Offers at My Etsy Shop and an Offer for Yours

Hi guys just a heads up that I will be closing my shop on Sunday. But before that I've an early Christmas gift of 20% off everything in my shop (no minimum order) until Sunday, when I will close my shop until the new year. So if you want something as a gift please get it now using the code 'XMAS2013' during checkout.

I have per-zines available:

Art-zines:

Arty-Embellishments 

& lots of other arty things:

& plenty more at the shop.

Also if you are thinking about opening your own Etsy shop but haven't taken the plunge yet Etsy have started a friend referral system that gives away free listings, to both the new shop opener and the referrer. So if you want a shop but don't want to pay for your first 40 listings, please use this link to open your shop and make both of our wallets breathe easier =)

Happy Christmas shopping & creating ;)

Much love

Making Zines Vlog

Okay so as many of you know (having brought some already from my shop, or chatted to me about them over email, or traded some with me, or just read about them previously on here etc) I am a bit of a zine-nut.

I cannot help it, that was what a journal page {below} I posted on my social media type sites was about yesterday - me trying to resist the temptation to make yet another zine that is currently residing in my head!

So I'm posting this vlog, of me in full zine-making mode, to try and envelope others into the zine fold as it is obviously an obsession of mine that will not abate...as you are likely to see more of them here anyways I thought why not.

 Here's a mini glossary of terms I use in the vlog, just to bring you up to speed:

Zine: A self publication, usually of pamphlet size

Cut n Paste: Traditional way to make a zine visually appealing, using 'cut n' paste' collage

Perzine: Abbreviation used for 'personal-zine', meaning one's own life is the main topic

Zinester: A person that reads/makes/trades/sells zines

Distro: A collective of zines; someone or place that distributes several people's zines

Okay if you would like to see my zines you can find what I currently have in this section of my shop, I am now off to go and...guess what?? lol

Much love

Jennibellie

Riding the 'Bleh!' Wave

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

mojo-abandoning, motivation-lacking, uncreatively-moody times are frustrating.

I've had nearly a day of 'free' creative time, in which I have not been particularily creative. I have made some stuff, yes. And it felt kinda good, yes. But did it have my heart? Hell no.

I've decided to ignore the voice that's saying 'you have creative time, you MUST use it'. A battle of my head vs my heart is ensuing yet again against in my creativity. 

But all that head stuff is stifling and ultimately I just feel 'bleh!'

... anything I make will just feel 'bleh!' too. What is the point of creating 'bleh!' just to satisfy the head that something creative happened? 

I'm going to ride the 'bleh!' wave.

It consists of using my creative time to instead read zines, take the dog for long walk, watch bad tv and switch off totally from the internet (which in my opinion can sometimes overwhelm, rather than assist creativity). All the stuff I feel like doing right now, but all the stuff I feel bad for doing (aka 'time wasting').

Perhaps by riding the wave till it ends I'll find a pot of creativity gold at the end (wave/rainbow - same thing right?)...if not then there's always more bad tv...

Much love

Mystery Mail Now Available

I am SO excited I have to blog about this...

For MONTHS I have had an idea in my head and after A LOT of labour it is finally a reality YAY!

I have made a few mystery mail art packs. 

It was an idea born out of several smaller ideas: one for a postcard club and another for an anonymous zine swap but I'm thinking I don't really have a proper way to organise those things. May be a ning or facebook group is calling me somewhere in the future where I can have a hub to do that sort of stuff ;)

The final idea I had was one for mail art subscriptions from my shop, ya know where I make mail art and send it out monthly to subscribers but that seemed like a larger commitment than necessary, for both me and the mail art lover.

So I decided to smush all the ideas together and mystery mail is the result.

A few are available in my shop <<< only a few for now mind

Click here to send yourself a goodie surprise!

We'll see how we go with this one and depending on how the idea goes down I may do another one (hence why I named it Mystery Mail '1') but not for a while mind, it took A LOT of work lol

Well laid plans always do...

Update: Mystery Mail has now SOLD OUT. All I had went within an hour - wowee! Thank you =) I'll get on making some more for next week, keep an eye out on my etsy ;)

Much love

What a Week! Update & Tutorial Update

Hello beautiful readers, 

I'm so sorry I've not blogged much this past week I've been insanely busy =(

If you follow me on facebook you'll probably have seen that I have still been making things. Often very quick things that have been squished into what time I have had, which was mainly yesterday, but I didn't blog about that because I fully intended to do a new post today, which was supposed to be a Smash Book Making Tutorial;

see, I have been gettin' on making it, bit's here & there ;)

but again I've been so busy today that I'm now at 10pm and facing an early start... so alas the tutorial, which will probably take me quite a long time to write, will have to wait for another day....look out for it later this week.

Other things I've been making this week include:

Videos

(yes new videos woohoo! but again these take A LOT of time to make so please be patient with me)

New Greetings Cards for my shop:

Customizable for ANY occasion, multipurpose yeah baby!

Thank you so much to everyone who's purchased something from me this weekend, parcels are being posted tomorrow so your goodies will be with you soon =)

At the very start of the week I made a mood board 'jus coz..':

And I've also been making a new *ZINE* woohoo!!

I'm in total zine heaven at the moment, I love reading and making them sooooooooooooo much!

And finally today...

even though I've had next to no time to get creative I made these rush paper beads:

from this junk mail brochure

love me some fatties!!!

they still need jazzin' up but at least they're a start because HELLO you can never have too many beads ;) lol

and I've also done this blogpost,

...ok so that was rushed too, and not the tutorial I had wanted to do but still...

I hope it gives some inspiration to show that in those times

when life refuses to give your creative muse the reins

it's still possible to say 'stick it daily crap, I'm having five'

and pick up a glue stick to literally do just that!

I REFUSE TO NOT STICK SOME STUFF!!!!!

tee hee

much love

Cutie Pie Embellishments & Giveaway

I'm VERY excited today because I finally get to show you something I've been working on & itching to show you for months and have a **GIVEAWAY** - double yay!

So let me introduce you to my new Cutie Pie Embellishments which after much, much, much hard work finally are in the shop yay! I've been working on them since this post in fact, but if you're a regular reader you may recognize them as being born out of this post:

where I had a Cutie sketch attack while watching the Bourne Triology...coz you know Matt Damon does that to me (...not really...well may be).

...since then I've been painting, editing & adapting them, and during my downtime trawling through suppliers to get *exactly* what I wanted. I only have the embellishments in stock at the mo, anything else will just have to be a future surprise because ever since I re-opened my etsy shop I have been working for it to contain some really nice items, because if people are going to spend their money with me I want it to on special things that make you *squeak* when you receive the envelope - or digi file - lol. And I've also been itching to do a giveaway for AGES (ever since my last one in fact) and so it seemed nice to combine the two. So currently I have made:

Cutie Pie Hand-Cuts:

Blurb: Hand-cuts: my artisan take on die-cuts. 
My original watercolour paintings turned professionally into prints that are then individually and lovingly cut out by my own hand (...so chuffed with myself when I came up with the name 'Hand-cuts'!).

&

Cutie Pie Journal Spots & Stickers

Blurb: Journaling spots and stickers created from my original girlie & animal Cutie-Pie watercolour paintings. Professionally printed then cut by hand; they are craft supplies, but with a handmade artsy edge.

so now I've let you know what they are 

in the giveaway are 3 prizes;

Prize 1: Cutie Pie Embellishment Bundle:

Contains both the Hand-Cuts and Journal Spots & Stickers

Prize 2: One Pack of the Cutie Pie Handcuts:

Prize 3: One Pack of the Cutie Pie Journal Spots and Stickers:

So to enter it's just my regular simple rules of:

1) be a follower of this blog by clicking the 'join' button over there -------->

(though Google Reader is dying soon so if you want to keep up with my posts you can follow me on Bloglovin as well) 

2) leave me one comment on this post telling me you want to enter...

(though previous giveaways have given insights to explain I have approval filters on so don't send it through 50 times thinking it's disappeared - if you post it, I'll get it. Nor do I go in for all the 'like on here, there and everywhere and get an extra 50,000 entries', I keep it simple & fair for all so ONE comment only please. Finally if you leave a comment as 'anonymous' you MUST leave me your name and email in that comment - I may have many magical talents but guessing a random anonymous persons email address is beyond anyone's magical wand capabilities!)

That's it! I'll announce the winners in one week, on the 15th May. First name outta the hat will get prize 1, second name prize 2 etc. Simples. Oh and if you wana make sure you get a set of Cutie Pies in the meantime but are a winner of what you buy I'll just refund the purchase (and the p&p) via paypal once you've been picked. All countries welcome to enter.

Good luck to everyone & remember to come back on the 15th =)

much love

PS

I said I'd post when the Jennibellie's Journals zines are in stock, I did a post on facebook but forgot on here so 'the Jennibellie's Journals zines are in stock' lol better late than never...

Comic Strip Page

So you know I've been kinda slow on the journal pages recently, as I said in My Journal Pattern post a while ago, sometimes I do nothing but art journal, other times I do anything but art journal. And this is one of those latter times. And that's okay. My muse isn't much fussed about looking at, or producing, art journal pages but instead looking outside the box of art journaling; which is fine, awesome in fact. It gets me to see what else is around me that can inspire and develop into something.

'Drained' says (and shows, from it's lack of inspiration/interest) it all!

Recently I've been really into reading zines, especially perzines, and given my artistic nature I definitely prefer those that are created with an artistic flare of their own; which has lead me to read a few comic based zines. What I love most about these comic perzines is that they can take the mundane of days and turn them into something relate-able, clever and fun. So taking inspiration from some of my favourite zinesters* last night I created a comic strip, picking something mundane from my day and choosing very simple sketches, so that I didn't find the process too arduous (which would be a sure sign I'd never make one again lol)

A jiffy later here's the finished result, 

about how Sweepie's just like a real boy, and will eat anything....just as long as it's off of your plate.

And so you can read it easier:

So super simple but it did give me a feeling of accomplishment lol. This is in my written journal & I'll definitely be doing more of these in there to log my day. My bff is always drawing our time together like this, and I used to do little 'bits' like this in my teenage journals (which looked like a cross between zines with their doodles and copy & paste elements & Smash Books with their across-class-notes and ticket stubs with journaling) can't believe it hasn't occurred to me to do it as another form of journaling before now. I highly recommend this for when you don't feel like getting out all your pens/paints/crayons/etc/etc/etc and doing the full art journal shindig.

Happy creating, much love

* (I know I've blogged about zines before but I'm aware I may be still be speaking a different language to some of my readers here, so 1) Zine, a form of self publication on any desired topic 2) Per-zine, short for personal-zine, can be a diary or poetry etc 3) Zinester, someone who makes/trades/reads zines. K? Good. Great. lol)