Spot the tree frog...

Uhhhh I nearly steped on him! What is he doing out of his tree? Does he not realize, that he is an endangered species? Get back up you.....

Last of the Prayer Flags.

 To day I received the last Prayer flag of the 5 that I was waiting for, to complete the string. This was a swap over at milliande.ning. Love the chinese feel to this...

 It came from Cecile in USA,  a beautiful Koi on Raw silk!

That completes the string, and just in time too! This weekend must be the last one, with weather like this. Wont be long, and lights out for us up here in the North!

The pile is growing!

Despite the many Journals/Sketchbooks that I have given away or used myself, the pile of my hand made books is slowly growing My aim is to open an Etsy shop, and sell them! Still need to get a few things together, prices (TY Maria), postal (TY Anna), paying,....I now have a name. :-) I asked Mary to help me out, as she is so good with words, and as expected, she pulled a few out of her hat. Thank you Mary, again! I shall keep you all posted :-)

Boring bills in amazing colours!

I still get some of my bills in normal envelopes, in the mail. This month I thought, what a waste of paper. Then I opened one up, to reveal the most amazing colour inside this boring white keeper of boring bills!!! Wow!

 Greens, blues, greays....patterns, what  lovely journal pages they will make!

Put it all together, sewing and binding, and made a cover from the see through plastic, that came with a acrylic stamp.  Now thats 100 % recycleíng. :-)

100% Recycled.

 Too many bits and pieces, scraps of paper laying about......I won´t throw it out! I´ll make a journal from it all.....

 Inside of cover, layers of papers and tissues.....

 Front cover, and the finished journal.

 Old magazine pages with Gesso. More will be applied when I get around to actually journal in this...

 Some of the pages came out like this. Little ones......

 And some pictures are allowed to stay!

Back cover. (Good memory from concert in Edinburgh this summer)

Italy / Denmark Journal swap.

 Latizia from Italy, were looking for a journal swap partner, over at milliande.ning. I jumped in, and were the lucky choosen, so here I go!
The journal itself is handmade, Teesha Moore style. Have never done one like this before, so that was a good experience. 140 lb Langton Prestige watercolour paper, 16 pages.
I let my muse play, and the cover became very much more colourful than i usually does my journals, so that was fun. I keept to the turquise inside the journal, and are now awating orders on what the first page is all about, before sending it off to Italy, and getting Latizia´s journal in exchange. And that will then go on for a whole year. Very exciting. I will keep you posted!

Beautiful.

Frank´s Travel Journal.

Yesterday, my milliande friend Palma posted a great tutorial over on milliande Art Journal Studio from balzersdesign.typepad.com - on how to make your own leather journal. We all loved it, and I made one. Just right for a present, to the man who fixes my lawn mower, when not walking the Caminio, and always keeps a Travel Journal.

I made 5 signatures, A4 folded. The inside I strenghend with scrapbook paper, elephants on unibikes!
The leather was a scrap piece, hence the uneven´ness. I went over it with my sewing machine, to make it look as if it was intentional, the NOT square bit of material. It was fun to try out this type of binding, it looks nice on the back, the long stitches. I shall enjoy passing it on :-)

Coffee break.

I enjoy my daily 5 minutes sketching. Using a black ink pen, makes for no mistakes, no second thoughts! Just observe, and draw. (In this one, notice the rim of the cup, one of those: Ohh no! moments, but it happens. )

Frame it!

Yesterday we had no light at all..today it so bright, that the images are hard to catch. But I love the transformation that the framing makes, -turning my little artworks into wall hangings!
Thank you Maria for pushing and Mary, this is for inspiration :-)

Back to sketching....

Promising a new journal page everyday for the rest of this month, was maybe....a bit much! So I now put in a quick 5 minute sketch on the days where an actual journal page is missing.
So the one for today, is a sketch of what is in front of me, on my work desk. Instead of a journal page, I will go outside and paint two windows! In between the rain showers......!

Where have all the berries gone..?

What a strange berrie year we are having. I went today, on the old bike, to our secret bramble picking place. HORROR!

No berries! Loads that are red and unripe... its too late´in the season. We won´t get enough sun for that lot to ripen, shame. Must be all the rain we have had.

 Two handfulls put in the freezer (two handfulls!) And two mixed with apples from the garden and 1 kg of Rosehips. They were finished, but I managed to get just enough for one jar of jam....

Looks good.....but one jar!! Never happend before!

Never before...

September page #2

Never before a page made up from only 3 layers!!! And never before have I looked at the month of september with this colour palette.

Contrasts.

It is hard to emagine, looking at these photo´s of the very beginning of the sugar beet harvest season, -that in a month from now, every single adult person with a drivers license, living on this Island, driving to work in the morning, will be frantic, swearing and stressed- all because of the poor visuability, rain, fog, sliding in knee deep mud at 5 miles per hour, 30 cars ques, after big tractors with mountains of sugar beets on tow....... well, thats all in the future, right now its all about primary colours!  Look at this-

So I think tomorrows Journal page will be very colourful....?

The colour Orange.

On my walk on the beach today, I decided to look for the colour orange...Inspired by my daughter, who wrote home from Scotland saying: Help! All the rosehips are gone, and I havnt made any jam yet!" Looking out my window at the hedges towards the sea,....I thought, all I could see was orange...

 Judging from these photo´s, you would think our beach were littered with junk! It´s not, My walk took over two full hours...

 In the ditch beside the dike, I saw these wild flowers! Wow, didn´t know they were still flowering.

 And look at him! Crossing the path. Looks like a miniature bottle cleaner!

 Do not ask me what these fruits/berries are. Grows on the beach.......Thorny shrubs.

These are for you Anna :-)