AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 8

Today's creation for AEDM is a watercolour painting, in the faces sketchbook I painted yesterday:

What is it about giving a new look to a old book that suddenly makes you want to work in it immediately? It's like it's a brand new one, it's magic lol

Lovely Tracey Fletcher King left me a comment on yesterday's post saying how she loves having a pile of sketchbooks around her, and I have to say I'm the same with journals, so thought I'd take a snap of those currently stacked in the corner of my desk: 

 

There's something about stacking that's so strangely satisfying, I can't say what, but there is. The biggest quantity of possessions I have is books, every nook of my bedroom is piled high with them, and even when they are on a bookshelf they are still stacked, not lined up. These are just the journals I have been working in the past week and I still have to stack them: weirdo!

I also did a page in my horrid art journal, trying to fill it up:

Day 7's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 1,727

Totalling: 9,406, but I'm going to have to take everyone's advice over the past week and start ignoring the word count, as it's driving me crackers! I'm not enjoying writing at all because it's become a chore - which in my world means it's never going to get done! (Chore's suck bum, majorly) (...I don't know what suck bum means exactly, I just know I use it a LOT when I'm not happy lol)
See you tomorrow, Jennibellie x

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 7

Today's creation for AEDM is a face I drew onto recycled board like my friend's ornament yesterday. But then I decided I didn't want to hang her or something similar so I grabbed one of my trusty Winsor and Newton Sketchbooks:

I love them, they are lovely quality paper and really quite cheap (if you shop right) so I brought all sizes, thinking I can just use them for random doodling, cut them out & add them to the art journals I have bound myself, then once all the paper had gone use the boards for painting or more journals. The trouble is though I CANNOT DESTROY A BOOK! Yes I can alter them, or even turn them into something else completely if I know it will breathe new life into them, but every time I pulled out a doodle I heard it saying (in a Dobby the house-elf type voice) 'master, please no master, save me!'. So I've designated each of them with a role, the smallest one in the picture is to be a journal for practising faces. Here's the before:

and after it was painted & board added to it:

The faces inside are more 'serious' sketches than her, so it's a little misleading but I didn't care. I went all girly with scraps of fabric tied to the spine with an old bracelet dangle, simply hooked to the top spiral binding by the clasp. And who knows I may end up drawing a few more cartoony looking faces inside too. I ended up painting the back too:

Day 6's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 1,397 - boooooooo!

Totalling: 7,679, still behind should have been at 10,000 eeek. So today I'm even further behind and, really, it's too early to be lagging. I'm going to have to try my hardest to turn it around otherwise this time next week I'll be so far back my post will be a resignation. It's not that I even find writing hard, argh get it together you frustrating girl! I did originally sign up for this for fun, can you tell?? Lol

Happy week one finished to all doing AEDM or NaNoWriMo!!!!! Xxxxxxx

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 6

Today's creation for AEDM is:

Ornament for a friend (blog-matching ornament too lol) made with packaging board decoupaged in scrap paper to strengthen. I love the translucentness of the skin, although it hasn't photographed too well :(. To do it I painted her with water-soluble crayons and watercolour pencils then took a piece of tissue paper and allowed it to absorb most of the colour, leaving only a hint. With the hair I scratched away the paint with a needle, to show the white paper in places beneath.

The top right hand corner has a hatpin, which are really easy to make yourself with a headpin and a bead, I then added an old broken bracelet to it for a fancy dangle. Also linking to Sunday Sketches, over at Blue Chair Diary.

Day 5's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: Zero, Unfortunately! Therefore total is still: 6282. I guessed it was going to happened at some point this month but a little disappointed it was so soon. But it was a day when family matters came first and I had to play Nurse Nightingale, as my mum calls it. 

I was hoping to get some words done once I got home but then Bonfire night settled the rest of the word shortfall, just look at these demon eyes:

It's my full-sized border collie, trying to fit into a space a jack russell would have difficulty with (under my bed), leaving a wave of destruction behind him. This is after a week of him trying to fit into a computer armoire, the boiler cupboard, a shelf of scrapbooks under my desk and so on and so forth, increasingly getting worse as the bangs grew more frequent leading up to the mass of noise last night. I cleared out everything under half of the bed to give him space to stretch out, then put the tv up to it's highest in my bedroom and my ipod dock blasting on max in my studio, trying their best to drown out the bangs that were terrifying him so much. But in doing this rendered concentrating on writing absolutely impossible, the place was reverberating! So no words at all but hopefully one slightly less distressed pup than what could have been.

Now I'm off to try and catch those runaway words back up, thanks for visiting J xx

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 5

Today's creation for AEDM is the second half of my eco-friendly box project, the insides:

6 journals made by taking the boxes and covering them in scraps of leather I have from other projects. I thought I would have to do a patchwork job on some but thankfully I found 6 whole pieces large enough.

The insides are lined with pieces of patterned paper from my scrap drawer, again left over of previous projects:

All bindings were done with my Grandmother's left over knitting yarn and on each spine I added a charm from broken jewellery as a handle to pull out the box, but as it turns out they're real easy to remove anyhow. I pretty much did the same binding with the wrap-over dangle closure as I demonstrated in the dos-a-dos book tutorial.

Day 4's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 1,201

Totalling: 6,282 so far

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 4

Today's creation for AEDM was made because I decided to go through the cardboard boxes I have been hoarding from food packaging etc, and soon became swamped in them! Something had to be done, so here is the first half of the two part project:

I decoupaged the cardboard box in pieces of scrap paper and vintage ephemera, painted it, then added metal pieces upcycled from old belts and broken things so it's all eco-friendly. 

Tomorrow I will be using the rest of the food boxes I have in this size to make what is going to go inside - that's where the real fun begins :)

Gotta love some crackle paint drippage! Linking up with Paint Party Friday, Sneak Peak and Artists in Blogland to see what wondrous things are being made.

Day 3's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 2037

Totalling: 5081 - Whoop, 10% of the way there!

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 3

Today for AEDM I have been playing around with Sennelier Oil Pastels:

I don't especially like the results but my intention was the test them out with colours mixing on the page (not smudging with fingers basically - as I have an obsession to merge everything together so it's smooth and uniform). I LOVE these pastels so much. I really do have to start planning a proper picture in mind so I will actually like the results, but I become a child when I get them in my hands and just start scribbling away until I realise I have just made a mess.

I've put them inside this art journal which I also gave a spruce up today by adding fabric and decorative tapes, a sketch and closures with elastic:

I have never enjoyed working in this journal since I made it in the Journal a Day June Challenge I set myself. I can't say why when I usually enjoy working in any & every journal & all the right elements are there - watercolour papers, patterned scrapbooking papers, vintage ephemera, envelopes and flip out pages and I made it myself, which I always feel gives a connection. I just don't like it, so I think I'm going to add the bits and pieces of playful scraps like the two oil pastel drawings until it is full up (because I simply cannot bear the idea of another journal left unfinished)

Day 2's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 1,376, slipping a little already! Going to try to catch up on those few extra words today, otherwise I can see it going downhill ridiculously early.

Total words so far: 3044

Thanks for stopping by, Jennibellie xxx

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 2

Today's creation for AEDM is:

It's a vintage ladybird book I picked up on one of my recent treasure hunts (car boot sales/flea markets/charity shops etc) and I thought I would alter it. It has a damaged spine - which to me is fantastic as I can add some dangles of broken jewellery before I repair it. I am also showing my desk as I'm linking to What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday over at Julia's Stamping Ground blog as I didn't want to miss the weekly fun just because November is AEDM & NaNoWriMo time.

Today I'm just going to be gessoing pages as below, leaving all of the artwork as part of the altered design:

But what I thought was really cool is that it is from 1984 - my birth year - so I think I'll turn it into something to do with that year, or perhaps my journey from that year to this, we'll see.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to get some painting (other than painting of another new book) done, otherwise by the end of this month I'm going to be swamped in new journals and altered books to fill up, if I continue the way I seem to have started.

Day 1's final word count for NaNoWriMo was: 1668. The last 1000 words were a lot easier than the first 600 so I'm hoping (in my naivety) it is like writing a university essay - it's the first few sentences that cause the most pain, but then leads into you realising you have a lot more to say on the subject than you ever thought possible.

Here's hoping anyhow, thanks for stopping by, much love Jennibellie xx

AEDM & NaNoWriMo Day 1 & Giveaway Winner

November is AEDM & NaNoWriMo Month Whoop!

Today's creation for AEDM is:

It is a junk journal I made from a pamphlet/leaflet I had similar to this one below (which will probably also face the same fate one day):

First I painted all the pages, then grabbed some packaging board (you know that greyboard that stiffens envelopes) which I decoupaged in newspaper to strengthen it, painted then added as the covers.

I painted the paper thoroughly in the middles but I like layers so I left the edges rough to hint at the original pages underneath:

Today's word count for NaNoWriMo is: (currently - it's 5pm here) 341 - but I realised I am a night owl and will usually write away up to (and over) midnight so it's pretty useless doing a blog post for the same day's word count, as it probably won't even be done yet. Therefore after today my Nanowrimo word update will for the previous day's total.

Finally today is the day I said I would pick a winner for this Zine & Ephemera giveaway:

However, I also said in a previous post I would also add another extra I have been recently working on. So here you go - it is to be the winners choice as to which one they want, you may pick any of the below digital ephemera college sheet kits. Each kit contains 5 sheets:

Hollywood Star Cigarette Cards

Wild Bird Collectable Tea Cards

Christmas Vintage Ephemera Set I

Christmas Vintage Ephemera Set II

British Costume Collectable Tea Cards 

Winner - please click on the links below each picture, which will take you to my Etsy shop listing for each set, if you want further details to choose which one you want.

So onto picking the winner. All names went into this vintage tin:

and were shook up

and...

the winner is

Congratulations Patsy! I'll contact you soon for shipping/emailing details.

Thank you to everyone who entered too - all of you who think my blog is worth your time to read mean a great deal to me :)

Much love, Jennibellie xx