It is part of something I have been doing for myself, that will ultimately help all of the ladies and children that I teach.  I have been doing a lot of painting, a lot of reading and a lot of journaling on my creative journey.  I do have heaps of images of what I have completed to share, just not yet.

The shop has been really busy with loads of new stock and heaps of classes.  My classes so far this year have all been pretty full with up to 14 attending Scrapbooking and 12 attending Copics at a time.  I am teaching Scrapbooking three times a week and am loving the response of my wonderful students.

Last week I started teaching a new class I have been working towards for about six months – Watercolouring with Distress Inks.  The ladies who attended enjoyed themselves and thankfully it was a small class so they received the attention needed for this technique.

The kids are doing great back at school, even Noah now he is at Prep.  The activities like sports, music and choir have all started – including a 7.30am start for one of them this morning.

I wanted to share something I have learnt, well I already knew this so lets say I reminded myself of it recently:

I never re-do scrapbook pages.  I believe that we all create from our hearts and a piece of us is left on each project we create.  By re-doing a page it seems to me to devalue what you did with it in the first place.  I like to see where I have come from, where I have been and where I am going with my scrapbooking style in the past decade.  The piece of me I have imparted into each layout is an integral part of the memories contained in the page.

I don’t discard any cards I create, they just go into the card box for giving at another time.  I might make a second card to give to the original recipient, but I still use the original card eventually.

I don’t destroy my art!  I might re-work a piece as my intuition tells me if it is incomplete, but I definately don’t re-do or detroy a piece that I have believed to be complete at some time no matter how long ago.  All art is a beautiful reflection of the artist, no matter how ugly, weird or down-right strange.

I don’t remove pages from my Art Journal, no matter how ugly or silly I think they are.

An artist I am intending to learn more about this year said something profound recently about knowing when to move onto the next project.  Knowing when to leave it be and just move on is very important, and requires us all to listen to our own intuition not our inner critic.  This doesn’t mean to leave a project unfinished, it really means to know when to stick it down, finish it off and pack it up (or put it in the album/card box/on the wall).

I always complete a scrapbook page or card before I move onto the next.  I can honestly say I only have one scrapbook layout that I haven’t completed, and it includes five pages with lots of stitching and about forty photographs – I work on it regularly and it is more of a work-in-progress than a UFO. 

Art is a bit different as I have a couple of pieces of Art that are quite time consuming and I work on them in small time blocks – one of which I finally completed last week.

So the message I really want to share is to believe in yourself, to believe in what you do, to learn which voice to listen to and know when to finish-up and move on – and not to come back and do a re-do.

If you want to have a go at my Layout Sketch and you want a chance to win a $15 voucher all you have to do is:

1. Create a layout using my sketch (above)

2. Upload your layout to the Scrapbook Fantasies Gallery (here).  You can also upload it to your blog or another gallery/forum where it can be publicly viewed, but please make sure you link back to here so that others can have a go and view the submitted works as well. (Please only link to the blog post that contains your layout, not your general blog address)

3. Come back here and add your name and the link to your layout using the Inlinkz tool below.  You must do this step to be eligible for the prize.  (If you have trouble with this just email and I will do my best to help you)

You have until midnight on 29 February 2012 (the time counter below will let you know how long you have).

I will draw a random winner who will receive a $15 voucher from Scrapbook Fantasies. 

Good luck and have fun!

If you want to have a go at my Card Sketch and you want to win a voucher from Scrapbook Fantasies all you have to do is:

1. Make a card or creation using my sketch (above)

2. Upload your card or creation to the Scrapbook Fantasies Gallery (here). You can also upload it to your blog or another gallery/forum where it can be publicly viewed, but please make sure you link back to here so that others can have a go and view the submitted works as well.

3. Come back here and add your name and the link to your creation using the Inlinkz tool below.  You must do this step to be eligible for the prize.  (If you have trouble with this just email me and I will do my best to help)  Please only link to the blog post that contains your creation, not your general blog address.

You have until midnight on 14 February 2012 (the time counter below will let you know how long you have).

I will draw one random who will receive a $15 voucher from Scrapbook Fantasies.

Image created by Marianne Walker – Copic USA
(http://www.ilikemarkers.blogspot.com/)

{I have fixed the incorrect dates on My Classes page}

If you want to have a go at my Layout Sketch and you want a chance to win a $15 voucher all you have to do is:

1. Create a layout using my sketch (above)

2. Upload your layout to the Scrapbook Fantasies Gallery (here).  You can also upload it to your blog or another gallery/forum where it can be publicly viewed, but please make sure you link back to here so that others can have a go and view the submitted works as well. (Please only link to the blog post that contains your layout, not your general blog address)

3. Come back here and add your name and the link to your layout using the Inlinkz tool below.  You must do this step to be eligible for the prize.  (If you have trouble with this just email and I will do my best to help you)

You have until midnight on 31 January 2012 (the time counter below will let you know how long you have).

I will draw a random winner who will receive a $15 voucher from Scrapbook Fantasies. 

The winner of my Layout Sketch Challenge – December 2011 is Rachel, and you can view her layout here.  Congratulations Rachel!

Good luck and have fun!

As corny as this sounds “I’ll see you all next year”.  Here’s to a creative 2011 and looking forward to an even more creative 2012.

I have added an image of next weeks class to My Classes page.