Meraki Moments

The other day I sat and looked at my paint covered hands and immediately my mind was awash with the words.....'I hope you are good at your academic subjects because you are useless with your hands!' I smiled as I shook my head and said to myself...'If she could only see me now....' When I was about 12 years old, my needlework teacher told me that  I was useless with my hands. S he said that she hoped I was good at my other subjects because she didn't want me in her class the following year.  As if I wanted to be doing that for the rest of my school days! I didn't even like  needlework  anyway.... Now I have had many teachers, who have said plenty of words to me....but none stand out like those...  But you know what? Her words never left me. I believed her!  I took her word as law and for a very long time I let those words control me.   I believed that I couldn't do anything useful with my hands and always shied away from tasks that required ...

I've been meaning to post this all weekend....but the weather was great and kept me outdoors....before I knew it...time got away from me and it was Tuesday.... The day:  Friday, 16th May 2014  Occasion:  National Give and Gain day In the UK, give and gain day is a day when employees give up their day jobs to volunteer in community projects.  The weather was the best it had been in a very long time.  Myself and a few colleagues left the office just after 9 am to make a contribution to this great cause. For some people this was the first time doing a volunteer project and there was some nervousness on what to expect. The journey to the site where we would be working seemed short and before long we were being briefed on the project. Our task:  to clean up a children's play area within grounds of the community centre.  The equipment showed signs of years of neglect. Algae covered the climbing frames, floor and equipment. We had a huge t...

Andy Skinner is one of those people who inspire me to create.... The other day, I watched a video in which Andy demonstrated how to stamp using acrylic paints and as I had never attempted that before, I thought I had to give it a try..... So out came my Art Journal  and all the acrylic paint I had....I just couldn't decide on which colour to use... The stamping turned out pretty great,  using  Andy's technique, and I ended up with some lovely images....I was really very pleased with the result.... I started painting the background between the stamped images....it didn't look half bad.... Then I stamped a big doll face with an dye ink but it kinda got lost among the paint...and didn't show up quite so clearly.... So I went into 'fix-it' mode.... .....but then it all went wrong..... .....you know when you keep adding stuff and hope it turns out right but it just gets worse by the second? ....that what happened to me....I  messed it up ...

So, I hadn't heard about Art Journalling until December last year... Every time I would go to the store and get new 'stuff', I would come home and experiment with it in a book that I used specifically for that purpose... So I ended up with a book full of lovely and not so lovely backgrounds... I was looking around on YouTube to figure out how I can bring mixed media to my scrapbooks without impacting my photo's....when  I discovered Art Journalling by accident...one of those 'good' accidents... I was so excited that I could use this book to make awesome artwork that I dropped everything and immediately turned to Art Journalling... I started adding some journalling to my already prepared backgrounds....some I had to add extra elements such as paper to cover up the mess...but most pages, I used as is.... One of the experiment backgrounds before I did anything to it! It was fun and I was loving every minute of it! The first ever 'true...

So I've been eager to start blogging for what seems like an eternity now.  It all started when I was first introduced to Microsoft's SharePoint and I wanted to share the blogging features with work colleagues but it just seemed that nobody else was interested.... That's sounds like an excuse....truth is I was just scared and didn't feel that I had anything to share!?  Am I still fearful?....absolutely! Do I have something to share?....ALWAYS! So why now?  Basically, I've come to realise that the only person standing in my way is ME! Dreadful...I know.... So I am waging war against my fearful self and just doing it....and today is the first step towards victory. Through my key strokes I wish to share my many interests and ideas, and hope you will be inspired like I have been, by so many awesome people I've met along my journey....