My Month in Numbers 2011: October

Hi, hi, hi.

You might not believe this but ... tomorrow signals the end of yet another month.  It's a bit scary really [and I don't just mean because of Halloween!] and the very minute I find out how to stop these days flying by in a blur ... I'll let you know.

Until then, here's my October 2011 in numbers:

2.45 metres = the length of the sheet of acrylic I currently have on my dining room floor:

The reason being?

You know how people have tried to define what "Love" is? Such as "Love is never having to say you're sorry"? Well, allow me to add my own definition ...

• Love is  ...  rescuing a sheet of acrylic discarded in a skip and bringing it home in your van because you know that your good lady is suffering from this:

• Because Love is ... having enough acrylic in the house to make 11 brand new [flat - not curved and cracked] sets of cutting plates for a Big Shot die-cutter!

4 months = the number of months - in advance - my brain has been tricked into believing it is after sending in my Valentine's Day projects to Creativity Magazine!

Valentine's Day!! My brain sees Halloween + Christmas and responds with: "Please ... they're so last year".

1 = the number of day's notice I had that we were to have a small house guest. Which I wouldn't normally mind about but it coincided with the time I had to work on 16 things for my commission.

Fortunately our niece is artistically minded too and was happy to sit and craft along with me while  I worked: 

 Tip to all children aspiring to get on a crafter's good side: you can't go wrong with the conversation opener she used on me: 

"Auntie Julie, do you do your art every day?"

There was no room there for the usual silly modesty: "Art?' Who? me? Is this art? This isn't art it's just pushing paper around." A simple, "Yes, most days" seemed the best reply. Especially if she wants to grow up and do it every day too. Which she very well might ...

While she sat with me she produced 14 cards, 2 gift boxes and 1 Halloween bunting banner with very little help from me [and a lot of help from my DOCrafts supplies, maybe she's a Creativity contributor of the future!]: 

2 = the number of submissions of interest I ... err ... submitted!

1 = the number of rejections I took on the chin. [Still waiting to hear about the 2nd].

1 = the number of layouts made following that rejection. [The Get Ahead one from this post last week].

2 = the number of lovely, surprising and unconnected offers I had in the days immediately following  blogging that layout.

As that post had been about not waiting for others to offer you something, it was very interesting to see the offers coming in after I'd let the idea go. I am quite partial to a bit karmic balancing!

Speaking of which ...

2 = the number of special guest bloggers I invited to add to my Purple Phase series. Both Sian Fair and Lara Watson joined the ranks in the mission to prove purple is usable in scrapbooking!

And ...

2 = also the number of times I got to be someone else's special guest. Shimelle Laine invited me to her Pretty Paper Party and then Erika Senneff, of Oops I craft My Pants, asked me to share my Tips For the Twitter-Curious with her blog readers.

Not for nothing is 'What goes around comes around' one of my [and The Carousel Zebra's] favourite ideas!

All, lots, almost as much as my body weight = the amount of paper and ephemera I decided to sort through one afternoon.

On a whim.

A whim which, hours later, led to me and our dining room looking a little worse for wear.

Like this:

26 = the number of packets of Plundered Pages, my new mixed vintage paper kits, I've made up so far ... from all that paper I sorted through:

[Edited to add: I've begun gradually adding them to my etsy shop now.]

1 = the number of items I included in one of the themed packs which I already went to look for to add to a layout of my own ... [an old collectors card with a bat on it] until I realised it was now sealed up inside a themed pack! 

Hopefully this is a good sign ... that if I want to use the kits ... then maybe someone else will too! No doubt I'll update you in next month's numbers!

5 = the number of people who blogged their own Month in Numbers posts - for September - who I added links to at the bottom of my September post. 3 of which were very welcome 1st-timers.

I'll be doing the same again with this post - so just let me know if you blogged yours and I'll edit this post to add you in.

• Louise from 'Boys Bugs & Beautiful Buttons' blogged a great twist on the idea by listing the numbers of photographs she took of various occasions during October. It's a great idea which you can read here.
• Melissa from 'Remember to Breathe' joined in with her numbers for the first time here after hearing about the idea from Sian.
• Cate of 'Life Behind the Purpe Door' was another first-timer who joined in, catch up with her statistics here.
• A warm welcome back to Clair of 'The Crafty Alchemist' - my Month in Numbers stalwart - who after playing along all year has caught up on 2 month's worth of numbers in this post as illness stopped her totalling-up her September statistics.
• Nathalie from 'An Ounce of Creativity' has joined in with some Halloween + Pinterest inspired numbers in this post. 
• Kate from 'Nanna Kate' joined in once again with some foodie statistics here.
• Cate from 'World Elsewhere' returned to blogging her month in numbers here after a few months break [which she counted, obviously!] and October had a special significance for her ... which needed cake + party.
• Sian of 'From High in the Sky' joined in once again with a great layout to document her numbers this time round here.
• Fiona of 'Staring at the Sea' found me through Sian and blogged her numbers for the first time here.
• Then after seeing Fiona's post ... Julia from 'Scraps of Life + Pieces of Paper' joined in for the first time too here.
• Ginger, of 'Ginger's Life of Spice' joined in with hers here which features the best sighting of an acrobat you'll see all week! ;-)
• Melissa, of 'Remember to Breathe', joined in once agan here.

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So those are my October statistics and as it's almost lunchtime I won't mention the smells which came from 1 bottle of milk being spilled in James's van nor the 1 noxious chicken he unpackaged and swiftly returned to the supermarket this morning.

Here's to a sweetly scented November. For all of us.

Julie :-)

Still Twitter-Curious after all these years.

Hi.

So my title is a slight exaggeration ... but the Paul Simon song lyrics I was paraphrasing didn't say 'still crazy after all these months' and I can't imagine he'd have got where he is today if he'd written 'still crazy since earlier this year' or 'still crazy since January/February time'.

But I digress.

I really wanted to tell you that I wrote a guest post for Erika on Oops I Craft My Pants [which went live yesterday] and the subject I wrote about was: Tips for the Twitter-Curious.

After all these months!

If you're new here, Tips for the Twitter-Curious is a free instructional series I wrote earlier this year - which you can still access here. What's amazed [and delighted] me is how, even after all this time, it's still reaching new eyes out there in Webland.

After the initial set of Twitter-Curious signed up to play along with the class in 'real time' there's been a steady stream of people tweeting me out-of-the-blue to tell me they've read the series and are now using Twitter.

The latest was the inspiration behind this journal page:

It took me hours and hours to put the class together. Some nights after work I was on-my-knees-tired but I persisted in completing each post on time.

And, ever since, as I didn't charge for it, I've made sure to  promote it to the best of my ability ever since. I've sent links to bloggers who've passed the link on to others and, most recently, I passed it onto Erika from Oops I Craft My Pants ... which is how that guest-post came to be!

I think of it like this:

• If I were a supermarket then Tips for the Twitter-Curious would be my 'loss leader'.
• Like cheap crates of beer, it's one of the key things that tempts 'customers' through my door.
• Then, once they're here, hopefully they find something else they like the look of. Such as my scrapbook pages, my etsy shop ... or my crisps and salted peanuts.

And I'm not embarrassed to tell you any of that, because I'm proud of that series ... in fact I'm crazy about it.

Still. 

After all these years months.

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If you get do chance to swing by my post on Oops I Craft My Pants then you'll see it's an overview of the series has to offer if you're Twitter-Curious, Twitter-Ignorant or even Twitter-Disdainful! So it's definitely worth a peek if it's new to you.

If not, it's still worth paying Erika a visit as her site is filled with craft projects and tutorials [her latest idea for boot socks made me want to rush headlong into my jumper drawer with scissors!] so there's plenty to feast your eyes on if you're new to Oops.

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And finally ....

If you are someone who's followed some of the Tips for Twitter-Curious then I'm wondering/hoping you'll consider ...:

• leaving a comment [either here or on my guest post at Oops] letting new readers know how the class was for you;
• or you could jot down any noteworthy Twitter experiences you've had yourself since taking the plunge;
• or even just share any Twitter tales stories or offer suggestions for any new readers and new Tweeters.

Would you? Because that would be amazing. And make sure to leave your Twitter username in your comment too so we can all swing by and see you over there too.

See you there, or here, or both. Thank you!

Julie x

Purple Phase guest blogger: Lara Watson

Hello hello.

Today's Purple Phase colour palette has been interpreted by my special guest-blogger today, the new Creative Editor of Mollie Makes magazine: Lara Watson.

And here's the palette I gave to Lara as her starting point:

The colours are a fairly unusual combination which I'm not sure I'd have come up alone ... but I didn't have to. They're the colours of the beads on a favourite necklace of mine [I've had it for years and that pale pink still makes me swoon!]:

Now let me get out of the way and make room for Lara and her take on this colour scheme ...

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I'm something of a purple fiend. It has to be said.

I love the colour so much and have berry tones of tops, dresses, tights and scarves galore. So I was shocked - nay, horrified - when I looked through my vast paper stash in preparation for this challenge and found not a single sheet of purple.

Have scrapbook companies been rationing it? Maybe just saving it for their Halloween collections?

I'm not sure but it's something I need to address.

So, instead I found a photo with purple in it. My brother's hoody. In what turned out to be a rather adorable photo of him and his baby boy, my first nephew. Ripe for scrapbooking!

Sticking to the colour scheme, I used:

• lots of blue Maya Road mist;
• yellow Sassafras chipboard butterflies;
• brown Bazzill and woodgrain;
• lots of pink accents;

I added a few extra purple highlights here and there with some cute buttons, too, for good measure!

Lara.

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I love what Lara did with these colours and I'm now wondering why I've never taken colour inspiration from that necklace before now! It works so well.

Again, like many of the purple palettes we've looked at so far, it's another one which nicely balances natural, neutral shades with some interesting, unexpected splashes of colour. Along with demostrating how purple can be a subtle addtion to a scheme, Lara's page also gives a nice twist on using pink on a masculine page too and afterall, it did say 'baby pink' on the palette didn't it?!

Thank you Lara!

And thank you for dropping by on us both today.

I'll be back very soon with news of where it's my turn to guest blog for someone else! Have a great day.

Julie

Layout: If You Want to Get Ahead ...

Hi, hi.

There seems to have been something of a flurry of purple activity going on in the last few days with people directing me to their purple posts - thanks so much! As we head rapidly toward November I still have plenty of purple posts and palettes to share [try saying that fast three times!] to share along with two special guests ... so there's plenty to come. But until then ... here's something with only the smallest hints of aubergine visible!

This was one of those pages which developed as I went along. No grand, overarching plan and set of supplies from the start. Nothing was set in stone.

Nothing except that photo.

Because, let's face it a photograph of me wearing a hard hat was always going to find itself at the top of the 'To Scrap' list. Always. But I didn't know how to scrap it or what story to tell.

Stories I considered telling included:

• I was wearing a hard hat because I was waiting to go down a drift mine at Beamish.
• It was approximately 30 years after I did the exact same thing as a child.
• Family lore tells that when I was there the first time I got the giggles when a man in front of me banged his hard hat on the low ceiling of the mine; [This is highly likely to be a true story as I did the same thing as an adult on a tour of a cave once when the man in front kept bashing his head like some sort of cartoon character! Clearly I find hard hats humorous.]
• I also remember being smug when I went down t'mine as a child because I didn't have to stoop like everyone else as I was so small.

But instead of telling those tales ... a phrase my Grandma used to say came to mind and seemed to fit perfectly:

I won't swear that I know exactly what it means but it fits and it tells a story of its own which is quite different to that of me laughing down a mine!

At the time I made this page I'd just hit a bit of a dead end with something workwise:  

But you can't win them all, I know this. And it gave me the perfect opportunity to use this sentiment stamp I bought months ago but had never stamped: "I couldn't wait for success, so I went a head without it".

So, the story I really wanted to tell using this photo, on this page, was the one about:

• not relying on others to offer me success, but seeking my own, no matter how hard that feels at times;

and, most importantly ...

• If you want to get a head, by all means get a hat ...but
• You might as well make it a hard one, because then, despite the inevitable bumps to the head ... you can then carry on regardless!



If you've had a dent to your armour lately I wish you luck in finding a hard hat that fits.

Then we'll have you back down that drift mine making 5 year olds crease up with laughter in no time!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Julie x

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p.s: this is my 3DJean Design Team project for this month, if you'd like details on some of the products used you can visit my post on their blog here.

Other products include Studio Calico papers, FabRips and alphas and vintage paper/ postage stamps from the packs I'll be offering in my etsy shop ASAP.

Pretty Paper Party Giveaway Winner

Morning all.

Well ... lots of you really wanted to come to the party!

There were 74 entries and as promised I listed your name twice if you also answered the additional question:

I let Random.org select a number:

And it picked 5 [after I typed out 113 names ... it picked 5!!!!].

And 5 was Patty:

I'll get in touch with Patty and then Shimelle ASAP.

My party project has already been revealed in the class materials, but I still can't share it. But here's a tiny peek of what I made form those supplies I showed in you in the original giveaway post:

OK, I'm off to contact the winner!

See you soon.

Julie



Purple Phase: purple with orange, brown + blue

Hi, hi, hi.

I always knew that those purple boots, featured by my guest-blogger Sian Fair [in this post last week], were going to be a hard act to follow, so today's post contains the next best thing I could find ... purple shoes.

The shoes will be making an appearance in a moment, but right now, here's today's Purple Phase colour palette:

The colours are taken from a tunic style dress whose pattern I fell in love with the minute I spotted it and which i've worn rather a lot this summer:

It's another example of :

• how purple can often be easier to wear [or use in scrapbooking etc] when it's mixed with other colours as part of a print rather than as a solid block of colour. 

That said, I don't want to detract from how it contributes to the pattern or colour scheme. Just because it's mixed-in with other shades doesn't mean it's hidden entirely.

Take my dress for example, I liked it because the bright-yet-cool spots of purple and blue were an interesting contrast against the neutral background and warm orange, tobacco and brown shades:

That particular shade is what I think of as 'candy purple' - sort of an equivalent of candy pink? If you see what I mean? It's a lighter shade than full-on 'purple' but it's too bright to be 'lilac'. So, yes, it's a candy-purple-bright-pastel. And whatever it is, I like it!

 In fact, when I bought the dress I already owned the vest I'm wearing underneath, which is a perfect match, so I guess I've liked that shade for a while at least. 

It's also another one of those shades of purple which I find works really well with grey - and you can expect several more 'grey with purple' posts before the Autumn's out as I've realised it's one of my regular 'go to' combinations.

Anyway ... enough chat ... here's those purple shoes I promised:

What you can't tell from the photo is that they're a wedge heel which is covered with a kind of raffia which, once again, confirms that I really do have a things for purple with natural materials like string! [remember the card I shared a few weeks back?].

And just to prove it is in fact me in these photos ... here's one with my head in it! 

Dress: Dorothy Perkins ¦¦ Vest: H&M ¦¦ Leggings + cardigan: Primark ¦¦ Shoes: New Look

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• Don't forget to link me up to any of your new posts about your own purple phase [a link back to here would be most welcome in there somewhere] and I'll pin them to the Pinterest board ASAP.  
• In case you're new here, the Purple Phase Pinterest board  contains mostly other people's work and photographs, along with all of the colour palettes of mine.

In addition to which ...

• I've just created a Purple Phase Flickr folder to house all of the palettes and projects I've created especially for this series alongside ...
• Everything from my entire Flickr photostream which looked remotely purpley-shaded and appropriate!
• So if you're interested in more of my crafty projects in purple, then that's a good place to find them now.

I'll be back soon with another purple post and if you missed it yesterday, hop here for a chance to win a pass to Shimelle's latest online class.

 Thanks for reading me today.

Julie :-)

Giveaway: Win entry to the Pretty Paper Party at shimelle.com

Hello you.

It's no secret that I like paper. In fact it's the exact opposite of a secret. There's not a day goes by when, in some form or another, I don't work with it, shuffle it, admire it or desperately look around for places to keep it!

And now I get to attend a party held in its honour ... and so can you ...

You know Shimelle ... right? Well after finishing teaching her Learn Something New Everday class [the one which I made my recent journal for] she's throwing a four-week online party... a Pretty Paper Party to be exact!

Here's what the hostess has to say about her new party/class:

 

"This is the party to attend if you:

• have a collection of paper stacked up for a rainy day;
• if you have more scraps of paper than you know what to do with (but you know you don't want to throw them away!) and;
• if you've ever put a piece of paper back in your stash because it was just too special for the photos at hand.

Through printable prompts and tutorial videos, me and dozens of special party guests will share beautiful and innovative techniques you can achieve with the paper you have already collected."

And you needn't worry that you won't know anybody there, because at the very least ... you know me.

I'm going to be appearing at the party as one of Shimelle's guests and, as I don't have any other party-tricks,  I've created a  scrapbook page especially for the occasion.

While I can't show you the page here ... I can show you the supplies I used to create it. If you know my work pretty well, you might be able to guess what some of them will be before you even take a look!:

Did you guess anything? Lots and lots of patterns [including animal print!], paint, postage stamps and old book pages. Yes, I'm nothing if not predictable!

[p.s: I'll be offering packs of reclaimed book pages, as seen in the photo, from my etsy shop very soon!]

So, now you know there's going to be at least one familiar face at the party all you need do now is sign-up .. or enter my giveaway for a free pass!

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HOW TO ENTER:

• Leave me a comment on this post making it clear you'd like to win!
• That's it!

OR

If you'd like your name entered into the draw TWICE then also tell me:

• which crafting supply you think would make a good party outfit or accessory;
• For example: is there a particular patterned paper you'd like a dress made from? Or a kind of embellishment you could dangle from your ears?!

Edited to add: I'll announce the winner ASAP after the closing date however - please bear in mind that I'll need to be able to contact you if you win. So, if you need to leave an Anonymous comment that's OK, but please direct me to a blog/Twitter account or something so I know who you are and can let you know you've won!

DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES:

• 08:00 [UK time] Thursday 20th October 2011

NOTE:

•  If you have already signed up to the Pretty Paper Party you can still enter!!
• If you win, Shimelle will either refund your sign-up fee OR donate the pass to a friend of your choice.

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The class itself began this morning but hey ... as with any good party, it's okay to arrive fashionably late.  Also:

• The class has no deadlines;
• Everyone receives permanent access to all the class materials;
• So anyone can RSVP to the party at any time.

Good luck! And if this class isn't for you ... please consider passing the details of the giveaway on to a friend.

I'm going to go and get my party frock on ...

Julie :-)

Overheard: It's OK, the council make them from fairy pillows.

Hi.

I thought it was about time I shared an Overheard with you - which I'll do any minute now - but you should know: I'm trying to eek them out and ration them because my back-catalogue is getting smaller ... my campus overheards are becoming quite rare! An endangered species.

I don't know what I've been doing wrong lately but I either need to start hanging around in more lectures and cafes on campus ... or I need to clean out my ears. I'll see if I can do both over the next few weeks, until which time, here's one I heard earlier ...

Scene: I was crossing the campus [on 19.02.10 to be precise - yes, I do keep such detailed records, thanks for asking] behind a group of students discussing the frosty, icy, weather when one of them shared this ...

Male student: "I slipped and nutted our front door."

Now ... at this point in his tale you might be thinking something along the lines of  'Ouch', 'Nasty', 'Sounds like a lucky escape', 'I wonder if it left a bruise' ... but, really, there's no need to fret about the possibility of brain damage, for, as he went on ...

 "But it’s one of the council doors. Not a solid oak one ... so I didn’t mind that much."

You know that phrase 'where there's no sense, there's no feeling'? Yeah ... that.

:-)

Julie

Purple Phase: purple with teal, coral + black

Hello, hello.

It's a rainy old day here and I'm wearing all black and brown ... so I'm going to indulge in a splash of colour ...
With today's palette, and the project I made with it, I'm hoping to show :

• that it is possible to use lilac in a non-twee, non-cute manner!  

It is possible! I swear!

All you need is ... orange [or 'coral' if you want to be fancy about it, which I do]:

The inspiration for this scheme came from the seagull illustration I cut from a 1970s children's book:

The colours from each of the additional items I added were all taken from him:

• I inked the edges of the lilac [Basic Grey] backing paper to reflect the colours on the wings;
• But this meant the image blended in too well and was lost - so I added the spotted paper in a deeper, punchier shade.
• The striped strip helped tie in the purple and teal shades;
• The [7Gypsies] word sticker and [Jillibean] baker's twine picked out the yellow in the beak;
• And the bunting stickers [by LilyB Designs] picked out all of the shades I'd used:

And that all important shade of coral came from his legs:

And I repeated this with a little scrap of crocheted trimming in the ideal shade! [I love it when I find just the right thing to match!]

So, maybe next time a lilac card, project or outfit feels in danger of straying into 'too cute' territory try breaking-up the cool shades with a lively touch of coral.

Just think 'seagull card'. What could possibly go wrong?! ;-)

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I've got another outfit post on it's way using similar shades as today's palette, so I'll see you then.

Julie

Purple Phase guest blogger: Sian Fair

Hello you.

To kick off a new week in style I'm thrilled to introduce you to Purple Phase's first guest blogger Sian Fair:

And as we're going to be kicking things off ... we could do worse than doing it in Sian's boots .... trust me [or scroll down if you don't!] ...

I'll let her speak for herself ...

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Guest post from Sian:

This post comes to you courtesy of a pair of boots.

Purple ones.

Obviously.

I posted a picture of them on my blog and they caught Julie’s eye, and she said (maybe) “Mmm, Sian’s having a purple moment, let’s see what she thinks”  ...

So, I’d better be honest. Let’s get this right in the open: I spent years loathing purple.

Didn’t like it at all.

Until one day I spotted a felt bag sitting in a shop window:

I went back again and again and eventually I brought it home. And when I looked at it carefully I started to see what it was telling me about purple.

• It’s rich and warm, but it doesn’t push itself forward. 
• It can be a backdrop, a background, for so many other different colours.

Just look at the collection there is on my bag – blues and green, yellow and burgundy.

I saw the light.

I began choosing a purple piece and layering one of these colours on top. Then I swapped round and added purple accents to a different base.

And that’s how I moved on from a bag ...

... to a pair of purple boots.

They’re big boots, but they go with almost anything.

Sian.

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Thank you Sian! I love the layout, especially the insight in the journaling into what you've been wearing the boots with!

If you don't know Sian's blog ... you ought to!

And you might also be interested to hear she's a Design Team member for 'Scrap 365', a brand new scrapbooking magazine due for launch next month.

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My next purple guest [well, she's not purple ... her project is!] will be here in a couple of weeks' time and until then you're stuck with me!

I'll be back in a day or two. See you soon.

Julie

Purple Phase: purple with pink, red + denim

Hi, hi.

We're a couple of weeks into the Purple Phase now [it's running until the end of November] so I thought I'd take two minutes to check how it's going, so ...

How's it going?

If you already like purple ...

•  have you been tempted to try any of the colour-combinations so far?
• a few people have let me know about their blog posts and they've now been pinned to the Pinterest board.
• Show me yours!

If you didn't like purple before ... or you didn't think that you liked purple ...

• are you a convert yet?
• have there been any palettes in particular you'd consider trying?
• anything seem wearable yet?

Thanks to those who've been in touch so far both here and on Twitter.

This week the words: "I thought of you when I was playing with the purple mist." were music to my ears as I'm never quite sure who's reading / listening ... so to find that out ... was just so much fun! So was learning that a painting on a restaurant wall reminded someone of my colour-palettes and how did I learn this? She tweeted me, while she was there having her lunch opposite the painting! The whole scenario made me smile, lots!

OK, now all the fun stuff's out of the way, it's time to move on to the all important business of convincing to you wear purple ....

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When I blogged the previous colour palette, from a page in my journal,  [the one with plum, fuchsia + cream] it reminded me of a retro-floral summery top I have ... so that was the starting point for today's combination.

Hopefully it will show how the palettes can easily crossover from craft projects to outfits and vice-versa. So here it is:

I think I paid the grand sum of £1 for it, in a sale at Internacionale years ago! I wanted to use it as a way to show an easy way to introduce purple to your wardrobe:

• as part of a pattern, mixed in with other more familiar colours,
• and as a part of a very casual look:

It's certainly not particularly the easiest item to wear: it's very bright, very patterned and that little frill on the shoulder really distracts me!

And I probably wear it more in the winter than summer despite the palette and design feeling initially quite spring/summery.

I'm much more comfortable in it when I wear a cardigan over the top:

•  I find shades of purple are made much more wearable/usable when paired with natural shades and neutrals.
• So this charcoal/brown cardigan feels like a good choice to tone things down.
• Imagine if I wore a matching lilac cardy with it ... it wouldn't be the same outfit. It might be pretty, but it wouldn't have the same relaxed, casual feel.
• And as for the jeans, well, they go with purple because they go with everything. Everything!

So, I had my splash of colour and I added in some safe neutrals and/or denim, now what?

Remember, last time I extolled the virtues of balancing out colours in any scheme by repeating them, well, that's what I tried to do with the shoes:

Top: Internacionale ¦¦ Cardigan: H&M current season ¦¦ Jeans: Primark ¦¦ Shoes: by Converse

So, there we go. Another palette, another outfit using purple.

Another glimpse into both my wardrobe and my tiny back garden!

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I'll be back on Monday with the first of several posts created by guest bloggers. So make sure you swing by to see Sian Fair's fabulous take on Purple Phase!

Until then then ...

Julie :-)

Journal: LSNED 25 - 30

Hello.

September certainly went out in a blaze of glorious heat leaving me no excuse for not sitting at the garden table last Saturday and not moving until my Learn Something New Every Day journal was finished.

It was a dirty job but ... you know ... I struggled through. Now here are the final fruits of my LSNED labours:

Sept 24: That's the page with the Dr.Who reference which I blogged earlier this week here.

Sept 25: Look, dry hands!

Let me assure you that I am, in fact, a good driver - it's just that James does 99.9% of the driving when we go out together so he doesn't often get chauffeured around. He always used to find it hard to be a passenger ... but not so this time. Progress! ;-)

Sept 26: Seclusion

While making these pages I stumbled across an interesting alternative to splashing white paint around: I splash my white poster pen around instead. I had a white Sharpie Poster Paint Pen which was running low on paint and I kept having to really shake it up. I found that, after doing this the poaint sometimes easily splattered out when I removed the lid ... so I started doing it on purpose.

Shake it up. Remove lid. Flick the wrist  ... as if you're from Hogwarts. Result!

[If you can't find a white Sharpie pen then Posca do a very similar version. I have one. It's the one I use 'properly'!]

Sept 27: That's the page I made the 'from start to finish tutorial' about, which you've already seen [unless you haven't ... in which case it's here].

Sept 28: Just plain 'sad'

As the journaling says, it's often the simplest words, the ones we teach children, that are the most appropriate to describe your feelings.

Also, feeling sad for someone else is often far worse than for yourself.

Sept 29: Sunny day philosophy

Unaccustomed as I am to extended periods of sunshine ... I made the most of those few incredibly sunny days we had last week and took lots of photos. And started writing a tutorial and then ... my internet was cut off!!

Long story.

Anyway ... I remembered Shimelle's LSNED prompt for that day re: making time to fit in something nice, making the effort to schedule-in something you'd look back and wish you'd done ... so, rather than stay home, minus broadband, and just do some crafting ... I went for a walk in the sunshine to visit my parents and an adorable 2 year old [from my Month in Numbers post a few days ago.]

And we collected leaves in a dumper truck and played with snailshells and toy cars. Which I don't think i'd have done if I'd stayed home ...

Sept 30: Lucky

Shimelle had suggest we do a 'round-up' page:

"You don’t need to write reams, but a few words to finish your book gives it that explanation to anyone who might read it while also reminding you of the feeling of finishing such a record of your life this month, this year."

If you can remember back to when I was thinking about September's arrival you'll know I wasn't looking forward to it. But while journaling the month I began to realise that I had nothing at all to complain about. Nothing.

I had days out with James, I had interesting work, I saw my family, I had lovely online feedback, I sat in the garden ... I had a much needed haircut!

And so for a final closing page:

I was right ... October, it's only 4 days later and already you haven't been able to keep that weather up!

Here's the finshed book:

Slightly buckled and a smidge crinkly but mostly colourful and cheerful. Not bad qualities to aim for ...

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For the person who asked where I get ideas for my pages I thought I'd quickly add in a few ideas:

• I should say that this particular journal came from me taking Learn Something New Every Day - a class delivered by Shimelle Laine. While I didn't always follow the exact prompt for the day, I would say that a mix of everything she covered eventually found its way on to my pages.
• Alternatively there's a new art journaling challenge each week over on UKStampers , hosted by Effie, that anyone can join in with.
• There are so many prompt / challenge blogs out there if you have a search around.
• Emily Falconbridge did a year of journal prompting for her 52Q series which I absolutely loved!! The tiny journal pages I made in response to her prompts can all be found here and they remain some of the things I am most happy to have created!
• And sometimes my ideas come from something that happened, a photograph, a feeling, an interesting magazine clipping or phrase I come across.

If you have any interesting inspiration sites you'd like to share, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

I'll be back soon with another Purple Phase colour palette, it's an outfit this time, in a similar colour-way as the post from earlier this week.

As for today, I'm not sure how I'm going to spend the rest of it ... but I'll take a guess that there'll be paper involved somewhere.

Soon enough,

Julie x