ROCKING MY WORLD FRIDAY!

Crikey - Friday again - how did that happen?  

I mean am I right, have we now had the Easter weekend bank holidays, the May Day bank holiday and the Spring Bank holiday?  That leaves us the late summer one and then it will be Christmas right?  Right? Scary!

So firstly I've made Rocking your World picture to be used as a button - yes you heard me right - I've no idea how the hell to turn it into a button so at the minute you just get to look at it, (if anyone out there knows how to turn it into a button with the little gadget stuff at the bottom so people can pick it up and take it then let me know because I'm so bored of reading the internet to fathom it out - something to do with the attention span of a gnat!  

 OK eyes - down let's do grateful - this morning I'm going to go for the smaller things in life

Firstly this little guy made me laugh out loud last week 

why?  you may ask - it's just a squirrel - it's a squirrel who came to our squirrel feeder when it was raining fairly heavily last weekend so he did this

Yes that is him sat inside the feeder - I mean inside!  Literally got in there had breakfast kept dry - genius don't you think.  Occasionally he'd obviously get warm and poked his nose out for a breath of fresh air and then back in he went!

Complete genius I tell you and cute to boot!

Then it's music, I'm loving being able to listen to music again, it's been very therapeutic although my play list has been mainly angry loud rock music!  It's still alllllllllll good! 

Time to think - so important, we all run around doing, cleaning, cooking, working being busy generally, learning, juggling juggling juggling and then you think - what for?  We're in the sixth month of the year and I haven't even stopped this year, I mean stopped and enjoyed time just literally time - you know - to glance at the blue sky, to really taste the coffee, to ruffle said 9 years olds hair, the year is slipping away and I'm just not taking it in, so here's to time and me appreciating it a little better! 

Then it's finding my creativity - it's been missing this week (literally), I know you probably thought the giant art work last weekend had got me back on track, but I just kept sitting to my table and moving things around.  

I just couldn't settle to anything, but a little bit of card making and I was back art journaling - now please be aware that I don't do cards - why you may ask? 

because I'm rubbish at them 

but I love my new stampotique stamp I bought at Dyan's 

 and this is what I made

which in turn led me back to this, to be honest I've had the blank page with the image on for ages - I've even considered covering the image up - but then it hit me and away I went - wiggly zig zag lines are great.  I then dug out a Tim Holtz mask (which are such fun)  My now totally abused star stamps = tattooed image and my new wings stamp!  

That's it everyone's going to have wings and tattooes from here on in!

then I managed yesterday to finish off a circle journal I've had for a while, because I've been all over the place I was struggling with this one which was called hopes and dreams!  But I persevered - significantly, as I can't show the full image (wouldn't want to spoil things) - here are glimpses

So there we go - grateful (ooh and the one I always love - happy to be here again for another day - it's always good to say thanks for that don't you think, because life is so precious and yet also so fragile!)

So here's the bit where I put a linky - this is where you put your blog if you are joining in Rocking Your World Friday!

JUDE I TOOK YOUR ADVICE! GRAB A CUPPA - YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

OK, so Friday dawned and with it brought a beautiful day, the house was tidy (past tense now but hey) the sky was blue, the washing was washed - I was running out of things to distract myself with if I'm honest.  I've had so many good comments and messages to me over the last week, from bloggy friends to family in person or on facebook and I feel very blessed to have had such an outpouring of love!

In amongst this I've also had a few beautiful e-mails that have allowed me to share more than I'm able to on here and in doing so I've been going through a little 'therapy' to help me on my way, one of these e-mails was from Jude - who is an amazing person and at the end of her e-mail she offered a little advice which I'm sure she won't mind me sharing she said 

"Go and play, don't over think it, don't plan it, just play, create backgrounds, mess around with paint and water and ink and spray and enjoy the feeling of not thinking too much.  Art is good for the soul and yours needs a little TLC sweetie"

So I took your advice Jude and taking what I learnt last weekend with Dyan added to the online course I've done with Alisa I produced this and yes that is me and yes I am smiling!!

Yes I know you'll think I'm mad but it only took a few hours to do, and now that I've followed Jude's advice my soul feels a little lighter.

Believe it or not this canvas started life as a bargain buy at a home furnishing shop because it was so damaged and was bought for the grand old price of £3.74 and originally looked like this

then I did the following

Notice the gravity defying dribbles LOL!  Then words - yes they are words and no you can't read them but they are words I promise!  Mainly song lyrics - I was listening to some absolute tunes whilst doing this!

Then onwards - you probably can't tell the difference but there was some serious wash effects going off!

Close up of stencil at bottom right, it's a female form sat down if you can't make it out!  I love her she's beautiful!

Then tramlines all over it (went a little mad - but it was such fun)

then adding the focal point - winged hearts

In amongst all this I ended up with two bored children on my hands - my son and my neice - so I offered them the opportunity to do some art!  Once they'd seen what I was up to they had to join in - although I limited the size of their canvas

It was so lovely to spend time with them both!  Work in progress

progressing

whilst they were waiting for the paint to dry - they worked on bigger sheets of paper

then their finished items - absolutely happy - can you tell, as my lovely niece didn't know what she was going to do with the giant piece of paper, we tore up the art work and turned it into a book! - see the second photo below, so she gets a canvas for her bedroom wall and an art journal into the bargain!

then little man's canvas

and he kept his art work giant - turning it into a giant face and making us laugh to boot!

then the three of us with our art

this has subsequently led to further paper crafting on the part of said son - to be honest when I sometime mention crafting he's seen running in the opposite direction - probably because he's surrounded by it!  However last night he set to and made this paper tardis (no help from anyone)

Then he continued on copying something he'd seen his cousin make which was a 'laptop' from card for role play purposes!

So he did the same and then some more - green laptop in centre - it's even got a snooze button, a USB stick on the floor next to the laptop - the long white thing on the left is the wires for it - the small item on the floor is the mouse and the large thing next to it is the scanner! Genius!

Close ups, he's now made a battery pack for the back and a laptop case!

Loving those painty fingers

and the scanner!

Back to my art work when I came in last night I kept thinking it wasn't quite finished, so I set too with a black pen just outlining little bits, then I thought - this art work came about because of all the amazing people in my life that told me to just be me and go easy on myself and so I went through all my bloggy comments and facebook comments and e-mails and personal conversations and noted down each and every person who has supported me in what has been a the most difficult of difficult weeks and I added each and every person to it  and some of the little comments that people had said, so if you have been there for me this week leaving me comments along the way - you've now been immortalised into my artwork

all your names appear in the stars on the piece

And will serve to be a reminder of how truly blessed I am

Then I put Jude's kind words on the winged hearts!

and here it is finished and I love it

So thank you to you all - you're all awesome!   

PS Guess what - when we bought said canvas months ago - we bought two others - dear hubby said this morning 

"Well you've got two more pieces of therapy downstairs to have a go at" 

Mmmm - now there's a thought!

SOMETIMES IT'S GOOD TO SAY THANK YOU TO SOOOO MANY PEOPLE

OK here's the warning before you start this one is a heavy going posting so if you fancy a read I suggest a cuppa and please accept my apologies for not being my usual bubbly self - sometimes it's best to embrace life when it's proving difficult - don't you think?

OK so it's past the weekend and what a weekend, if you didn't know I was at Art from the Heart with Dyan for the weekend doing the intermediate art journaling course - so was it good? - actually it was brilliant - I loved every single minute.  We caught up with friends from the last course, we met new friends, we laughed and giggled and chatted, drank wine, ate cupcakes, muffins, scotch tablet, the most decadent fudge I've ever tasted courtesy of Jude's Mum, we had awesome food prepared by Pam who worked tirelessly!

We had the delights of Dyan even with her poorly back (which was helped by a night out dancing to a bit of Northern Soul - I kid you not).  We saw the new studio which is divine, played in the new teaching space which is gorgeous (even if a little hot given the weekend we've had but you can't blame anyone for that!) learnt so much and had a pretty splendiferous time! 

I feel very blessed today because I'm having a tough time of it at the moment with situations outside of my control and that is quite demoralising, but it's in amongst these dark days that I see the glimmers of what I really have, from an amazing family, to blog friends and personal friends and art journal friends and art from the heart friends and in amongst it people who truly believe in me and that's special because when you are in this dark period it's hard to lift your head up and see what is actually around you, what I've found in the last few days is that i'm surrounded by people who believe in me and for that I feel truly blessed.  

When you are little, you believe that despite difficult times and adversity that truth will always win through, the hardest part of being an adult is learning actually that this isn't always the case and that sometimes no matter what you do - that life can throw you a curve ball and you basically get smacked in the face - that's where I'm at at the minute, down on my knees and not sure I can actually get up again bruised and battered, not sure if I'll be able to dust myself off and smile again, the tears have flowed considerably, in fact I should get shares in kleenex because I'm sure their share price will have gone up with my considerable over usage over the last few days, I didn't let it spoil my weekend but what I did do was put down the worries I had even if for a little while and immerse myself in creativity - pure therapy for the soul, but back to reality and life keeps knocking me down and so it's been hard and tough couple of days.

I took steps today to protect myself and give me some space, I intend on taking what I've learnt this weekend and using it to put down things on paper, my anger - well my anger is turning to sadness - I never thought parts of my life would end this way but I'm starting to see that they might, there is still a glimmer of hope -  but it's just that - a little fraction of light left at the very end.

So here I am reflecting and thinking, I'm sorry if this seems heavy and sad and desperate and well actually not very me - but sometimes you have to accept that you are just there in that moment and well you just try and drag yourself along and let your mind deal with things for the time being

On a more positive note - look at this beautiful gift from the equally beautiful Jude!

And this gift that Janet had for all of us - something she picked up from free cycle and brought for us all to share!

then this beautiful gift from Suzy which brought a smile to me today - that I hadn't thought possible, Suzy is partaking in a circle journal that I'm doing and I post on to her and I've been sending her a card when I pass the journals on, so she's gathering quite a collection - this was her awesome way of saying thank you!

So how lucky am I?

Really lucky - beautiful gifts from beautiful friends, thank you 

Jude, Janet and Suzy - I feel so blessed. 

So back to the weekend fun - this is just one of the items I made - and I love it - from making the book to all the fantastic techniques - if you fancy a go at something similar head over to Dyan's website and check out the Stampotique class she's running or better still start art journaling - it's utter fun!

then the gorgeous 3-d balls - the reason I kid you not - the absolute reason that my sister had to do the second weekend - because she loves these!  The page isn't finished - but they are fun aren't they!

Then there was the fun of constructing pages - such an assorted variety from this - which is better in real life than my pictures gives it credit for!

To this - does my mask suit me?

But my absolute favourites are these!

I can't stop stroking these pages - absolutely completely and utterly the most fun - ever!  Thank you Dyan!  Thank you so much!!!!!

Then on with the scrapbook class taught by the beautiful Sandra a couple of weeks ago at my local scrapbook store!

It was originally a single page layout but there was a sheet of damaged paper which she offered up - never one to turn down a sheet of pretty paper - even a damaged one - I've managed to push the layout to two pages!

then just to confirm that I haven't forgotten the inevitable alterables box - this is next for the treatment - a chocolate box given to me by my Mum minus the chocolates!

And finally - my reason to smile today - my son - isn't he awesome!  

Don't be surprised if many of these appear on my friday

"What's Rocking Your World" 

but sometimes you need to take a breath and do a midweek grateful posting don't you! 

I spent a little time today with my siblings and Mum and in amongst my sadness and distraught self we did have some funny conversations so I thank them for that - particularly the one that concluded that you 

"couldn't spend chihuahua's in Primark!"

Nope we decided that 38 chihuahua's would be random apart from anything else you'd end up with many empty dog leads and more to the point if you needed change what would you receive?

Yes the rest of my family is barking (literally in this conversation LMAO!)

What we were actually saying was that we couldn't spend two hours in Primark but it sounded like chihuahua's so do we sound completely mad?  You bet you but I wouldn't change any of us for the world!