Stitch & Weave

Fairytales and the Brimble's Book Club When Anna announced the bookclub was starting up, my bookworm leapt for joy. I've always wanted to be part of a bookclub but I've not had the courage to find one to join. I'm an avid reader and I've my nose stuck in a book ever since I was a little girl. Books have always pulled me in, an entire world contained within a few pages, hundreds of people to meet, love and hate. The smell of the paper and ink, it's intoxicating! I knew I wanted to through myself fully into the bookclub and figured I should start a reading planner....and what better way to decorate it than with Anna's absolutely stunning Fairytale Forest  kit. I mean it's a match made in heaven right?  I couldn't resist the opportunity to turn some of the diecut pieces into paperclips. I had originally intended to laminate them to give them a bit more durability but it would mean I'd have to fussy cut them out again and I was too...

Hiya Brimblers!! Phew! The last couple of weeks have been so hectic for me, for one reason or another and sadly I have all but abandoned my art and journaling and if I'm truthful I haven't been doing much planning either! It is true what they say about the imagination/brain being a muscle, in that if you don't use it, you lose it. I've been slowly getting my paints, papers and brushes back out but I'm feeling uninspired and very rusty, even several hours lost on Pinterest haven't helped much. I've mostly been reference working and failing to produce anything original. It'll come in time I hope!! That said I have been making good use of the travel journal I commissioned from Steph at Scurry and Peck . It's just the perfect size for sticking in my handbag and whipping out whenever there is lull in goings on. A couple of weekends back J and I took a round trip from Manchester down to Aylesbury for a wedding cake tasting (omg so good!) and we p...

Hey guys! I cannot believe we are half way through February already! The past few weeks have really zipped by, I'm already behind on my daily journalling....oops! So I've been struggling a bit lately with my creativity, I've not journaled properly since Christmas. I've kept a log of what we've done, in a really informal, unattractive way. So if I feel the urge I can go back and journal, but at the minute I just keep thinking '...Nope'. So I've been exploring and doing other things which involve some level of creativity. I've spent a few hours (read that as days) playing on The Sims4 and doing some Tumblr  ish type DIY projects with Anna's Patreon content for this month. I just can't get enough! Our house has been in a perpetual state of undress for the last five years, we've been slowly, and I mean slooowly doing it up. I've put so many things on hold, kept things in boxes waiting. It has frustrated me to no end, as I feel lik...

The Adventure Pact Hi everyone! Is it too late to still wish everyone a Happy New Year? I often question when it has passed the point when you can still speak well wishes, I guess when people start giving you funny looks in return. As I'm writing this we still haven't quite reached double figure dates, so I'm gunna go with it and wish everyone a fun, creative year ahead! (This is from a recent wander around a local nature reserve) With a new year comes the inevitable talk of “New Year Resolutions”, to speak the truth I'm not a great believer in making them. Too many people seem to drop them within a week or two when the hype and positive outlook begins to wear thin or the self applied pressure starts to weigh heavy. Too bigger a step and you're destined to struggle, if not fail. I don't wish to set myself up to fail so rather than burst into the new year (seriously how many times can I get that term into this blog post?) all guns blazing I try...

Last month's Patreon saw Anna demonstrating the use of masking fluids and wax crayons to create resist art. Now, I haven't created anything using these techniques since I was in primary school, and only then it was with kid eat proof paint and crayons. So I was super keen to get going, so much so that I forgot to follow one of crafting's golden rules namely that of washing your paintbrush after use. So in this case washing it after using the masking fluid....something Anna also mentions in the video! So after a few hiccups and a new brush or two - I did eventually purchase a Molotow Pen which I found a lot easier to use - I kind of got the hang of it. Then I thought I'd be a little more adventurous with it. My initial experiments saw me working mostly with watercolour paints on watercolour paper, so I wanted to try using some other mediums to see what results I could achieve. Here I've used the Molotow Pen to create a couple of quick doodles of Christmassy...