Natasha's Goddess Journal

Natasha joined our swap group and our journal swap a few rounds back and created a gorgeous journal with the theme of Goddess

I have had the great pleasure of hosting this journal in my home and It has been like a visiting art exhibition! I have shown it to almost every visitor and looked at it many times myself. 

This is the full opened cover- it is just gorgeous!

This gorgeous page dedicated to Lakshmi is created by
 Robyn Osbourne. 

I think we can all do with a little Lakshmi in our lives.

I love how Robyn altered and did her tag for Tash as well-

Very clever Robyn.

Our lovely Roz Willoughby is next and her pages are just beautiful.

Roz worked with Kwan Yin

in line with her deep appreciation and inspiration with all things Asian.
Roz has 2 opening flaps so added her research
and beautiful symbology in those areas. 

Next we are off to Ireland and Jan Mullanes beautiful page for Brigit

I have a personal fondness for the Celtic Pantheon

and I adore Celtic knotwork.

Jan even has Brigit's well I would love to visit one day. 

I love how Jan works, her pages are always gorgeous and I am really thankful to those artists who come back and join another round ( or 2) of the AAJS because it is a real privilege to share their own personal development and in a very different way we get to know each other.

Gail Bourke bought Artemis into the journal 

And Rachel Thomas who loves working with flowers so much

bought the Goddess Antheia to the page

She is the Goddess of Love and Flowers

Then we have these incredible pages!

Jenny James you have outdone yourself. 

This wild and wooly Goddess is Calypso

and she has a host of characters
and quirky details you don't see at first.

Jenny I love this entry. 

Another long term contributor

 Sharon Williams

has bought her own style

 and I alway love Sharon's work,

I cant imagine who else would have Lucille Ball

and I love Lucy :)

as Hesta

but what a perfect domestic Goddess she is. 

This page to Gaia is unsigned but thanks to my co detective Pam Parker we tracked it down to Lee Hynes who also made this amazing hanging Goddess 

I love Wendy's amazing Moon Goddess page

I also love and so appreciate how Wendy will just jump into any theme and create her own gorgeous interpretation, usually generously sharing her process and inspiring everyone else. 

And lastly I got to play as well and created my pages for Demeter and Persephone. 

Lisa J's Summer Journal - Home!

I sent my Summer journal off on its journey some 13 months ago and it returned home a few days ago.  Some of the pages were a surprise as not everyone blogged about their entries.

So here it is in its entirety!   I made the journal after checking out a few videos online, and it hasn't fallen apart which is very pleasing!  Here's the cover:

On the first page I wrote some stuff about me, and my rules/requirements for this journal.  Basically, what does summer mean to you?  

I did the first page in watercolour, from a photo my husband Scott took at dusk, down at the beach we like to frequent when we can get away for a weekend.  Which is not often enough with work and kids' sports!

The next page is a collage done by Robyn.  So bright and colourful!

Gail's page is also a collage, and I think some may be napkins?  I really love the quote, it's so true!

Next is Pam's entry - a mix of painting and collage.  The sand has little tiny beads through it and the water has heaps of texture too.  Love the bathing boxes!

I hadn't seen Nat's entry, so it was a wonderful surprise!  A gorgeous painting of a girl up close with a soldier crab.  And the crab has great features that you probably can't see well enough in a photo.

Next up is Wendy's cool surfer dude!  This page is a mix of painting and collage and I love how it turned out.

Lee's page was another that I hadn't seen.  It's a digital piece that has been printed and it's so different and quirky!

Deb's spread is all about looking out the kitchen window to the view beyond.  Wouldn't it be nice to look out at the beach and see the sun setting down over the ocean!  I love all the elements in this page.

Rose's page is so simple but so effective!  She likes to watch the tennis in summer.

Joan's page is a wonderful mix of painting and collage.  All the elements flow so well in this piece and I really like the composition.  Great waves too!

This page didn't photograph very well.  Each January, the ABC play old Countdown episodes on Rage on Saturday nights!  Unfortunately they often start around midnight, but if you can keep your eyelids open for an hour or two, it's so great to watch!  I've always loved music, especially 80s stuff.  So this page is a homage to Countdown and Molly Meldrum, and some of my favourite songs of that era.

I found this cool saying in Pinterest so decided to use it in my journal.  Who doesn't like ice cream?!  When we go down to Ocean Grove, we'll often go to Queenscliff - to wander the town, and buy a double ice cream from the wonderful Nordic ice cream shop there!  

And lastly I put some blank tags in pockets in the back page so the artists that did a page in my journal could tell me a bit about themselves.  Thank you to those that filled one out!

I went a bit overboard with putting my journal together so I still have heaps of blank pages left.  I won't post it out again; at A4 size it's a bit heavy and pricey, but I'll fill it up eventually!  I've asked my daughter Mel to contribute a page when she doesn't have so much homework (year 11...)

Thanks again to everyone that contributed to my journal; it's a real treasure and something that I can keep and look back on forever!

I know we had heaps of problems with the last two swaps, but I can't wait to participate again!

Cheers, Lisa

Joan's guest spot in round 2- Life as I see it.

This journal belongs to round 2 but came to me because of a big of a mix up with Gail's round 2 and round 3 journals.  Anyway after some discussion, it was decided I would work in this one, rather than the round 3 one.

I used a piece of water colour card that was gelli printed, then added some more paint and ink spray to create the background.  Tissue transfer created the owls and other birds.Added some washi tape in middle, bottom of left page and top of right page for texture. I  glued some circles of pattern paper on the pages, and using textured paste and stencil, added some texture on top. The beautiful dream catcher embellishment is by Kerry Fellows. I drew a couple of flowers and highlighted some of the owls ect with white gel pen.  Added some white paint for interest.  Added the typed quote.  I rather liked how it turned out, but I really need to start using some other colours rather than blue and green in my pages. As all the tags Gail had enclosed were used, I created my own to fit in with Gail's and the page.

Hope you like it Gail.

Wendy's Layout in Gail's Days Gone By.

I have finally finished working in Gails beautiful journal.

The title of her journal is 'DAYS GONE BY". With this double spread I have tried to blend the outdoors with the indoors with the background colours

I chose to recall my childhood where I would be out on my bike riding around all day with friends and I would always put some food in a brown paper bag and place it in my bike basket, for when I was hungry or to share with friends.

On the right side, I was recalling our watching television which was a black and white set. We were allowed to watch about an hour in the evenings and my two sisters and myself loved watching Skippy, The bush Kangaroo. While we watched the telly, mum would be putting our hair in rags, to curl our hair...and we would sleep with them in. It was so uncomfortable but made beautiful ringlets in our hair. Thank you.

Tidal Cafe

This is a beautiful journal owned by Joan Mannix.  As always I was very nervous approaching it.  This was a different idea to what I am used to and I was not sure of the materials and the correct product to stick the pages in with.  Hope it's OK Joan.

The idea came to me easily, but the execution was more difficult.  Quite a few years ago I, my daughter and her children had a holiday at Iluka NSW.  We went to the co-op and then wandered along the shoreline.  There imprinted in the sand were the marks from little stingrays, where they had been feeding on sand worms along the water line.  So that was my theme.

As a city girl I had never seen anything like this.  No wonder it stuck in my memory.

I called the piece Tidal Cafe.

 Close up of title.

The marks from the feeding stingrays.

There is always a Mama standing guard.