A few Mail Art creations . . . . . . . . .

Over at Cardmaking Paradise,the theme for

 this month's Members swap was another of Sara's brilliant ideas,'Mail Art' envelopes.  Although I had seen and heard of Mail Art, I had yet to try it out.I had a wonderful time creating my envelopes, so much so that I made quite a few extras.  Members from around the world joined in with this swap and I'm sure it made the 'Posties' smile. I know that the ladies at my local Post Office were very curious about them. 

 Here are three of the envelopes that I made for my swaps.

Front view of my "Sunflower Collage" envelope

Back view of my "Sunflower Collage" envelope

Front view of my "Get Happy" envelope

Back view of my "Get Happy" envelope

Front view of my "Vintage Keyhole" envelope

Back view of my "Vintage Keyhole" envelope

 I had such a fun making my swaps, and see how they could could easily become an addiction,that I'm hoping we will do another one next year.

I am always looking at new and lovely blogs and found

 Astrids Artistic Efforts 

one a while ago, but hadn't put a link on my blog yet, so here you are - make yourself a drink and settle yourself down to enjoy Astrid’s beautiful blog and her gorgeous creations.

Faux Leather Notebook Covers

Recently I held a workshop for one of my ladies and her two charming granddaughters, who were visiting with Grandma for 
the half term holidays.  It was such an enjoyable afternoon 
spend in  delightful, keen and enthusiastic company. 

Comparing work so far

Working on drying out some colourful inking

Having a giggle with Grandma

Concentrating hard while drying out some layers
of paint for extra texture

The three finished works of art

After some careful cutting out, strengthening with iron on stiffening and finally some machine sewing, you can see their amazing faux leather notebook covers. I am sure you 

will see why all three were extremely proud and delighted with their beautiful creations.

A peek at some background journal pages .......

I mentioned a back that I would post a few photos of some of my Art Journal pages that I have I've been dabbling with over the last year or so. One journal I made using water colour paper, having watched Teesha Moore's brilliant 2 part video on how to make your own Art Journal. 

  here is a link to part 1 :- 

Teesha Moore

 part 2 follows on afterwards. 

This Hearts spread was inspired by a lovely 

You Tube video Life On Hold'

 by Rach0113

I wasn't quite happy with how it looked,I wanted more texture, so I went back and I worked on it some more, using gold acrylic paint to fill in the hearts and added a Helen Keller quote and was much happier with the look of it.

This is another page from my handmade journal I colourised the paper with watercolour paint. I found this 'half butterfly' image in a  Pheonix Trading catalogue and I loved the colours and the fact that it appears to be flying away so thought it would work well in my Art Journal.

The pages in the journal I bought had a a very glossy finish, which did not work well when painted onto directly, so I've started using other papers to make the backgrounds on which can then be pasted into the journal. Here are two background pages that have been stuck in to the journal, and I will complete later.

I'll post some more pictures when I've had a chance to add journalling.