Blank Canvas

On Thursday I went to Artist Trading Post for a Mixed Media Canvas Workshop.  I love going to the workshops at ATP ~ Anneliese is such a great teacher and I get to meet people I wouldn't normally meet otherwise.  ATP is at least 50 miles from home and mostly the journey isn't too bad especially once I get past Lichfield.

Anneliese gave us a a 39x30cm blank white canvas to work on.   First we used Distress Inks all over and then some Claudine Hellmuth paints.

Anneliese demonstrated various techniques that we could choose to use on our canvases.   Then it was playtime.

I stamped onto the canvas and I stamped onto tissue paper which I adhered with melted beeswax.

I added some chipboard flowers and a piece of printed cardstock.                      

It was still looking rather too much like the clothes I was wearing in terms of the colour so I added some more blue paint.  I heat embossed the word Dream and stuck on some painted chipboard letters for BIG.

I also added some chipboard butterflies and smeared them and the flowers with Distress Stickles.   Underneath the word BIG I have handwritten 'dreams'


I still feel it is unfinished but I'm currently not sure what to add to it so I am going to leave it for a while and come back to it.

Anneliese took a photo of me working on the canvas.

Can you have too much creativity?

Or maybe that's too much opportunity for creativity!  I have signed up to several Circle Journals and Swaps on UKS.   I already host one called Circular Journey.  Each person chooses a theme and my theme is Favourite Stamp.  As the book gets to each person they have been asked to use their favourite stamp for a layout in my book.  The one I have to do at the moment from this CJ has the theme of 'Twilight'.   Since I have neither read the books nor seen the films, I'm a bit in the dark!  (Excuse the pun!)

I am also hosting a new Circle Journal which is alterd art/mixed media.  My theme for that is Children's Literature and the book will be called 'Once Upon A Time, when I get round to making it.

The third CJ I'm in is called 'All My Own Photos' and you send the photos you want putting into the scrapbook and each team member does a layout around your photos.  My book is about my 60th birthday.  It is called 'sesenta' which is the name of the dog Andy & Naomi gave me for my birthday.  Sesenta is Spanish for 60.

The two Swaps I am doing are the Monthly Altered Tag Swap (March) and the Artsy Bookmark Swap.  These are both at the thinking stage.

In addition to all these I am also making a 2010 Minibook which has two page layouts for each month.  Here are the pages for January and February.

And then of course there's 'Something From Almost Nothing' that Shimelle's starting on Wednesday that I mentioned before!

I obviously have no self-control.  Perhaps it's hidden under all the papers, paints, embellishments, stamps, tools and all the other requisites for creativity!

Stash Addict

My name is Bernice and I am a stash addict.  Not just pretty papers but blooms, flowers, brads, bling, distress inks, alcohol inks, embossing folders and plates, shaped 'naked' albums and lots more besides.

This is what the table looks like when I'm working

And this is what it looked like after I tidied up.

And like many of my scrapbooking friends I need to have the tools and the materials and the resources to be able to do whatever I need to do.   But in reality, it sits there and I stroke the papers and oo and ah over the prettiness of everything.   Then I buy some more!

And the thing about it is, that when I actually come to do a project whether it be a layout or a minibook, I haven't got the paper that I need for it or that matches the photo and so I have to buy some more.  

Somebody has to do it!!  How else do the scrapbooking shops stay in business?

I think the problem generally is that I buy paper in particular because it's pretty rather than for a particular project.  I would blame Cleo or Anneliese & Jamie but actually it's about my lack of self-control!!

And then of course, there's Shimelle!   She runs fabulous courses that I just HAVE to sign up for.   And I'm sure not to have the right stash for that.  Last year I collected Christmas stash all through the year especially if I saw it in the sale because I knew I was going to do Journal Your Christmas.  And what happened in December 2009.   You've guessed!  Yes, I bought some more.  And some stamps.  Oh, and then some more stamps because I was doing Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas!

And I rarely get to the end of Shimelle's courses.  I start them with great enthusiasm but somewhere along the line I get behind or, more than likely, distracted and start on something else.  So now I've signed up for Shimelle's new course: Something from Almost Nothing.  

It starts next week.  But today there's a pre-course challenge.   To blog about the stash.

So, there you are readers.  I've started with enthusiasm.  How long will I last?   The course is for 3 weeks starting next Wednesday (10th March) with emailed prompts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Should be possible shouldn't it!?!

Who will accompany me on this journey and keep me on the straight and narrow?