My stencils are out and a list of happies!

Hey-ho my creative friends!

Life has been a bit challenging in the last couple of weeks. Lots has been going on 'behind the scenes' leaving me quite stressed and shakey, and the fantasy of a 3 month holiday in the Bahamas where I lie on a sunbed on a sandy beach being waited on by kind people while the dolphins are splashing in the sparkling ocean in front of me, is popping up in my head more and more BUT, instead of focusing on the stress, I'm focusing on the happy instead. There, take that stress! I'm gonna erase you with all the happy! hahahahaha! ;)

So, here is my list of happies. :D Before I do that though let me tell you that I appreciate you for reading my stuff, supporting my livelihood, spending time with me in my online livingroom and just being allround awesome lovely people. Thank you for your kindness and compassion. You are loved and needed !

Happy nr 1. I have 2 sets of stencils out with Artistcellar! :D It's been in making for several months now and some of you realised it when I dropped in some my sneak peeks here and there but they are now finally officially released and I can talk about them and openly celebrate them!!! Yayyyy! :D I feel so proud and accomplished to have my name on such a lovely product! :D

About the Whimsy Stencils:

"Including whimsy in my paintings is a way for me to reconnect and capture the innocence of childhood. Most of my paintings contain childlike and fun whimsy elements. With my new whimsy stencils I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to include that little bit of magical whimsy into their paintings and art creations too. They are fun and quirky and can help you bring that extra bit of sparkle to your journal or page." 

About the Stylised Uplifting Words Stencils:

"So many artists complain about their hand writing! Whenever I run a class that includes writing, students shy away or avoid the writing bit because they don't like their writing. This set of stencils can help you add writing to your pages without having to write it yourself! Or they can inspire you to develop your own stylised handwriting. The words themselves are meant to uplift you and bring a smile to your face when you've added them to your page. Enjoy!"


Stencils can be used in such a wonderful variety of ways! They can be used with ink sprays and acrylics, but they can also be used as 'masks' and you create fabulous texture with them if you use moulding paste or texture paste through them. You can use them as part of layering on your backgrounds or you can use them as standalones and make hand made cards with them for instance! All fun stuff!

Today is the beginning of the blog hop with some of my artsy and creative friends! They'll all share with you how they used the stencils and they are holding give aways too, so if you want to win some, make sure to follow the hop, here is the list:

10/26 Artistcellar http://www.artistcellar.com/wp

10/27 Jill K. Berry http://jillberrydesign.com/blog

10/28 Dawn DeVries Sokol http://www.dawndsokol.com

10/29 Carla Sonheim carlasonheim.wordpress.com

10/30 Micki Wilde thesecrethermit.blogspot.com

10/31 Carissa Paige http://carissapaige.blogspot.com

11/1 Effy Wild www.effywild.com

11/2 Gracie Howle http://graciehowle.blogspot.com

11/3 Jane Davenport http://janedavenport.com

11/4 Chris Cozen http://chriscozenartist.typepad.com/my-blog/ 
11/5 Tamara Laporte www.willowing.org/blog


As you can see I'll be rounding off this hop with my own blog post and give away! I'm currently preparing an instructional (free) video too to show you how you can use these stencils! :D It will be posted on the day of my blog hop day. :) So keep an eye out!

Here is some art I created that includes some of my stencils (gratitude comes from the word stencil set):

 

This is from the whimsy set, here I used the stencils as a mask and it leaves this wonderful grungy print effect behind:

These are just 2 quick examples, on my blog hop posting day there'll be a lot more! :D

So I'm super duper excited about this! :D

If you want to buy any sets or individual stencils, you can buy them from:

Artistcellar here best for those based in US/ Canada/ South America

I'll be selling them in my etsy shop soon (but not quite yet) for UK/ Europe

And my friend Jane Davenport sells my stencils in her shop which would suit Australia/ Asia & possibly African countries too. Yay. 

Happy Nr 2. As an empath I get affected by the troubles of the world a lot, often feeling helpless and upset about not being able to make much of a difference. I give money to quite a few charities (kiva, friends of the earth, amnesty, local ngo's in Sri Lanka who do conflict resolution and chestnut-tree house looking after terminally ill children & their families for instance), but lately I've been feeling the call to do something more pro-active than giving money (I think giving money is BRILLIANT if you can btw, no dissing the money giving AT ALL). I just wanted to do something awesome and big and active when it came to improving the world and when Upworthy sent out an email (I subscribe to their newsletter) with a deeply moving and inspiring video about building water supplies in Indian cities helping in particular a people in India called Dalits (or the 'untouchables'), I was so moved and inspired that I thought: THAT! That's what I want to do! I want to start my OWN WATER CAMPAIGN and do something FABULOUS for the people who donate money to it. :D So, I started thinking and came up with ideas and have subsequently been working my face off to get some stuff together for this campaign. Basically myself and Gracie (who works with me in the office and is an AMAZING singer) have been recording a song with beautiful meaning and a lot of depth and soul (won't announce the song title yet, want it to be a surprise). We'll make a music video with it too plus, I'm preparing a mini art lesson on canvas which people who donate to my campaign, will get free access to. Anyhoo, all the details are still not completely formalised, but I'm so psyched about this. All the money donated will go to building water systems in villages that need them! Sooo, keep an eye out, because if you donate to my campaign, for as little as $5 or more, whatever you are able/ willing to give, you'll get a music track, music video download and access to a mini art course on canvas (I'll likely be showing you how to create a mermaid on canvas to stick with the 'water theme)! How fab is that?! :) More on this soon too!

Me in the home made studio, photo taken by Gracie;

Happy nr 3. Few people know that my parents work in fashion. My dad is a fashion designer (bona fide!!) and my mum a pattern designer, they own a company together that produces clothing wholesale and my mother does a lot of pattern design work for large clothing companies. I have, for a while now, been wanting to bring out more 'Willowing Arts' products and so my parents and I have been brainstorming about bringing out some fashion/ clothing/ comfy trouser and shawl/ scarf line with Willowing Arts. This is all still in its embryonic stages to nothing to show you yet, but again: I'm peeing myself with excitement over this! I'm particularly interested in producing funky/ artsy/ comfy trousers that artists can work in but that are also stylish and bohemian looking. Cool idea no? But also we're going to produce fabric with my art designs on them and make shawls or bags or something like that! :D So fun! It's great when you have artsy parents in the industry! ;)

Happy nr 4. Other behind the scenes preparations are happening for my yearly digital calendar(s) with Tam Art. I produce mine digitally each year so you can print them out yourself because that way they are more affordable. You can check out last year's calendars by clicking here.

Happy nr 5. I'm going to be offering some of my popular Life Book lessons from 2012 & 2013 as stand-alone mini courses (self study). Like the Quirky Birds lesson and some others too. I've been preparing a Halloween lesson for Life Book this year and that one will also become available as a stand alone some time this month! So if you love Halloween make sure to join this one, it's a fun one! :)

Happy nr 6. I am going to be involved with a fabulous collaborate art course which opens up soon. Can't quite announce which one it is yet, but can do in about a week or so. :D

Happy nr 7. I discovered glitter hair spray and now I can't stop spraying it in my hair every day, glitter makes everything better! ;) I'm also going through a phase of wearing 60ties/ 70ties head gear, can't seem to stop for some reason. ;) I think I'm channeling my inner Olivia Newton John in Xanadu, no? 

So that was a pretty good list of happies n'est pas? :D I'm counting my blessings in spite of the sucky stressfest that's been my last 2 weeks. I hope you too can count your blessings dear one! If times have been tough for you too: I send you light huge and big. (The suckiness does seem to be going round at the moment!)
 

Now, gotta go sleep and get ready for -apparently- a bit of a mega storm for tomorrow!

Good night beautiful bunch. I rather heart you.