Creative Art

Creative WordArt

Posted by Andrea on January 21, 2011
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Every year in September, after the kids have gone back to school, I start to give some serious thought to what kind of hand-made Christmas gifts I will be offering to friends and family – I’ve done the greeting cards packs, knitted scarves, little hand-made bags and iPod pouches, and the ubiquitous scrapbook pages and albums. Last year I wanted to create something far more personal – a unique personalised gift so to speak.

I had seen this wonderful piece of WordArt on Etsy (would credit it but have since been unable to relocate it!) some months beforehand on one of my routine hops around art and crafts websites and blogs; it really sparked my imagination and was very much in keeping with the ethos I apply to my scrapbooks – very personal and very unique.

It really got my creative juices flowing, especially as it involved one of my oldest passions – typography! It would make such a fabulous gift but would involve much participation from other relations of my friends (and my family!)

I sent out emails to them requesting a whole host of information on the intended ‘victims’. Some didn’t reply – a big ask, I know, especially coming up to Christmas, and anyways, asking people to think deeply about the personalities of their loved ones is surprisingly difficult; BUT a couple did reply, much to my excitement. A few hours of sifting through the information sent and a few more hours playing around in Photoshop, and VOILA! Wonderful little pieces of WordArt.

This one was for a friend of mine – her daughters provided me with all the information, for which I was extremely grateful! I did a double act here and asked Sharon for info on her 2 daughters, they too received pieces like this!

and these were for my nephews – my sister very kindly racked her brains and came up with all the words and the phrases – I especially love the ‘but…but…but…but…but’ reference as this captures a time in his life when he was very argumentative!

These are items that I am giving serious thought to adding to my stock designs. I enjoyed doing them and they make wonderful gifts!

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Time flies… when you’re behind

Posted by Andrea on March 2, 2009
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IMG_9368bWell, we certainly knew Spring was on it’s way this weekend when I awoke on Sunday to blue skies, glorious hazy sunshine and a chorus of birds. It put me in such a fantastic mood I was up and out the house before anyone else had even begun to stir.

My good mood wasn’t to last too long though as after a few minutes driving around it dawned on me that it was the 1st March  – the FIRST OF MARCH! What happened to January and February?
Is it me or does time fly ridiculously fast the older you get?  The first of March already!

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You see, March is an odd month, it comes with the usual promise of endless weeks of rain, that awful realisation as you peel off your wintery sweaters that you ate too much during the colder months and for us, the start of the silly season. Yes, I said the ‘silly season’ – it’s when the birthday’s start.
Months of them
weeks of them
one
after another
after another
after another
until the end of September.
Have I made a single card yet – uh, no! Have I bought a single present yet, uh – another no. Have I even consulted my BBB (birthday book bible) to check who is first? Uh, that’ll be another no. All my good intentions of ‘getting ahead’ and being organised this year have already disappeared and I’m only 9 weeks into the year.  Where does the time go?

This thought ruined my good mood. (Nothing that a large slice of carrot cake and a double latte couldn’t fix though – now, where’s that sweater?)

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Creative birth

Posted by Andrea on January 21, 2008
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Pencil_shavings Ever since I can remember I have been dabbling with creative arts. Looking back, my first memory of that small creative light breaking through was during summer camp at primary school. Left in an art room for hours on end to create anything I wanted, I spent hours sharpening coloured pencils, not you might think to ensure wonderfully sharp points with which to colour or draw but to create long winding streams of colour-edged pencil shavings which I ceremoniously glued to a large piece of paper, thus creating my first collage. It was a garden scene with all the objects created using coloured shavings and leaves, twigs and feathers found in the school garden. The teacher tasked with overseeing me praised me for my ingenuity and whilst other kids looked on my creation with confusion and disbelief ( the giggles I have since learnt to ignore) an enormous sense of achievement overwhelmed me and in that instance, at that tender age of 7 … my creative heart was born.

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