Journal Journeys Challenge 17

On Journal Journeys this month, Dawn set us the challenge of making a journal page around the word animals and there had to be at least 2 different kinds of animal on the page.

Now I'm not doing so great at the moment and its taken me all month to get my backside in gear to make the page.  I decided at the start of the month what I was gonna do but its taken me this long to do it!  

I started off by using Glimmer Mists to create the background.  I used Key Lime Pie, Jazz Blue, Daffodil, Deep Plum and then sprayed the whole page with Pearl cos I thought it wasn't 'glimmery' enough!!  Its the first time in ages I've used my mists and I really enjoyed it.

I then stamped Anthromorphic Animals from Lost Coast Designs onto white card with black versafine, coloured them with ColourSoft Pencils and cut them out.

I absolutely *love* these stamps!!! They're lovely stamped just in black or sepia, but once they're coloured, they really come to life!

I stamped the words using some quirky alphabets mainly to remind me of the word 'anthromorphic'.  Its one of those words that I can never remember.  When I looked it up I found this on Wikipedia.  I can't think of a better way to explain what it means!!

After I stamped the words I realised these were too far down the page so I filled the space up with some cat stamps from Kanban (I think).  There are 2 plates and there is a tree to stamp which you can stamp the tiny cats onto.  Because they're in various different poses it looks amazing when its done.  An animal page just wouldn't be complete for me without a cat or 21 :-D

So here is my finished page just in time for the March challenge!

Thanks for organising this again Dawn!

Journal Journeys Challenge 15

Dawn set us the challenge of 'new' on Journal Journeys this month.  Cos my Muse still isn't working to her full potential its taken me all month to think of something I wanted to do.  I decided to use new stash that I've either just got or things I haven't used yet and lets be honest we've all got things we haven't used yet ;)

I used a Splodge Away mat that I bought last year but as I'd bought one for Jo for Christmas I didn't dare use it in case I told her about it!  I used DI in Antique Linen and Spun Sugar which are 2 colours I can't remember ever using to make a pale background.

Then I used my new Dylusions Around the Edge stamps that I got from QVC Last Clicks Clearance.  I decided to use every stamp on the plate and built up a sort of 'garden' scene.  I used Memento ink in Tuxedo Black, Rhubarb Stalk, Dandelion, Lilac Posies, Tangelo, Pear Tart, Grape Jelly, Lady Bug and Bahama Blue.  I then coloured in some of the leaves and spaces in the stamped images with a Picket Fence Distress Marker that I got for my birthday.

I didn't take any photos as I went this time as its a very simple page but I'm really happy with it.

As I've been struggling for a while I think a simple page where I just played with new stash was exactly what the doctor ordered.

If this has inspired you to try journaling, hop over to Journal Journeys and come join us in Dawns monthly challenges!

I am ME!!!

First of all (a belated) Happy New year!!!!

Well after a dreadful end to last year I think (at last) I'm starting to feel a little better.  I've got another appointment at the Pain Clinic tomorrow for a Lidocaine infusion to see if it'll help on the new medication the same way it did on the old.  Fingers crossed :-)

A couple of years ago I got my craft room set up and on New Years Day 2011 I used it for the first time to create this journal page which helped me focus throughout the year.  Last year I did the same with this one.  When my depression hit really badly late last year I printed out pictures of my 2012 page and stuck them all over my house to remind me of how positive I felt when I was creating the page.  I just kept saying I want to get back to my Dita page!!

So now a tradition has been born and on New Years Day this year I did another page.  This time I started with a background I had made the day after I went to the docs and talked about how I was feeling.  I used my Moleskine to 'spill' out all of the c**p that was inside.  I used a dipping pen and some colourful acrylic drawing inks and wrote til I filled the page one way, dried it with a heat tool, turned the journal and carried on writing.  It ended up creating an almost tartan background.

I knew I needed something positive to got over the top but I really didn't want to cover all of the writing up but at the same time I didn't want o be able to read it.  So I used a Crafters Workshop stencil called Ringlets and sponged Claudine Hellmuth paint in Altered Orange, Landscape Green, Yellow Pastel, Sky Blue, Modern Red and Purple Palette through it.  These are not the colours I would normally used as they're a bit pastel for me but I'd already chosen an image to go on the page and they matched perfectly.  I then outlined all of the painted areas with a black Promarker using the fine tip.

As I wanted something positive on the page I sat and wrote out a list of all the good things about me.  At least what I consider good things anyway ;-)  I started with the words 'I am' and just added positive words after that.

I wrote all of these words around the curves of ringlets with the same black Promarker.  I stamped the words 'I am me' in Black Archival but they didn't show up too well so I went over them a couple of times with the Promarker to make them stand out.  The image is from a Sunday newspaper magazine and sort of summed up what the page embodies for me.  She looks so content in her own skin and I need to feel that and this page will help me, I'm sure.

I'm still here ;-)

I started my new treatment on 12th November and apart from it being a *very long* day despite Justine being there, it was pretty uneventful.

The reason we had to be in hospital was in case our heart rates dropped after taking the medication.  It seemed such overkill for just swallowing a small capsule but its better to be safe than sorry.  We both had a wireless ECG machine attached to us and every hour the nurse came and took our blood pressure, checked we were feeling OK and took a heart trace.  After all this nothing happened.  There wasn't even a flutter in either of our heart rates - *fantastic*!!!!

The first week I spent feeling very dizzy.  It was almost like I had water in my head sloshing around and I felt nauseous but I could still eat.  Very bizarre.  Last week I began feeling a little more like me apart from being more exhausted than usual.

I can only take medication I have already been prescribed and nothing else new til after Christmas.  This is so the new drug gets into my system and we can really see how I'm tolerating it without any interference from anything else.  Unfortunately this is causing me a bit of a problem.  I am in absolute agony with my legs and can't take any new pain killers to help.  I've got an appointment tomorrow with the Pain Clinic to see if we can up the doses on any of the pills I have now.

Wish me luck!!!

Relapse...again :-(

Well I'm sitting here recovering from a relapse...again.  But this one is the worst I've had in about 10 years.

The best way to explain what has happened is to explain how MS works.  MS is an auto-immune disease meaning that the white cells which normally protect you from infection get all confused and start attacking my own body.  They 'nibble' at the myelin coating surrounding the nerve fibres in my brain and cause all of my symptoms.  The myelin is like the plastic coating on the outside of an electrical wire.  When its damaged the electricity can escape and cause all sorts of problems.  The same thing happens to my nerve impulses when the myelin is damaged.

Anything can set of a relaspe, particularly and infection or bug.  I had my flu injection (which I need due to my suppressed immune system) and I'm sure that what set this relapse off.  Because I'm no longer on Tysabri and have no MS disease modifying drugs in my system, my immune system is basically having a party and having a good old nibble.

I've been to hospital for 3 days to have a 3 bags of steroids put into me.  That meant having a canula in my hand for 3 days and not being able to sleep.  On top of the trips to the hospital and the relapse, I think I've had a bug too as I threw up for a week and couldn't keep anything down.  The doc eventually gave me pills for morning sickness and they did the trick.

I'm still very weak and exhausted and just can't be bothered with anything.  To make matters worse I've had a birthiday in amogst all of this and I've not been able to see Jo as she's had a cold and we didn't want to tempt fate.  So my pressies are still with her.  Hopefully I'll get to set her on Saturday and have another birthday!!

Anyway roll on next Monday as I start my new medication, Gilenya.  I'll be in hospital all day for monitoring but at least I'll be with a Justine who I met while we were having Tysabri.

Apologies for this being a long, wordy post but I thought you might like to know whats going on.

My Union Jack Cushion Cover

Ages ago I was watching Lorraine whilst having my breakfast and they did a whole segment on home furnishings featuring Union Jacks.  In the middle of all of the £60 teapots and £50 cushions there was a picture of a cushion cover from the Pound Shop.  It just seemed so out of place in amongst everything else it sort of made me take notice.

So fast forward a few weeks and I was in a local Pound Shop and found the cushion covers.  They had ordinary plain printed Union Jacks and then they had the swirly ones.  of course the artist in me made me buy *every* swirly one they had.  Luckily for my purse they only had 3!!!

Then a few weeks after that me and my Mam were in Marks and Spencer and saw *the* most fabulous Union Jack cushion for £25.  It was all done in sequins and my suggested that she could stitch some sequins randomly onto my cover.  So thats exactly what she did.

And here is my *gorgeous* cushion and all for the princely sum of £4.49 including the cushion pad and sequins!!  The bed spread behind it on my rocking chair is one that was on my Mams bed before she got married.  It was all hand embroidered by my Gran.  She was one amazingly clever lady!

Journal Journeys Challenge 12

Oooh look at me - 6th of the month and I'm already entering the challenge.  Makes a refreshing change!

I've had a few comments thanking me for tutorials.  Tutorials weren't my intention.  I intended to put all of the details in purely to remind myself of how I did something and why.  I'm so pleased that helps other people too!

Dawn over on Journal Journeys gave us the challenge on 'friendship' this month.  Its a special month as its the twelfth challenge Dawn has given us and she will enter everyone who posts a picture of their entry on her blog via linky a chance to win some blog candy!!

I searched the internet again for some inspiration and I found a quote that says everything that I know makes a friendship a great one.  I wanted to get this feeling over on the page so I wanted it to be quiet and not at all busy.  This'll all make sense when you see the finished page.

I started off by gessoing the page to cover up the ink from last months challenge that bled through.  I'm a messy journaler ;)  I started off by blending Shaded Lilac DI onto the page but it was a bit too pale for what I wanted.  So I used Picked Raspberry DI (a yummy berry pink colour if you've not got it) around the edge of one page and Dusty Concord around the other.  As I continued to blend I noticed that there was a heart appearing on the page where I'd left Shaded Lilac.  Its must've been serendipity cos it works perfectly on the page.

I outlined the heart using a Signo uni-ball in black. It mustn't have like working over the gesso and ink cos the ink only flowed intermittently.  It just makes it look even more hand drawn.  I also drew a couple of lines down each edge of the pages too.

I copied the quote into Word and changed the font to Kristen ITC and made it much bigger and printed it off in grey.  I made sure there was plenty of space between each word so I could cut them out.  I stuck the words to the page and drew lines around them with the Signo uni-ball and traced the letters with a Sharpie to make it look more like handwriting.

This is truly how I feel about friendship.  I can think of no better way to enter this challenge.  Also I've never done a journal page where I've made the words the only embellishment.

Thanks for organising this again Dawn :)