Sunday 24 March 2013

Sam Scraps and Oh Dear Dina what did you do?

Well, I almost fell off my chair when my friend Sam proclaimed that for our next crafty meet up we were going to all do a 12x12 scrapbook layout a la Anna Dabrowska style.  In all the years we've been meeting up Bibi and I have tried several times to get her to have a go at scapbooking but no way would she do!

We're each going to take turns to make up a kit and decide on a project that we all must do - no excuses - the person who's turn it is is boss!  Sam put together a wonderful kit with lace, flowers, leaves, stencils, paper, masking tape, stamps and drippy ink and a photo of the three of us together at Ally Pally.

Layout and kit

Bag of goodies from Sam
I think all our layouts turned out wonderfully, but Sam wasn't too sure about hers, but Bibi and I love it, she was so out of her comfort-zone, never mind that it was a scrapbook layout but she also used colours that are a bit more girly - not her usual greens and browns!
Bibi's LO

Sam's LO

My LO
Last week I spent an amazing 2 days at Art from the Heart in Harrogate taking classes with Dina Wakley.
Dina is so funny, inspirational and just a joy to learn from.  The first day was all about textures and layering, we worked on plaster tiles and book covers using rigid wrap. The rigid wrap is like plaster impregnated bandage, as it's quite messy we all went out onto the fire escape to wet the rigid wrap and apply it to our covers.  What we didn't factor in to this was that it was blowing a gale at the time - just picture plaster dust, drips from watery plaster and bookcovers being whipped out of peoples hands and ending up in the carpark!  I blame Dina, she had done a snow dance earlier and although it didn't snow then I do think she's responsible for the weather - they don't have winter where she lives :)
plaster splattered boots

Dina's fab book

Rigid Wrapped covers

always the sign of a good day!
Incised, sketched,stamped, stenciled, wax on wax off tiles
 We worked on several tiles, incising designs into them, adding paint, adding a layer of beeswax, removing the wax, more incising, more paint.  It's hard to see the lovely sheen of the beeswax on the tiles





Shelob?

Spider on the Tower building in Harrogate

Inspire
 Day 2 was a class based on Silhouettes.  We learned about composition, white space, repetition, layering.
I loved this class too, playing with stencils, sprays and paint. I also bought Dina's book, which I would recommend to anyone interested in Art Journaling.




 I wish I could have attended the faces and 2 day art journaling classes but they were fully booked. At least I know that AFTH isn't too hard to get to from London so I'll definitely be back.





3 comments:

grannypoppy said...

Well, Harrogate is a bit harder to get to from Vancouver!! LOL! But I will make it one of these days! It sounds like you had a fantastic time ... Dina is so inspirational, isn't she! I'm super excited because she is going to come to my part of the world in June! and I've managed to get into ALL the classes she is teaching!Can't wait :) I pre-bought her book ages ago but it only arrived a few weeks ago and I am just making my way through it. Last night was "Earth Day" for us and we turned off the electricity for an hour at night ... I sat by candle light,reading Dina's book! LOL! Like your Finnabair scrapbook pages! Hugs xx

Nan said...

What's a little wind and carmac between friends? Great tiles, and loved thee book cover! The silhouettes are nicely arranged, too! I envy you those two great days!!!

Jester said...

I love all of your pieces. Didn't we have a great two days with Dina? I was fortunate to also attend the faces day. This was more challenging but equally enjoyable.