I am so excited and completely inefficient at the moment. I should be packing but I am not. I am flying to Auckland on Wednesday to attend my son's graduation. I am then staying on with him for a few days before the rest of the family arrives and we spend Christmas together. It is the first year ever that I have not been at home with family. Most years Christmas involves one meal at one side of the family and the other meal with the other side. This year it will be very different. Four humans and 1 dog at our Christmas day. We are enjoying hot steamy days and will probably have a barbeque for our Christmas meals! Very different to all the picturesque snow scenes I have been enjoying on instagram!!
We have rented a house on a farm with a view of the sea. I am not sure what internet access we will have, so I may have a lot of catching up to do on my return!
I wish you and yours a fabulous, fun and safe Christmas and New Year.
xx Michelle
P.S. I made the Christmas tree many years ago, there is a lot of upcycling involved. An ugly old picture frame, black velvet and tons of sequins!
It must have because I lost November and now I am freaking out that it is the beginning of December (I know that is a stretch but pretending keeps me sane)
I have had some internet challenges of late. We upgraded to ultra fast internet, which sounds fabulous but it did not like our computers and after countless phone calls and being advised to be patient, the upgrade was slowing our computers down, we finally figured it out on our own. It clashed with the latest Windows programme. (If you are a NZ Telecom user and have problems contact me and I will tell you the quick fix) Finally I could log on to the internet, I had missed A LOT. On You tube I no longer have comments or messages and have not yet managed to find them! I wish technology would stop speeding past and let me catch up.
During this time I did fall completely in love with instagram. It is so quick and easy and it was not affected by my internet problems on my phone at all.
If you want to see what I did for the last two months, here is the link. http://instagram.com/thepaperaddiction
I have made a number of journals, including this gorgeous one for Alysia
These are some of my latest journals at various stage of completion. I have had a few enquiries so I will show you the options here.
EDIT: I am off on summer holiday for several weeks (Yippee!!!) and so I will not be able to process any sales or accept any commissions until I return.
I will have some journals for sale in the New Year.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you are all having a fabulous December
Today was not a good day to play with alcohol inks. I did remember to open the door in my room and get some fresh air in, but if I don't make sense today .... it is probably because it was too late!!
The lessons in class today are on alcohol inks. I am guilty of seriously under using these products. I do not have a lot of colours, just gold, espresso, rust and black. That might explain yet again why I have created a tonal piece. I did not have any glossy cardstock to hand so instead I grabbed a metal tape card and used the inks for colour and depth. It may not quite fit in with the class but Tim is all about taking the techniques and tools and making them your own and so I did.
The fantastic thing about and online class is it is ready when you are .... you can never be late! Love that.
Tonight I only had time to watch the videos and play with a couple of tags. I do not have a few of the distress products used in today's class but now that I have seen the distress glitter in action I neeeed some!!
I loved the technique used on the right so much I tried it out on the ribbon - do you like the effect? I am sworn to secrecy on how it is done!! (by Mr Tim Holtz, of course)
The technique of the left is done with distress stain and although I have the vintage browns covered I do not have any other colours. I thought it could be tooo boring , but I am thrilled with how it turned out.
Lots of fun and more tomorrow ... Hope you are having a good week
Today was a bad day .... I fell totally in lust with the new layered stencils from Tim Holtz.
I feel the need to shop!!
I made do with my own assorted stencils and played with the techniques we learnt in class.
and then I dragged out my Tim Holtz stamps and went to town ...
I had to stop after I made the above tags, my desk has shrunk, my hands are black and there is craft stuff all over the floor from when I ran out of room on my desk ... I think I need to clean up before class tomorrow!
The class is on now and a new days videos is loaded every day this week but you can take the class at any time and revisit the videos at your own convenience. I love that it is on call whenever I want to check in.
I am busy playing and making a mess today. I joined in the Creative Chemistry class at online card classes. Last year I did the 101 and graduated so now I can join in the next class.
The class is a technique based class and we make lots of tags of the different techniques we learn with all the various Tim and Ranger products. I have a few of most of the products needed, including 1 distress marker in vintage photo. When the markers were released the budget did not stretch far enough so I purchased one to try it out - it is very cool but the lottery tickets have not been very kind so it remains a loner with no friends!!
I managed to make a big fat mess and have a few photos of my creations with my favourite at the end.
I splashed out on the Distress paints and love them. As always I had to have the browns and metallics but now the rest of the colour range is calling my name ....
Yes - this is what happens when you spill distress paint. The good news is the colour is gorgeous and I have lots of backgrounds ready to go!
This year my son left home. He moved to another city to follow his dream of working in the film industry. Some of you will know what that means! I am thrilled for him and so proud, he goes after his dreams and it is inspiring to see. But, I miss him so much and there has been some major adjustments and of course some tears.
He is studying Directing and Scriptwriting at South Seas Film School in Auckland. For his final project he will create a short film and as the Director is responsible for the providing the budget. He is fortunate that a lot of the equipment is on loan from the school and crew are volunteers. He still needs some $$ and I volunteered to make a journal to auction as a fundraiser. The auction is running on Youtube and Ethan and I are thrilled with the response. We have two more days to go, before the auction closes.
I will need to take a lot of photos of this one - it is gorgeous. The cover is rich and lush with layers of ink and glimmer mists in browns, golds, copper and bronze.
Here is the link if you would like to see a flip through
Many Thanks for all the kind comments and fabulous support I have received in the last week.
Hi and welcome to my blog. My name is Michelle Mooney.
I love paper, stamps, inks, paints, stationery, altering things, book making, pinterest and lots of other things yet to be discovered. This blog is a record of the things I make and learn on my creative journey.
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