AWOL

My goodness. I can't believe it is nearly three months since I last posted. what a bad blogger I am, and that's not all! My 365 journal went off course too. October got some journalling but life went a bit awry and I didn't feel like writing so never finished it off. November got a background but nothing else, and once that happened it was nearly Christmas and I just never caught up. I think I'm going to give it a miss for 2013 - the feeling of failure when I don't keep up is one extra worry I don't need right now.

I have been keeping up with the alpabetica postcard swap though. U was definitely the most difficult for me although that might have been because it coincided with other things and my creative muse was on a low ebb anyway.

Here are the remaining letters I made for the swaps.

U and V...

 W and X...
 

 



Y...Yule and yellow

 

 

Z... zigzags and zentangle

Nothing changes

September whizzed by. Back to the normal routines now school is back and a huge bundle of birthdays to boot including, on 21st, what would have been the birthday of both colleagues who died far too young earlier this year.

We have an unwritten rule in our house that C*******s isn't mentioned until the birthday season is over - and that extends into October in our family. It doesn't stop the shops having Christmas cards on the shelves before the schools go back though.

 

It turns out that the aqua drops in the background of my September 365 (well 366 this year as Kate has reminded us) journal was very appropriate for the weather. York and other villages around us have been flooded recently.
My October page is all Halloweeny and batty - like me.

I have just kept upto date with my alphabetical themed post card swaps - getting Q and R done in the nick of time.

Q obviously is for queen, complete with gold and diamond embellishment.

And also for quilt so I patchworked patterned paper and sewed on a letter Q for good measure.

I sketched a round robin for R, making him as circular as I could and colouring in with pencils.

 And on the reverse a red background stamped with some roses.



 And at the end of last week I had a little blitz and got myself sorted with October's letters already. With apologies for those of a sensitive nature S is for scary, spooky, splatter, scream, skeleton, spider, scalpel, slasher etc. Thankfully not all feature!

I'd  got whatever it was out of my system then and the reverse is seaside in water colours with a frame made out of string.

What could be better for T that a turquoise background featuring two twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

 And on the reverse some travel tickets.

I know I said I wasn't looking forward to X but U has already got me thinking ready for next month.



True to form

Late again posting my journal. The August page is finished  and for most of the month the sun shone in keeping with the summer holiday theme.

 

September in our family has lots of birthdays: two on the 4th, two on the 6th, two (if you count my late grandad's) on 11th, one on 18th and mine of 22nd. In our house the C word isn't mentioned yet despite Christmas things being the shops before schools go back. The clock/time theme of my September page is indicative of passing time and years that birthdays bring to mind. I just hope I have time to finish it.

 

We have reached O&P in the alphabetical themed postcard swap in August. In my book O is for orange in a bold, bright way.

The reverse is much more restrained with distress ink applied to very "sucky" card. I took the photo before my handmade by stamp had dried.  It is much less obvious - like the background images- now it is dry.

 

On a trip to drop my som off on a residential weekend in July I stopped off at Crafty Notions to have a look at an exhibition of Sarah Lawrence's wonderful textile works. Whilst there I had a browse round the shop and made a few (liar, liar) small purchases. One of these was 5 little bottles of marbling paint - 20p each in the sale. I've never done any marbling before so for £1 I thought it was worth a play. The result is a stack of marbly backgrounds which you can expect to see popping up from time to time. One example is below where the swirly pattern was somehow reminiscent of lava lamps and early Top of the Pops effects and the like.

The reverse of my P card was more conventional with a glossy card background and some purple and Paris and people.

 

Off now to rack my brains over Q. (Not looking forward to X much either!)

 

Please do check back to see how I get on.

Blinked and nearly missed it!

Well there's nothing like leaving things to the last minute as motivation to get on with things - and that's what happened this month.

Right at the end of June I had an unfortunate encounter with White Van Man who very thoughtlessly drove straight into the back of my car at a junction. Nothing too serious, I was stationary waiting to turn out of a T junction so no injury but it did shake me up and stess me out. As a result most of July has gone by in a blur of not quite right-mindedness with no creative mojo and a tendency to hysteria.

The car is now mended and I now have to wait to see if I can get the costs back from the culprit, however on the up side it is now school holidays and I have had a few days off work to spend crafting and keeping an eye on my son (to make sure he doesn't get DVT from too much XBox and Olympics viewing on TV).

So I've started to catch up a bit.

Here is Jubilee June in my 365ish journal - complete with expletive (censored) regarding the accident.

And here - on time - is July all finished. That must be a record for me. The picture is a bit dodgy because the book won't stay flat on its own and I cropped my fingers out. It says "I'm just sitting watching flowers in the rain" across the bottom which was pertinent at the start of July, hence the drippy background.

August is ready to go too - all seaside holiday colour schemed in keeping with the season.



For July we were up to letters M and N in our Alphabetica post card swap. Fortunately I was ahead of the game and ready to post at the end of June or they might have been very grumpy pieces of work. I'm looking forward to receiving swaps any time soon. I hope the recipients of my cards enjoy them.



Oooh, and lastly a new issue of Craft Stamper is out this week. It has an especially nice free stamp this month, some great techniques using masking tape and lots of other lovely things.