Moving on to other things !

As you may have noticed I don't blog anymore , but rather than just leave things open I thought I would make some closure here :)

Everything is ok with me , I have just moved on to other things and as I try to find "Balance" in my days I can't keep up something such as this blog if I am just not giving my all.

The blog will stay here of course, there are tutorials on my blog and other things that people may find interesting.

 I just wanted to note that Her Creative Spirit is now retired .

My best to anyone who lands here !

Lynn

Peace, Joy and Serenity

I love this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I read a lot of spiritual books and am trying as much as I can to live in the present moment. To focus on what I am doing in this moment. Which, in this moment , is writing to you :)

When you are in the "now" as Eckhart Tolle calls it , you do feel a sense of peace, joy and serenity.

As for my photograph today , I was giving my 15 year old niece tips on how I take some photos. Not that I am a pro' but to her I am . We put this glass jar on the bathroom floor with some of my dried herbs that had gone to seed. I like this bathroom because it is all white except for the shower curtain, towels and some accessories. Then we did some editing in Photoshop. Hope you like it. A friend said it looks very Zen.

I hope you get a chance to feel some peace today, take some quiet time and be still.

"It Takes A Village"

When I saw Cathy Bluteau's whimsical houses I immediately wanted to play , so I signed up for her class , and had a few relaxing and fun days creating this village out of my old stash of scrapbooking papers.

I really enjoyed it but so far have only done one piece because I also had signed up for a more intense workshop involving textile  art, which I am still working on.

I could have posted this a while ago and some of you have seen it on Facebook but I thought my blog readers may like to see it and even be interested in Cathy's class which you can check out on her website here. Its called "It Takes A Village".

I did start another one, but for the time being, all papers glue and paint have been put away so I can focus on my other workshop with Jackie Cardy , and oh my…. will you love her work if you have yet to see it. This is her first time offering her techniques , and hopefully for some of you it won't be the last because she is a wonderful teacher and such a real delight to listen to with her British accent and funny remarks and sayings. Such a lovely person :) 

Dreaming of the beach today

Hello there,

I know, it's been a while again and I keep saying that but I have been trying to find some balance in my life this year so far, actually "Balance" is my word for 2014, and so far it's going quite well.

The problem is there are so many things I want to do , so many things I love doing and then there are the chores like housework.
 Let's face it, I like a clean house :)

I am sure most of you creatives feel this way too.

I am dreaming of the beach today.
 Wish I was there…
It's been a terribly long winter , we still have quite a bit of snow too.

I don't know if I mentioned that hubby and I went to Florida for a week in November . I saw my very first live starfish on the beach and took so many photos of it. I like this one which I have processed in my own little way, very simple.

I feel a sense of peace when I am at the ocean , in any kind of nature actually, how about you?

My dream of all dreams is to have a little house on a beach somewhere . Do you have big dreams?

BTW… if you are on Facebook, I have a page (which I have neglected too, but now I am more organized) where I post my photos with quotes and some inspiration. Pop on over and "like" my page and keep in touch there. Here is the link to Ashleigh Lynn Design on Facebook.

Named after my darling daughter Ashleigh Lynn. ;)

Squash Books

Happy New Year to you all! 

A friend showed me how to make squash books and I have made several now , I just love them.

I am sure you would like to know what a Squash book is. I suppose it got its name because after opening the little book it "squashes" back together.

The books in the collage below are covered in my own inky, stamped papers and I used inky papers on the inside too, but plain paper is nice too.

I love Dylusions ink sprays, they are so vibrant and rich, I am totally hooked on them. I think this colorway is my favourite at the moment.

Ok, so this is not a tutorial but I do have a link to a really good video on YouTube .
This is the video I like by Scrapbooker , but there are quite a few if you look around.

They are a lot easier than they look , once you get the hang of the folding you can make them quite quickly. I have given some of mine as gifts , added some quotes inside , and my nieces when I taught them how to make them printed out instagram photos and made little friendship books.

This is how it looks when you open the book.

If you give it a try I would love to see them. 

Happy Holidays

This is my wish for you…. enjoy and I will see you in 

the New Year !

The Christmas Cottage

There is a Christmas Cottage about 5 minutes from where my parents live and I couldn't wait to have a look so I took mum and dad out for the afternoon.
We were in there for ages , more than an hour, its in an old house and every room is filled with decorated trees, and all things Christmas.

It may be a bit early for some of you, but not me :)
Enjoy!


This section is the first room as you walk in the door, I love how they decorated this green and red tree. Sorry the photos are not the greatest I was snapping away with my phone and my hands were almost shaking with the excitement. I was like a kid in a candy shop.

A close up of that fun and whimiscal tree.

 This section is on the other side of the mantel more red and lots of Christmas figures, teddy bears, snow people, the works, candles, ornaments, wreaths. Everything !

Be still my heart..... a white Owl tree . I would love to have white owls on my tree , but I stopped myself. I did buy some silver picks for my tree . You have no idea how hard it was.

A silver and grey tree, just love the Santas .

Meet my dad, he was feeling really good that day and he had lots of

 fun touching things and looking around :) 

I don't know why but I didn't take any other photos in this room. It was browns and creams.

I also forgot to take photos in the gold room ... sigh... I told you I was over excited.

The Christmas Cottage is owned by Coles Garden Centre and they did an extraordinary

job of putting all these trees together and displaying everything , a magical, magical house.

Hope you enjoyed it and it inspires you to start creating something for Christmas :)

Hello again

Well hello... I know.. it's been forever.
I was almost afraid to post thinking, what will people think of me, that was until I started a new ecourse with Brene Brown these past two weeks. Not sure if you have heard about it , the course is following Brene's book "The Gifts Of Imperfection" , "Let go of who you think your supposed to be and embrace who you are."
Even the first two weeks have been powerful for me. To put it all in a nutshell , I am learning to stop worrying about what people think of me, and be authentic. Its not easy for me, but I am trying :)

This may be a long post , but you don't "have to read it" *giggle. I will show you the only art I have done all summer , and tell you first some news.
One of my whimsical little Christmas crafts has been published in a Better Homes and Garden magazine. I have been holding on to this news for months , so here you have it. Of all the things I have created, this has to be the most simple. Those of you have been following me for years will probably remember them shown in my Christmas Gift Bag tutorial.

This is the magazine cover if you want to go find it, not sure if its too late or not but there are some really nice craft projects in this edition, I love this little snowman.

Thank you to the BHG staff for choosing my little craft project to go in your magazine. I am really touched :) I love crafting before the holidays don't you? I am ready now to start on some Christmas goodies , and will be back to share with you.

It's been a busy year for me, as most of you know. Finally have mom and dad settled in a nice bungalow and even though I am the one who drives them everywhere I still have a lot of free time which I am grateful for. My sister is now going through her radiation treatments after having her lymph nodes removed and she tells me its a breeze compared to the chemotherapy.

My art work has taken on a whole new direction, I am into more colour now, and I have really been enjoying the Dylusion Ink Sprays so much, using my own carved stamps and making inspiring words or affirmations on ATC sized blocks. Here are some examples ......

This all started when I took Kate Krane's class as mentioned in some previous posts and I have just been using her shared techniques with a touch of my own. I have started some Squash books with this technique , and will be back to share them with you very soon. I did the Squash books with my nieces on an art day this summer and I would love to show you their take on it.

Have a happy and safe Halloween , I am not really into it all but I do give out candy tonight to the kiddos, just hope the rain stops so they can have some fun.

Whimsical Houses

It seems that houses have been coming up a lot in my artwork of late.

Could it be something to do with family moving?

My daughter moved not long ago and in two more weeks we will be moving

my parents in to a bungalow.

Home has always been the best place for me to be. No matter where I have lived, and I have lived in many places in my life time, I have always made the house my home, my sanctuary.

How about you?

My husband had some scrap wood so I asked him to cut some wonky edges and make me some houses, and this is what the finished product looks like. 

I have used my own stamps carved from rubber on these, which I learned about in Kate Krane's class at 21 Secrets workshops, along with other stamps, paints, papers etc.

You can see one of my rustic little stamps in this photograph below.

 I used it on this piece of cardboard art in Kate's Journal Soup class.

 

 Here is another cute piece I did in Kate's class too, made on an old piece of cardboard.

 I enjoyed this class very much.

I am not sure if you can still sign up but here is the link again

if you want a lot of fun this summer.

21 Secrets

My sister continues to struggle through chemotherapy, she has completed half of it and has another 12 weeks to go, she should be finished just after her birthday in August. Then she get's a month to recuperate before her next surgery.

The next little while will be helping mom and dad finish packing, move and get settled, but I can't wait. It will only take me 7 minutes to drive to them after that. Yipeee...

I know this post is short (although sweet), I just wanted to share my art with you, it's hard keeping up with blogging lately, hope I am not gone so long next time.

Art Journals on my table..

Has it really been a month?

A lot has happened actually this last month, besides working on getting my parents house ready for sale, and then selling it, as well as finding a bungalow for them  I started the "21 Secrets" workshop and have been having a great time. It's been such a relief after all the stress my family has been under lately.

This is a journal I started yesterday and finished today, well that's a lie, the cover is finished, I have the signatures to add, but I want to paint the pages of the signatures first .

In "21 Secrets" I made flowers  in Ro Bruhn's class , and although I wasn't intending to use it on a journal cover it just seemed right. The background has lots of ink and paint , stencils and doodling which I first learned about in Roben Marie Smiths journal class. I also included some stitching, and my own techniques.

So this is a combination of Ro Bruhn, Roben Marie and Me styles hahaha

Below is the back of the journal cover.

Nice bright colours too which started when I took Terri Kahrs class at

"21 Secrets".

 For those who know Terri, you know she loves colour, bright, rich colour.

We made a journal in her class too and two of the pages I worked on already are in her style, with a touch of my own style of course.

Here is a look...

and here is another look...

I used mostly Terri's own altered images, and if you notice the second layout has a sweet little envelope for my secrets, that is if I ever write in these journals. I seem to prefer the painting, layering and collage part more :)

You may not of even heard of "21 Secrets", and I am no way affiliated with the workshops,

but I highly recommend them if you want to learn new techniques, or be inspired. For beginners 

and seasoned artists alike, there are 21 classes by 21 different artists and you have until the end of the year I believe to finish all of them, and it's a very reasonable price.

Here is the link to

"21 Secrets"

so you can see for yourself.

 I have also made my own foam stamps in Ro Bruhn's class, will share that soon .

In other news... my sister is now waiting to start chemo , her cancer is stage2 which means it has spread into the lymph nodes from the breast, but the tumour in the breast was removed successfully . She needs aggressive chemo now, probably in a weeks time she will start. After that, more surgery to remove the nodes and after that radiation, so she is going to have one heck of a tough year this year. I still can't believe it.
Your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.

So I had a lot to cover today, that's what I get for not posting in a month.
Hope you are all well, love to you all.

Whimsical Journal Cover

Finished another journal cover this week made on mixed media paper.
When I start I have no idea how the colours will end up or the design but this one just spoke to me, add a little bird. So I did and I am very pleased with it.

It will be folded in half after I stitch some papers inside.

In other news, my sister has her surgery date for Feb' 26th and she will be so happy

to get that tumour out. They will be doing a lumpectomy and taking some lymph nodes from

under her arm. I think they do this and send it all of to the lab to see what stage the cancer is at.

She will have four weeks to recoup before any other treatments as it takes this long for the test results. Its probably a good thing, gives her time to get some strength back.

Prayers appreciated as always.

Thank you, and have a great weekend.

Lynn x

Niagara Falls after the storm

After the biggest snowfall in five years , the day after it, we drove to the Falls to take photographs. I don't remember it being so beautiful, maybe because this time the snow was so fresh. The water was a green colour crashing down and creating so much mist you couldn't see the bottom.

It was nice because there were a lot less people than usual. Thank goodness they have the "Welcome building" there because my fingers were starting to freeze after 10 mins so we went in to warm up.
This is the view of the Rainbow Bridge which you drive over to the United States. I wish I had thought about going over to take photos from their side, darn it. We didn't have our passports and you need one now to go back and forth.
Maybe we will have another snow fall like this before the end of Winter.

The lamp posts looked beautiful all covered in Icicles, and so did the Welcome Centre below, look how pretty it is. It looks like lace edges.

This is as close as I could get, the stairs and patio were closed due to the ice.

Everyone was very surprised to see a lady in her shorts , I don't know what she was thinking. She was with someone so I am sure if she wasn't in her right mind, he would have made her get dressed. Then I thought maybe they are on their way to Florida, which a lot of Canadians do this time of year, but still, shorts???? I took a photo of the back of her but I won't be posting it on the web LOL.

Maybe just one more shot, this one I really love with all the mist. This is the spot where you get wet walking along the edge. You can barely see just a glimpse of the rest of the falls through it.

I have resized these for the web and added more to my Facebook album, so some of you will have seen these already. Don't feel like you have to comment again ok?

I broke down and joined in on Facebook a few weeks ago and I love it, problem is you forget you have a blog sometimes and that other people do too because it all gets posted there. I love Facebook for connecting with my blogging friends on a daily basis.

Ok, just one more because these guys looked so good, and they add a pop of colour in all the whiteness .They were over Five Feet , I know that because they are taller than me :) Left over from Christmas I suppose. This coming Christmas I swear I must go and see the lights, can you believe I have never done so? Shame on me living so close.

Have a great day, be back soon....

Mixed Media Journal

Happy February my friends, I hope you are all well.

Just dropping in with something I actually finished. I say that because I seem to have

several unfinished projects on the go and am having a hard time deciding where to go

with them. Do you ever get like that?

This in an art journal, I insert mixed media paper, water colour paper and some of my inky papers in the journal for artsy friends to create on. Or not, doesn't matter :)

This one I am keeping for myself because I gave all my others as gifts.

I love the bright colours on this journal too, lots of layering and finished up with some

machine stitching. 

You can still take Roben Marie's workshop on her process to creating these journals. I took

it last summer and really enjoyed it, I just put my own style to the finished product  which is good, because we don't all want to look like we make the same journals or papers :)

A few more papers that may be going in another journal.
The thing is you can use these papers for backgrounds on atc's or collage, and they are a lot of fun to create using spray inks.

I have had a hard time focusing on art to be honest, maybe that's why the unfinished projects. We found out a couple of weeks ago that my sister has breast cancer and there has been a lot of different feelings and emotions flying around here. I am not sure when her surgery will be, but they are thinking a lumpectomy to start with. It's such a shock when you get news like this, then after a while you start to accept it and do what needs to be done. My sister is being really good about it, so I know she will do well :)

I am happy that January is over now, it just seemed like a very long month.

How's things with you?

A Little Whimsy

Hi again creative friends....

I thought a little whimsical art may brighten up this cloudy day.

Even if it's not cloudy where you are, it may still bring a smile to your face.

I know it did for me when I was creating these two small canvases.

I needed a hand made gift for my friend and I hadn't done any art for months so after a few attempts at other things I decided to make a very whimsical and fun canvas.

Lot's of layers, paint, stamps, doodles and rub ons , and the use of 

my "one word" for 2012 which was "GROW".

Not so much to grow a garden which I certainly did , but to grow

mentally, spiritually and creatively. I learned a lot of new things last

year including the graphics program Adobe Illustrator, and I learned

a lot about myself. 

I really enjoyed the process in creating these two pieces and that is what really is the most important part of art for me, being in the moment , and feeling that joy feeling while you play. How about you, do you enjoy the process?

All photos were taken with my iPhone5 , which as you can see has an amazing camera. I didn't add any fancy textures or effects on them.

If you are looking for a smart phone I highly recommend the iPhone and not just for the camera which I looooove....
Did I say how much I love my iphone camera?

If you are new to these kind of phones, you might not know that you don't have to buy the actual phone, you can get one through a plan you set up like I did. I upgraded my old school mobile phone to this beauty.

All photographs on this blog unless otherwise stated are copyright to me, but you are allowed to pin them with a link back to this blog. Thank you :)