby for making a cinnamon cake for work when there were lots of crappy news
• The WW girls - for being their usual awesome selves! 
• For finally being able to get my tablets from the hospital despite the weather
• For my sister for keeping me sane recently when I've needed someone to talk with me, rather than ask me to say what's in my brain out loud! 
• Double base gel for keeping my skin manageable
• E45 shampoo for keeping my scalp manageable 
• Milky coffees 
• Magazines
• And Asda for having memo pads in that I've searched high and low for - who'd have thought! 

ARC - Grave Sight

Well here we find ourselves with our next review.  After last months epic read as I neared the date I went for my thinnest book in order that I attempt to get a little ahead.  It took only a couple of days to work my way through this book.  I'm already a Charlaine Harris fan having read all of her Sookie Stackhouse books (that were subsequently turned into the TV series True Blood not that the recent series bear much resemblance to the initial printed books) and bought this book (in a trilogy set) almost 18 months ago and it's sat on my bookcase gathering dust every since!

The story centres around two key characters Harper and her brother Tolliver.  Harper was struck by lightning as a teenager and now has the ability to find dead people if she knows the general area they are and know what caused there death.  So let's be honest it was never going to be a particularly happy book to begin with.  But I found myself drawn into the book which flowed well, centring around one particular death and the subsequent fall out from finding the body in a little town that wasn't too keen on Harper's help.  You get to know other key characters of the town and subsequent deaths occur as part of the story.  I enjoyed the read and liked the pace of the book although I'd 'guessed' the punchline about two thirds of the way in.

Unlike Sookie (of the Sookie Stackhouse novels) who always has a slightly positive disposition, Harper was different, physically affected by the lightning strike and no family ties she goes from motel to motel working for clients finding dead people, with her step brother assisting along the way.  They seemed quite sad characters overall, with no roots to talk of, coming from a dysfunctional childhood you wonder how long they can continue to make a living this way.  Don't get me wrong they have aspirations and dreams just no real substance to achieving them.

I've got two more of these to read (although not on my book list for the reading challenge) and will be more than happy to while away a few hours completing the set.  So if you don't mind a bit of a mystery with dead bodies and not fancying a mentally 'heavy' read then this is the book for you!  If however, you are after a happy happy read - I suggest walking on by nothing to see here!

The artwork created from reading the book is another art journal page, created background on gelli plate, wrote the title words in black and the authors name in red, used an altered image on the left, distress inked the edge of the pages, a little masked inking in places and title bottom left in life with other pages I've done!

Finally if you are joining in Rocking Your World then pop the link to your blog post here.

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Tis Friday - (actually tis 8pm Thursday and I'm still working - so forgive this for being short sweet and a bit blunt!)

1. Mail art from Sarah this week - the Zombie bunny was such fun and arrived in tact
2. Hubby taking some time off with me last week - fabulous stuff
3. Coffee with my brother and sister, just putting the world to rights
4. Not being overly stabbed by the vampire (blood test) unlike last time when I became the human equivalent of a pin cushion.
5. Not going to work on Friday and Wednesday
6. Project life book still providing some fun
7. Magazine buying, a good home magazine, a scrap magazine and a stamping magazine to keep me amused. 
8. Burrito from the Mexican eatery at Meadowhall nom (and the lime slushy) 
9. Buying a giant canvas (still blank but bought at least)
10. Sitting on bed reading mags (just escaping sometimes is fun).
11. Lad sorting his homework on a Friday (no badgering him over the weekend). 
12. Lad getting a 5A in maths
13. Chatting about changes to house. 
14. Finding Sheffield theatres are doing another Shakespeare this year - yay!
15. Laughter 
16. Hot cross buns
17. Cointreau and clementine marmalade so nice and so naughty and so gone now - ahhhh 
18. A day with hubby sharing time and space 
19. A shoulder to cry on when I needed to (hubby's shoulder - Tuesday night - difficult day).
20. My Mum and her Aldi trips - she's nuts I tell you - people think she's been 'let out' of somewhere 
21. Rhassoul treatment with hubby on Wednesday using up a Red Letter Day he bought me! 
22. Said 12 year old getting a letter from school telling us he's the science star for the term - made us very very proud.
23. Said 12 year old being congratulated on his development in electric guitar - this we like! 

That my dear is your lot - mad mad mad week, very very very tiring and the stress of snow on Friday when I've got a hospital appointment is very stressful. 

Last up a quick layout that I did, poor quality photo but then it is a tunnel! 

If you fancy joining in Mr Linky below - don't stress if you've not joined in before its good fun and we love to read your 'rocking' moment, don't stress if its not Friday any day will do and don't stress if you haven't joined in for a while sometimes life gets in the way! 

And finally I was reminded by Carmen this week that Rocking your world's was 3 years old on Wednesday 19th - 3 years I've been taking stock of the positives in life and it really is quite a therapy - thank you to all who have ever joined in, whether you are new this week, long term Rockettes, short term Rockettes, monthly Rockettes it is always an absolute blessing to read your positives and see you joining in with mine - thank you!  And Carmen - thanks for noting it hun - I really needed to have that in the back on my mind on that day!!!! Mwah

Until next week 

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

11th Friday of the year already and its

Crikey I keep meaning to prepare this in advance but it's not been happening.

Let's think

Friday 8th - Gelli plating madness - such utter fun, had a lovely day playing with paints, watching films (listening to them if I'm honest far too busy gelli plating for watching films).  Creating art - bliss!

Saturday 9th - Hubby on overtime (that didn't Rock) but spending time with said 12 year old was lovely, we managed to track down a great jigsaw using a book voucher bought by a friend for making her a gift and the jigsaw is something that we can do as a family - now this I like!!

Sunday 10th - Mother's Day - fantastic Rugby match in the afternoon England and 6 Nations - haven't screamed that loudly at the TV in quite some time, lovely pressies bought by said 12 year old with his own money - honestly he spent way too much, I got flowers, a gold necklace with the word Mum on it, Sherlock series 1 and 2 on DVD and a teddy - like I said way too much - but all his own choice!  Got to see my Mum and sister and niece and have a lovely natter and then saw them again later on in the evening with my Mum's hubby as well as we all went out for a fab meal!  My sister and niece enjoying the world's smallest dessert was fun too and got photos so more scrapbooking!

Mmm then it goes a little downhill - crikey - too much work not enough fun!!!! Monday was hard - mmm can I think of anything? Climbing on sofa at end of day - that was nice!

Tuesday - another difficult day but my lil bro arriving back on a surprise visit from Ireland was fab!!!!!!!!

Wednesday - mmmmmmmmmm another difficult day - let me see - hubby managing to get said 12 year old the red nose cuddly toys that he really wanted (I'd only managed to get one on line as the others were 'sold out') so hubby managed the hat trick!

Thursday - random calls with my Mum and writing this post, actually trying to put some perspective together - now that has to be a positive doesn't it?

So what's 'Rocked' your world this week, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem, add them all together and you see how much of a difference they make to life!

I'll leave you with a quick layout of said 12 year old and the 'fuel-meter' he created to prove how hungry he was - you'll note he was on 'empty' when I took the photo (nothing new there!)

Finally Mr Linky and if you haven't realised I've upgraded to super-Linky which means - wait for it - fanfare and trumpets - they don't disappear at the end of the week, so if you link correctly you'll always be able to find that post!

Hope you've had a great week!

COLLABOR-ART CJ UPDATE

Again for those who haven't seen this on the Collabor-art blog, I've just completed my entry into Sonja's CJ having great fun using my gelli plate.

There were still plenty of tracks that I love to choose from and so I set too listening to the CD and perusing the book, it didn't take much to decide on the Gun track Don't Say It's Over from the track list.

The CJ is based on a chipboard page with an envelope attached and I wondered if I could do something a little 'different' with the envelope.  So gelli plate at the ready I set too.  I had a fab morning playing journalling etc to create this entry, background gelli plate and music and star stamps, images and masking tape, leaving enough 'blank space' hopefully for future additions.

The back of the page looks like this, again Gelli plate.

I opened the envelope up, gelli plated it (this is becoming a habit), reinforced the 'tear off' strip of the envelope (which didn't survive the gelli plate due to it's perforations) with black card, hand stamped the track name, attached the gun image, masking tape and an off cut of scrapbook paper and felt me 

work here was done!

In addition to this page I 'added' to the entries already in the book in the spirit of collaboration, if you fancy seeing more of the collaborative work that we've been doing, or even fancy joining in, check our the blog - here 

CHAKRART CLASS - THE ROOT CHAKRA

Hello one and all, I've finally got around to showing the piece of art I created as part of the Chakrart over at Timeless Rituals a beautiful free, yes I did say free, class created to explore Chakras learn and observe and create art.  

I printed the 'class' (which was technically a blog post), so I could read absorb, collect my thoughts and create without the need for a computer screen.  I spent a few hours last week gathering my thoughts, completing the pages and rebalancing my mind. 

It's a while since I've worked directly with Chakras so it was nice to return to this.  

I left the art until my 'free' day on Friday, when I set to with gelli plate and die cutting machine to create the following.   

I really expected the art to turn out, bright and positive, but this looks deep and dark but it's how it turned out.  The hexagon was the image I saw after meditating on the red circle as part of the class.  The building block of life that is replicated so many times in the natural world it made sense to create the page around that image. 

The 'masks' I'd used on the background (which was created using my gelli plate) then became part of the main page as they are some of the hexagons at the front and then I added a few shiny hexagons, edged the page with white paint and then wrote the word Root.  

The page has been created in my Secret Santa journal created by Sam that I received last Christmas and I intend on using the journal for each of the Chakras as we move through the course.  

SOMETIMES I FORGET TO SHARE THINGS HERE

It's amazing isn't it when you assume that all that cross your blog's path also have a path to another blog that you take part in, I forget most months to update the creations that have come into being with my association with the magical Collaborart blog, set up by Sarah looking for like minded people who not only commit to collaborative work but don't let people down.  We've had and are having so much fun, if you've not happened across the blog and want to know more check this link out here.

Anyway I've just updated a pairs journal entry on there that I've been doing with Donna, we each have a journal that swaps back and forth between us and complete work within, we had no 'theme' to the book just a very much 'anything' goes attitude which I love, over the months we've been collaborating I've found my 'worry' factor about completing work so it's 'perfect' has started to adjust and alter and I put that down to Donna, who is both an expressive artist and a positive influence and through working with her I've grown to love just what happens with art even when I wouldn't deem it perfect.

Anyway here are the latest additions

Additions to the flowers page.

 Scene of a beach behind an aperture

 The love spoon peel off (which in hind sight I wasn't sure what had possessed me to add it this page  when I last had the journal) looks much better as a mere outline don't you agree?

Then I got the sewing machine out because within the book Donna had included two fabric sample swatches, so I stamped an image onto canvas, coloured the same in and stitched to the tag and then added a gold leaf and some bead work before reattaching.

Then on the next fabric swatch, I stamped another image onto canvas, again coloured the same in using inktense pencils and then stitched it the tag using some quilting stitches that my machine does (I always forget it's got a few 'quirky' stitches on it).

Then at the bottom I added some knitted fabric and ribbon that I'd received from a friend, all gathered up and stitched with another quilting stitch, I had so much fun with my machine!

 The next page is actually the first one I did when the journal returned, within the book Donna had secured two flying pig images, I prized them off and attached to a gelli print I'd made, reattached along with other images and quotes that I'd got and then just oil based pastels to highlight the images.  I think this is one of my favourites.

Paint left over so 'coloured' in the background around the Union flag and the stamp on the bottom right corner oh and added two sock puppet pictures (near my finger the close up photo I took wasn't so great so these will have to do).

 Next up a fantastic page Donna has done, all textured and the colours are fabulous, so I added a torn image with gold staples plus the word Hideaways

 A scrap of gelli plate printing added on the left hand side of the page.  This was a page when I did it on the gelli plate that I was none too keen on but discovered chopping it up it actually works quite well!

 And another quote on the other page.

 Using up paint 'colouring in' next to this picture

 Adding black and white images and texts to an already started page

 Adding two black and white images to this page, I'm wondering if Donna will continue to add black and white to it and it become a black and white collage?

 And here is the book sculpture unfastened from above!

 Fastened?  The extensions Donna has had to provide show how magical this book has become

Unfastened it springs open with one of those 'my jeans are too tight - ahhhhhhhhhh now I've undone my button' moments!

 Another shot from above.

So there you have it peeps another addition to this book, I'm waiting to hear back from Donna and then it will be on it's merry way.

FRIDAY? - YOU'RE JOKING ME IT CAN'T BE ROCKING YOUR WORLD TIME?

Yep it is already upon us Friday has swung around and arrived in the blink of an eye this is the 10th Friday of 2013 - who would have thought it!

So what's made the list this week... let's see

A morning with my sister gelli-plating the world (and her boots - don't ask).

 And some of the results

The WW girls always making me smile, we share, we support and we care for one another, letting us rant and vent when we need to - bestest friends a girl can have a tell you!

Carmen being utterly bewildered and surprised by her birthday pressies, made me so happy to see all the comments, photos and general birthday excitedness that occurred!

Writing randoms on lists that made me laugh - I wrote a shopping list last week with the intention of popping to a highstreet store to pick up the usual bits and bats, contained on this list was the item

"Smelly stuff for breakfast"

I knew what I'd meant to write and had obviously got distracted half way through the list by a conversation - what I actually meant was

could you guess?

Air freshener for bathroom

So any time you need a random list of utter drivel writing which bears no resemblance to what it should read just give me a shout!

Next up flowers from hubby

Blue skies last Saturday - did you see them, were you as excited as me to leap out of bed and welcome them!  Spring I thought it's here, it's arrived, it's definitely on the up and up

Yay

Snow forecast for next week - enough said

Going to the circus and see said 12 year old so engrossed and so utterly bewildered by their 'death defying feats" - I must admit the tightrope walker falling and wrapping his leg around the wire whilst carrying the chair and dropping the pole was a bit scary!

Having family time on Sunday, we toddled off to Kelham Island for a wander around, lovely day just the three of us!

A simple Sunday lunch, sometimes we go the whole hog making the roasts and yorkshires etc but decided on shepherds pie made by hubby - simply yum!

Craft time always a positive, spending time working on Donna's pairs journal!

And that my lovely people are my list of positives and gratefuls that have sprinkled my life with positivity this week!

Finally a quick layout, documenting the amazing shapes hubby and said 12 year old created with sparklers last bonfire night, I think the 'mum' one is my favourite!

I hope you have a beautiful and blessed week ahead, if you fancy joining our tiny gang of Rockettes (or Rockers not that we've ever had one join in) on a Friday summing up all the positives you can think of then pop a post together and head back here to link up, it's always lovely to visit!

ROCKING YOUR WORLD FRIDAY

Morning all, tis Friday and time to find out what silver linings and little strands of happiness have woven their way through life in the last 7 days and let's just note that we're on the 1st March, shall I say that again 1ST OF MARCH - ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only 9 more months and I can put the decs up LMAO!

First up has to be a gorgeous pay it forward gift from Susie which I recently received, it's a delicious A4 journal that she's beautifully decorated and sent just for me.  I can't work out quite which way to use it, do I use it as my Rocking Journal to keep my weekly notes in?  Or my crafting journal to keep my crafty notes in or something else?  It's just so lovely I don't know where to start with it!

Isn't it gorgeous, you can't see all the texture on the book but it is just so beautiful!

Next up on the list is a day trip to York, quite spur of the moment, I did the "oooh it's such a long way" only to discover it's about 50 minutes up the road - when did that happen?  Anyway we had a fab day going to the York Castle Museum which we had never visited before

Next up the Shambles - I love this lane, always so busy but just fabulous

Having homemade mushroom soup in a cafe near the Minster and then walking up to the National Railway Museum and let it be said that this train is simply huge - said 12 year old really isn't that short!

Other favourites, finding that said 12 year old isn't too old to watch a new series of Shaun the Sheep, mind you I don't think anyone is too old for that are they?

Finding a pub that serves decent meals, had a great family meal out on Saturday night, great company and good food - nothing finer!

Going to the cinema to see the latest Die Hard film - far fetched is an understatement!

Receiving a fabulously gorgeous collage postcard from Carmen which was a collaborative project - fabulous stuff!

Then my sister passing her semester at Uni, she worked really hard on this and so deserved to pass everything WTG Melanie!

Having a craft day with my Mum, sister and niece, they didn't know what to do but let's say we put the gelli plate through it's paces!

Hubby and son having fun at Lock N Load and then Idleback last Sunday, giving me the crafting quality time with the girls in the family - fab stuff!

And finally receiving a book token from a friend as a thank you for a gift I'd made her - she is very naughty but it is much appreciated!

The girls in the office keeping me sane even when I'm driving them mad!

The WW girls who have been on form this week (as always) and helped me with a devious plan which led to one of the clan getting an unexpected joint birthday gift - woohoo!

Oh and I can't forget hubby who is putting up with my random mood swings and dealing with me when I'm losing the plot and definitely helping me when I've decided I don't want to do something like take said 12 year old for a guitar lesson, he just went with the flow "that's OK I'll take him" - thank goodness he get's me at the moment - all over the place I tell you I am officially all over the place!

So there you go a lovely eclectic mix this week of fabulous things that have happened it's amazing to clock the positives as you go, really makes you appreciate them, so I might turn the journal Susie made me into my Rocking book, that way I can keep a running commentary of the positives and spend time within it's walls more frequently - now that sounds like a plan to me!

A quick layout before I head off self portrait from Chatsworth last year

If you fancy joining in, pop yourself a post together and then come back and link up so we can visit!  Don't stress if she can't manage it weekly and don't stress if it's not Friday - just do it because it makes you feel more positive!