Book Of Mirrors

I want to take you today on a journey

 through one of our gorgeous art journals.

This journal belongs to Danielle in Western Australia
She has chosen a magical theme.

She has asked us to work in her gorgeous 

Book of Mirrors

in a vintage style.

We are about half way through our swap 

so getting the journals in the mail is such a treat

an artistic feast. 

You can see how much love and detail

 Danielle poured into her journal

She has prepared us a beautiful space
for magic to happen. 

Now to the pages done by our members- 

This gorgeous page was done by Jan ,
who has blogged about on that link
It is steeped in meaning and has so much to look at.

This page makes me smile
we are blessed with a whole range of different artistic styles
and Nicoles pages are always cute and positive and quirky.

Roz contributed next with this beautiful bee inspired page
including some lovely photographs she took 

and some vintage bee hives.

This is Pams lovely pages,
she was quite challenged with a subject so totally out of her comfort zone
and came up with a gorgeous and meaningful page.

Janene's moody atmospheric pages
show her wonderful ability with colour and layers.

For my pages I went with a herbal and healing theme
and just because there is so much room I did 2 spreads.

The first page focuses of Sage
I look at the healing, spiritual and magical properties of this wonderful herb.

Then I did a page on herbal remedies

 for depression, anxiety, insomnia and nervousness.
In the week we lost Robin Williams to depression 

and having it in my own life I felt it needed to be here.

Danielle's gorgeous journal is filling up and will be such a treasure when it wends it way all around our beautiful country and heads back to her- it has finished NSW now, next stop Queensland. It is cold and dreary here right now with winter having its last few weeks and making us feel it. I wish I was joining Danielles journal and heading north.

I also wanted to share just how clever and resourceful Danielle is- this gorgeous journal is made from recycled paint cards - love it.

Mon's entry in Janene's "The things that make you truly happy"

I have been working in Janene's beautiful journal: "The things that make you truly happy".

You'd think this would be an easy theme yet I struggled for a while. I started by gluing used (emptied) teabags to the pages and loved the worn, old look. Next I used my calligraphy pen to write down all the things that make me truly happy and there was no shortage of words to fill the pages with.

 

Next I started sketching the old mill I stayed in in France. My plan was to paint a scene from my recent holiday there but it took on a life of its own. The mill became the gown of my Muse, her long locks reaching out to various things that make me happy and inspire me.

 

 Lady Inspiration might not have a huge smile on her face but she is very happy.

 

The red butterfly has a red yarn thread attached leading my muse on to new inspiration.

Being inspired (among many other things) makes me truly happy :-)

xoxo

Out of the Box- Louise's pages

Sometimes, life gets to be too much,

 and even though every day we do what needs doing,

 life can become a bit of a blur- 

we can forget to notice the everyday moments

 that make life so rich 

and we can miss out 

on those activities that do bring us pleasure

 but are not quite so essential so they get put aside.

I have been in this space lately 

so the routine of a travelling journal 

arriving every month has been a real blessing.

I have not been doing much art at all

just masquerading that life is normal

The chance to contemplate working in a friends journal

to think about the theme and how it sits with me

to gather the materials -

 these tiny river peddles are from my beloved Clarence River

all offer me a chance

 to step outside of the stress and worries and touch my creative fire

My creative fire is my core
it gives me strength and joy and pleasure
I need to get back to creating daily,

but for now I am grateful for this 

Australian Art Journal Swap.

I used some of the fabulous stamps I won from Darkroom Door in these pages.