Dude

Another cybercrop challenge to share today- to use doodling. Right up my street...

I love a spot of doodling, as regular readers will know, but as I'd recently completed a full page zentangled layout (here), I wanted something different for this one. 

I'd bought this Maggie Holmes paper a little while back, and it sparked an idea. I cut out the top and bottom scallops on a wide section of the paper, and trimmed the sides down slightly to get a black edge all round. 

Stripes first, nice and simple.

I usually try to alternate lighter and darker tangle designs, but with the black background this time it didn't need it. So I went for a few old favourites, which are nice to do. 

Oops, excuse the blurry thumb!

The photo was backed in black to pop it out slightly, and the black cap, sunglasses and t-shirt work so well with the monochrome colour scheme. I almost used a black and white photo, but it needed the slight colour from skin tones and the background.

I was intending to doodle in white around the whole page as a border, but once I'd squiggled down the left side, it seemed to balance the letters on the right, so I left it at that.

My nephew is giving it full on attitude in the photo, so the white letters with a spot more doodling spelling dude seemed appropriate!

Elements:

Paper: Crate Paper- Maggie Holmes- Carousel- Cotton candy

Card: Black from stash

Embellishments: Letters from stash

White Posca pen

Black Uni-pin pen 0.5 nib

40? Nah........

My baby brother was 40 a week or two ago. Not sure how that happened, as I'm only 26....... 

I went for a doodled card- I know he likes them! The little house is Paperartsy.

I replaced the number with a 40, and added lots of cross hatching for shading in green, yellow and orange. I'm posting this as a bit of DT inspiration for the fab That Craft Place blog- nip over for a looksee if you get chance- mind you, be warned, if you spend much time in the online shop, you'll be a few quid lighter!!!! Lovely stuff :)

New DT, new card!

OK, so I looked at the quality of blogging going on by my new That Craft Place DT buddies and thought I'd better up my game! 

I spent this morning doodling and generally faffing around and made this.....

Paperarsty stamps, ooh how I love those little houses, use them A LOT! The background was a left over bit from something else, but made with Distress Inks and water and splodging (technical term there......). The hill and bubbles and bottom section are all doodled, which makes me happy!

So That Craft Place..... it's a shop physical and virtual, and a bit of a Facebook phenomenon for some of us!

If you fancy a look, try out........

 That Craft Place - the online shop

That Craft Place Challenge Blog

That Craft Place  facebook group

That Craft Place Natter and Chatter 

I'm in Team B, so we'll be lurking and chatting and posting on the Facebook Natter and Chatter group for a couple of months, and then taking over the challenge blog once the A Team have done their thing. Should be fun!!!!

Hope your Sunday has been treating you well, be happy!

Skull + doodling = card

Hello.

My favourite thing to do right now is to doodle, and I'm trying to move out of my comfort zone a tad, to doodle some different shapes and outlines. I'm particularly chuffed with this one.

The skull panel is hand drawn, apart from the Happy Birthday.

At the Haunted Design House, the theme is fresh blood- my beloved drippy goo punch has been used to create just such an effect on this card! Although I suppose it could just be red paint.....

March calendar pages.... doodle doooooo.

Time to show you this month's calendar pages, bit of a labour of love this one.....

The spotty circles and bracketed lines are stamped, and the rest is all from the end of my pen. It's taken a while, but I love doing it, so it's been fun!

Just got to fill the days in with lots of lovely things now :)

Doodling on a notebook

Usually I'm doodling in a notebook, not on it.....

This is a basic brown covered A4 notebook, given the doodling treatment with my pen in front of the Christmas telly!

New book.....new bookmark.....

Had a couple of new books for Christmas, so obvs, I need a couple of new bookmarks......

Love, love, love this BIG bee. It's a new acquisition, stamped on an old background off cut, so I guess it qualifies for the Stampotique Designers Challenge, which is Out with the old, in with the new. Sparkly wings too.....

Plus I've been doing a bit of doodling, as ever, so I made this one into a paperback sized bookmark. Cool eh?

Happy new home

A friend of mine is moving into a new home this week- a doodled card was in order!

I kept this one a bit simpler than usual- I quite like the spiky dotty bits, so I didn't want to add more and detract from them.

The house is a trusty Paperartsy squiggly ink favourite- stamped onto a page from an old mapbook.

I think I'll have to doodle more spikes this week!

Choices, choices...... Studio 12 at Polkadoodles

Here's my latest Studio 12 at Polkadoodles DT project, another page in one of my smaller journals.

The fab signpost from the Picknix CD is a real find for me. This one is quite large- printed onto card and sketchily coloured with fineliner pens. The background is just swiped of Distress Ink pads straight onto the page.

I doodle with a black drawing pen and just go for it right onto the page, after all, if it all goes wrong,  I can always colour it in, right?

So.........my word's of journalling wisdom today? Well, the gist of it is that if you have a choice to make, weigh up the options and then go for it, there's no prizes for being timid in this world!...... and if it all seems to be too much, just keep swimming- it worked for Nemo!

I'm loving the Olympics- hence the colour scheme! Particular favourites are the swimming, the road and track cycling and the athletics of course- did anyone else do the Mobot with Mo Farah? Don't knwo what I'll do when it ends.......

Studio 12......a competition

OOoh, first of the month. that means a competition over at the studio12 blog.

Here's my DT project to help celebrate! I think I've said before that I'm a bit weird about bookmarks (actually I think I could have stopped at I'm a bit weird, ha ha ha.....). I have a new one for pretty much every book I buy and it stays in the book, like a little flat friend.

Soooooo, new book. Actually several new books. Which means new bookmarks......

I love the signpost on the Picknix CD, just looked like it was pointing out my page......

Lots of doodling, sort of reminded me of layers of soil and rock under the ground. The background is a scrap left over from another project, and it's sprayed with cosmic shimmer mists. I used watercolour pencils on the sign and black and white pens to doodle.

Right, so off you pop to the Studio12 blog, check out what the rest of my team mates have been doing and see what the competition is..... it's my first one, so I have no idea how it all works!!!

Black and white? Toadstools obviously.

I've always been an Octopode Factory fan, but lately I'm even more drawn toward these quirky little pretties. The current Octopode Factory Friday challenge is black and white, so out came my doodling pens and my little Octopode toadstools and I made this.

Each of my books has its own bookmarks, so I make quite a few! This one has stamped toadstools at the bottom and a doodled sun and border.

I've added a bit of shine with some dots of glossy accents.

Ooh, that one sun ray looks like a tentacle. 

You don't have to use Octopode images to enter the challenge, but they keep calling to me! Off to put it in my new book.

Doodling again......

The challenge at The Cupboard Trilogy is to interpret the lyrics of Bette Midler's Wind beneath my wings. I chose a couple of lines and got doodling!

I accented various areas with Glossy Accents. Actually, now that I'm looking at it, it's not a brilliant photo, I might need to retake it tomorrow in better light.

It's worth a look at the Cupboard Trilogy blog, there's a fantastic Stampin' Up prize on offer.

Little people bookmark

Ooh the things you can do with your scraps.......

Scraps of spray inked card, lots of Stampotique people, glaze pens and doodling. Bookmark done!

Doodling again....... for a Stampotique challenge

I've been doodling again. 

The background is made with spray inks, then I stamped the little Stampotique people in the corner and then got zentangling around them. My usual finishing off with white gel pen, a bit of pencil shading and some Glossy Accents (which never show up well on the photos......).

Oh how I love doing these, they're so relaxing to do. The challenge at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog is Oodles of Doodles.... I think this will qualify!

I got a top 3 on the last Stampotique challenge- for my flowery monsters Fat Page. Hurray!

Right, I've got a crafty mate coming round to do some making, got to dash and clear the table off.....

Art journal- completed January pages and a February update

Looking back, I never did post a photo of my completed January art journal pages- oops! So yesterday I scanned them and here they are.

I am incredibly pleased with how it's turned out. It's so bright and colourful and I enjoyed finding different ways to fill in each little square. February's pages on the other hand, are a colour free affair. Here's where I've got up to so far.....

I have one biggish section on the right hand page still to fill in. I'm waiting for the perfect doodle to turn up in my brain, but if it doesn't show up soon, I might have to go in search of one! These pages have taken much longer to do than the January ones, and whilst I've enjoyed all that doodling, I've found working round the day squares somewhat restrictive, so I won't be doodling another month. I've also found it more difficult to fill in the days. I felt the squares should stay black and white, so I've only written in them so far, although I suppose a black and white stamp might work.

Now I'm thinking of how to tackle my March pages.......

Art journal- February pages doodle progress!!!

I've not been well for the past week, so not much in the way of crafting. However, I have been doodling happily away on my February art journal pages. The left hand page is 99% finished, just needs a little quote or something in the top left corner.

I've shown it in close up, because a lot of the work is quite detailed. I enjoy doodling so much, I find it satisfying filling in the blank spaces. I use a black fineliner pen, as fine a nib as I can lay my hands on. I haven't yet decided if the daily squares will be monochrome as well, or if I'll use colour on them. It might be difficult to resist, I love a bit of colour......

The right hand page is coming on as well- or at least I've made a start. I need to look back over my other doodles to get some more pattern inspirations, don't want to repeat myself!!!

I'm looking forward to a craft morning with Kay and Michelle tomorrow, always inspiring to spend time with other people who love inks as much as I do. I'm also working on some tags for a tag swap on Facebook, more about that tomorrow I hope.

Art Journal- February pages, first steps

OK, so I know how to stamp, and I know how to doodle. I stamped January's pages, so February's are getting the doodle treatment. It may not seem like much of an art form, but doodling can be really cool. Check out the galleries at Zentangle for evidence!

I spent a couple of hours yesterday planning out next month's pages, pencilling in where the daily squares would appear. I lettered the month in and started doodling the box frames, and finished the left hand page boxes in a couple of hours. I'm planning on starting the right hand ones tonight. This is very much a work in progress, the intention is to fill all of the white space with doodles.......

Doodling is therapeutic, it's great thinking up new designs and sort of going with the flow of the space you're doodling onto. I have some ideas for patterns I want to incorporate into the page, but the beauty of this technique is that you can just see where each doodle takes you, and you never make a mistake, it's all part of the design.

I have started to fill in January's boxes, trying very hard to come up with positive things. It can be quite challenging after a difficult day to think of something positive to record, but it's a good thing to do, promise! I'll post pics at the end of the month.

Doodlicious.

'Mazing!

Found this on Twitter and had to share - some very, very intricate hand drawn mazes. http://bit.ly/ZCV8I Knocks my doodling into a cocked hat (now there's a saying I'd like to know the origin of). Seriously- take a look, I'm going to get my pens out later, I can feel a maze ATC in the offing.......

Here's a few of my doodles in the meantime. I enjoy doodling for a while, but then I get a bit fed up and have to rein it in for a month or 2.