Hi friends!
Look at me posting my September journal page and it’s only the 8th LOL That might still be about eight days later than intended but it’s a whole lot quicker than the last few month’s pages! How was your weekend? Mine was SUNNY and DRY for a pleasant change and I spent a little time pottering in the garden. Not for long, and not doing anything strenuous, I mostly just looked at everything that needs doing and felt bad about not being able to do it lol. There are apples on the trees but too small to pick yet, but what is ready to pick though are the plums, and if I don’t do something about that, it will be too late and they will all get eaten by critters when they fall to the ground. Last year there were so many plums on the tree that one of the branches snapped off under the weight!
Last night I was also able to watch the Tim Holtz Sizzix Vault Christmas live on Youtube while it was actually *live* for a change. I usually forget and end up watching after the event but it was super fun to actually experience it while it was happening. I do have my eye on a couple of these Christmas dies and it’s really helpful to see all the details and inspiration, especially because these vault dies are reimagined from previous dies that you may or may not have in your stash from way back when, so it’s good to compare the new versions to the old versions and see what’s different. It’s also really interesting (to me) how much the technology has changed and that what they could only do in steel rule (bigz) dies they can now do in thinlits and with much thinner lines. Miss Lily also enjoys a good die-cut so I also had a little buddy watching with me…
Yes Miss Lily loves Tim too, and Youtube. After the live, it automatically played the next video and Tim was demoing something using a glue gun and Miss Lily got very excited and had to reach out and touch the screen – she loves a good glue gun moment! Unfortunately/fortunately? this is a touchscreen so every time she touched it with her paw, the video went back 10-30 seconds so it was taking longer than usual to get through a video – maybe she just needed to see the techniques more than once? LOL
Today’s art . . .
Anyway, let’s look at the page…
This is my September calendar page, and yes, I went there. It’s very ORANGE and just a touch Halloween. How did that happen? LOL I’m still using the same recycled A4 bullet journal as before, and as this was a page that had been used already, I did have to use the paper to cover up the old writing on the journal. I cut this lovely little Halloween origami paper into squares and then collaged it around the pages. I found this in my stash, I remember buying it a few years ago (before 2020) in an art shop and it has a picture of an origami bat on the packet, and I thought at the time “cool, probably has lots of origami instructions inside” but guess what, it doesn’t! So that was majorly disappointing at the time. I have origami books plus the internet of course, but I think they missed a trick not including some diagrams for Halloween icons.
After I collaged the papers, and filled in the blank spots with a Posca, I set about die cutting a bunch of letters. I couldn’t decide what colour to use so I cut four different ones to play with, and ended up using the black and green letters. This particular set cuts the letter with an outline, so you get two for one. The letters are also 2 inches tall, and I knew that would be a problem, when it came to adding the days of the week because of the the 1st being a Sunday, but it didn’t bother me. You can see what I mean in the photo below.
Miss Lily was of course available to assist and waited on her blanket in case I needed some help. (This help usually comes in the form of her eating the die cuts btw.) Today she was on her best behaviour and no die cuts were harmed in the making of this page. 🙂 Alphabet dies are my favourite dies, I can’t resist a good font!
I’m kinda loving this green card, it’s textured and it’s also really cheap and old and I found it in a drawer, so bonus! I think I bought it for card bases years ago but it’s too thin, however, it’s perfect for diecutting these letters. I used the green inners and the black outers to spell out September, and used the black inners for the days of the week, and the green inners for 2024. The 2024 might look like it has a black outer but it’s only some pencil shading.
After a hard day of supervising me, Miss Lily needed to take a nap on the other side of my table. She was making the most adorable little kitty snores and her whiskers were twitching. Aww….
I am linking to Art Journal Journey’s “Anything Goes” theme hosted by Aimeslee from Paper Paisleys Art Adventures. I have to say I am warming to this AG theme, this is my third page already this month!
Let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading and Happy Journalling!
Ingredients
my recycled A4 bullet journal, Halloween origami paper, distress crayons, glue, posca pens, black card, green texture card, sizzix alphanumeric die, black pen, PA snowflake paint
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – Anything Goes – September theme
Beautiful calendar pages, loving those alphabet letters too ??. It’s always fun to see what the pretty Miss Lily is up to and wow, all those plums look fab ?. Wishing you a very Happy Friday and weekend! Hugs, Jo x
Yes it is your third entry and I’m thrilled you are warmng to the theme, because it gives YOU the freedom to journal whatever you want or need to. This is a great decorated calendar and also fine to use the orange and black, those are fall colors too! I also like that green card, it has a nice textural weave. So funny about Miss Lily having a Tim crush like the rest of us, haha. The only scissors in our house are his (the long and short ones) and even my hubby was won over by them as they can cut anything almost. I splurged on like 5 pairs all over the house, not counting my craft room ones. Honey says, go get the Tim guy scissors, lol. I’m not brave enugh to watch the live shows, I’d be pre-ordering everything and I’m on a no-buy diet as I’m destashing for our move later on once we find a house. And it does take research, not only to compare to his original dies which I may have already, but also to any of the old Sizzix dies as some are so similar. I hope you can find someone to help you pick all that fruit! Thanks for sharing again with AJJ, xoxo
Wow, your plums look amazing. I bet they are tasty too. My dad had a plum tree when I was a kid, and when he finally got plums he was ecstatic. I’ll need to watch that TH holiday show. Get inspired. I do like your calendar for September too. Orange is a good color choice. And I’m with you about the green paper, but awfully glad no letters were harmed in the making of your calendar page. Thanks for linking up to Aimeslee’s AJJ challenge, and have a good week. It sounds like you are at least able to move around a bit now-which is good. hugs-Erika
Like Alison, you put my calendar pages to \shame.. This definitely had the feel of autmn. Thanks for sharing this calendar spread using Aimeslee’s theme at AJJ.
Those question marks were meant to be a black kitty icon! Lol
This is a super spread Elle! I love the patterned papers and the big die cut letters and numbers. Lovely to see your faithful little helper too ???
Hope you enjoy the harvest from your garden.
Hugs,
Alison x
It going to be fun to see what other artist did for this upcoming month of September.