'Tis the Season...

For me it's the season to celebrate the birth of Jesus. To remember that over 2000 years ago a young girl gave birth to the man - the only man - who can save the world. Whatever your beliefs are, please enjoy this season of love, giving, family time, sharing and celebrating.

Christmas Greetings, and much love!

Four Weeks...

Yes, it's four weeks until Christmas will be upon us. For me that means celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This year I've decided that it's a handmade Christmas. Everything I give must either be made by me, or bought from someone who has handmade it. So far I'm on track.

I'm notoriously bad for being slack about sending out Christmas cards. Usually I'll send out an e-card, which I make myself using a photo of my daughter and I with some photo art on it. This year, however, I've opted for scrapbooking paper, stencils and sparkles, and maybe some other embellishments. The photo shows my progress so far. Very basic!

Tonight I worked on one of my 'secret squirrel' Christmas paintings, which I absolutely LOVE! I can't wait to work on it some more tomorrow after I decide on some more colours.

Happy creating, Paula xo

Am I Crazy?

Last night I did a very bright and colourful entry in my art journal. Yesterday marked one year since I started in my current job and I wanted to celebrate it. Below is a snippet of what I put in my journal. My new butterfly flourish, an attempt to use some paper doileys, viridian green (love it!) and ...  my very favourite ... gloss gel medium! I've never worked with it before but I love it! I was going to use is again tonight in my journal but I needed to evict some pesky little creatures from my girl's hair, so that took precedence!

What I did manage to do tonight in between hair treatments and combing was do a sketch on a canvas board for a Christmas gift that I'm going to paint. I can't wait to share what it is - after Christmas! I don't want to ruin the surprise for the recipient just in case he looks at my blog page! I do ask myself if I'm crazy to take on painting this (yes, it's a bird!), but I'll never know if I don't try!

Anyhoo...that's it for today's creativity. Sleep beckons, and hopefully another early morning like I had today where I worked on my commission piece, added some detail to two small canvas boards for Christmas gifts and admired yesterday's journal entry!

#handmadeChristmas...

The title of this post is the hash tag I'm using on Twitter when posting photos of my latest creations. Yes, this Christmas is going to be a "handmade Christmas", ie everything will either be made by me or bought by another artist. I'm going with this mantra -

Aside from working on some coats of paint on stretched canvas and canvas on board last night, my other handmade effort has been preparing Christmas cards tonight. I bought some simple empty photo cards and scrap booking paper with a Christmas and/or red/green feel to it.

I cut the scrap booking paper down to fit in the empty photo card. As I'm a frugal, aka ikey/stingy, Christmas card giver (I usually send out an e-card created by me using a photo of my daughter and I with some photo art on it) I'll only be giving out 8 of these little beauties this year.

I then got out some silver paint and clear glitter paint and practiced stencilling letters and painting words. I will need a lot more practice as I am a rank amateur in the stencilling stakes, but kind of OK in the painting letter stakes!

I'm enjoying doing AEDM even though I'm only on Day 3 with everyone else being on Day 9. Love. Ing. It!