Didn't we have a fabulous time?

 What a fantastic four hours!  As you know (I think I have mentioned it once or twice!) I went to Harrogate to take a workshop called Artful Journal with Tim Holtz, hosted by the delightful Dyan at Art From The Heart.   When we arrived the room had been set out with tables for four or five people and at each place was a kit (sorry it's blurred!)

Inside the kit was an Art Parts book (Wendy Vecchi), pre-cut pages for our book which included some of the new Kraft Resist paper (yum!).  Also inks, ink blender, paint dabber, glossy accents and so much more.

Here's Tim demonstrating the finished article and then he handed round so we could all have a look.

During the session we got given other bits of kit including the new Alpha Parts, the grunge blocks (hidden under everything else in this photo!) and a set of salvage stickers.

Here are what was left of the 'loseables' after the session ended.

This is my cover using various of the 'loseables', the Alpha Parts and the Grunge Blocks.

And here are some of the inside pages now that I've stuck more bits down and inked and stamped some more this morning.

And here's a tag using the new set of Reflections stamps that I bought.

Back to yesterday.  At the end of the session Tim gave away some sets of stamps to a few of the participants.  Mario was the Random Generator.   He chose my number and I was given this limited edition bag!

And talking of limited edtions, Dyan made a ticket in her own inimitable style for us as a reminder of the day.  She had a limited edition of 60 printed, numbered and signed them.   Then she 'defaced' Tim on each individual ticket.   I was given number 1/60.  Thank you Dyan.

Thank you to everyone for such a fantastic day: Tim and all his team at Ranger; Dyan and Ben for organising it all.  And all the ladies that took part especially the ladies I shared a table with.

The first day of the rest of my life?

 So, yesterday I officially retired. Not for the first time in my life.  I retired at 43 years old from teaching!  A few years later I worked as the church administrator and retired from that after 13 years.  In January 2010 I was asked to help set up a new local company and I left there yesterday ~ so now I am retired and today is the first day of the rest of my life.

And to celebrate I'm driving to Yorkshire this afternoon and attending the Tim Holtz workshop at Art From The Heart tomorrow.   I think I may have mentioned it before! 

I've been working some more on some of the backgrounds in my Brave Girl Art Journal.  I've added some stamping and some more pages using the ghosting technique that Dyan showed us.  (scroll down my blog to find the video)

This page has some birds on that was a free download from Chris 

I didn't like this page very much so I tried adding another layer of colour

 It may or may not be an improvement!

 This one is done with Dylusion acrylic paint rather than the spray inks.

With this one I sprayed the inks and then wiped them with a baby wipe so the whole page was covered.  Then I sprayed ink and then water so the ink would move about.  When this was dry I sprayed with water and lifted some colour off.

Then I used the ghosting technique - spraying water through stencils.

Off to have lunch now, and then Yorkshire here I come!

Artist Trading Cards

On Friday I went to another workshop, Mini ATC Art Journal,  at Artist Trading Post.   Anneliese showed us how to make ATCs and we made a little book to keep them in.    We made a few of the cards in the morning and then in the afternoon inked and stamped the pages of the book.

Yesterday I made these 12 ATCs to go in my book.

Here are the covers of the book

And now all the pages ready for me to journal and to doodle to my heart's content.

Of course, there's a real possibility that it will never get any further.  The journaling is always the hard part.  However I've booked to go on a journaling workshop ~ so you never know it might get finished!