I love Autumn, it’s no secret. Using Anna’s artwork to create Autumnal spreads has been a therapy I’ve craved. My life is going through a huge transitional period and being able to sit and create has kept me sane! I usually work with watercolour but decided to get out the acrylics. I’ve been using them more and more recently, I find they give a much brighter and solid finish.




The first spread has an introduction to Autumn and the falling of leaves. In the UK the season is named ‘Autumn’ but as it’s well known, in the US it’s named ‘Fall’. I used to be quite biased and say Autumn was the best name for it however I am beginning to really warm to the word ‘Fall’, it literally makes me picture leaves falling. The past week has been quite blustery in the UK and we’ve finally got big piles of leaves everywhere! Also, how cute is Anna’s little Fox?

 

I then move onto Conkers! I don’t know what it is but there’s something very exciting about seeing conkers falling to the ground and collecting them. It immediately takes me back to my childhood and running to gather them, bonus points in I found one still in it’s spiky casing! A lot of the other kids would put them on string and have conker fights in the playground, if your opponent smashed your conker you lost. I have a feeling this has now been banned from playgrounds! I never used to play conkers, instead I would hoard my findings like treasure! Now I get to relive it, my Children are mini me’s!



From Conkers to Pumpkins. It wouldn’t be Autumn/Fall without Pumpkins. The majority of the page is taken up by a massive Pumpkin complete with decorative black Cat. I added to this a mouse from Anna’s 2017 Autumnal work. It’s only now as I look back at it that I realise I’ve placed a Cat and Mouse on the same page, a Cat hiding behind a Pumking ready to pounce! I’ve added a recipe journal card from Anna’s Patreon and found a Pumpkin Soup recipe. I may even attempt to cook it...eventually!

 

My last page is my chill out page. I seem to get a bit rubbish with reading during the Summer, I still do but it slows down. Autumn rolls round and out come the books! I love that the quote mentions “stacks of books (but read on my Kindle!)”. I must admit, as much as I love a real book in my hands, I do tend to read fiction on my Kindle. There’s only a handful of books I will read more than once (fiction that is) so it becomes clutter in my house. The Kindle is a running joke with a group of friends I have, they believe it is blasphemy. With the page itself I have chosen one of my favourite colours and used a pearlescent over the top. I’m not quite finished with the page at this point. I’m still working out how I want to finish it. That’s my most recent up to date artworks. I’m almost finished this sketchbook!

 Kelly xxx

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Art journaling about me

I've been working on some art journal pages about me recently. I've been wanted to record some thoughts about motherhood and my journey to get there so that my little girl can read about it later when she's older. Her journey to us was a complicated one and so writing it down in a visual way helps to break that complexity down a little. As part of this journaling I wanted to write some lists - they're an easy way to record thoughts and record moments in time.

 As soon as I saw one of Anna's collage sheets from this month's patreon I knew it would be perfect for my list pages. I ripped them up (I find paper glues better if it's ripped rather than cut), swiped some acrylic paint on the page and journalled around them. Simple and effective. I also used the same paper as a piece of writing paper when I wrote to my penal, just printed it out and wrote my letter on the plain side. How would you use this collage sheet?

 

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous pages as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

June Collage Sheets

Have you ever wondered what my Patreon is all about and what I create over there for my Patreons?

Like a lot of artists, part of my Patreon package is collage sheets and I thought I would show you the collage sheets that my Patreons will be receiving in June 2018 so you can have a look, see what I have been creating this month and if this is the sort of thing that could perhaps be for you (please bear in mind that the art in the collage sheets and the number of collage sheets vary each month but this is fairly typical).

If you like what you see why not join in the fun or just follow me on Patreon for my Patreon only updates (updates are free). You can find me at: https://www.patreon.com/mrsbrimbles

Thank you to my current Patreons who are supporting me as this helps me to be able to create more content for you free on my YouTube channel. Big, Big love xx

Creating a traveler's notebook style folio

Creating a traveler's notebook style folio using Anna's Patreon collage sheets

 It's no secret that I am *obsessed* with Anna's acrylic pour collage sheets so I wanted to make a project where I could use them everyday.  I have made myself a little traveler's notebook style travel-folio so that I can document my holidays.

This is how I made it:

I took 3 pieces of card, measuring the same size.  You can use any size for this, mine were 100mm by 175mm (I chose this size so that I could insert personal sized travelers notebooks later if I wanted to) as long as your pieces are the same size.  I also cut three thin pieces of card about 1.5mm thick (175mm long) - these are the spines of your traveler's notebook.   I took some masking tape and stuck these together, with a tiny gap between each one so that the card could fold:

I then cut out three pieces of paper the same size as my big pieces of card from Anna's collage sheets and glued these to cardstock, I used washi tape to cover the spines.

Essentially this is it.  I cut some mixed media paper, folded it in half and used an elastic to secure this inside the traveler's notebook - this is for my journaling while I am away.  All you need is another elastic and you can add as many notebooks or pieces of paper as will fit.  I glued in some pockets to the inside of my traveler's notebook so that I can keep receipts and tokens while I am away, and I added a sticker to the front.  It'll probably be decorated a lot more while I am away but for now I wanted to keep it simple.

I hope you like this project, I can see myself making this type of thing again, and altering the size to suit my needs.  I like the idea of being able to choose the collage sheets that best suit my project.
Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets including these gorgeous acrylic pours as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Spring Collage Sheets

Have you ever wondered what my Patreon is all about and what I create over there for my Patreons? Like a lot of artists, part of my Patreon package is collage sheets and I thought I would show you the collage sheets that my Patreons will be receiving in march 2018 so you can have a look, see what I have been creating this month and if this is the sort of thing that could perhaps be for you (please  bear in mind that the art in the collage sheets and the number of collage sheets vary each month but this is fairly typical). If you like what you see why not join in the fun or just follow me on Patreon for my Patreon only updates (updates are free).

You can find me at: https://www.patreon.com/mrsbrimbles

Thank you to my current Patreons who are supporting me as this helps me to be able to create more content for you free on my YouTube channel. Big, Big love xx

Winter Olympics Creative Journal Page

Hello everyone, brrr, it's been so cold. In weather like this I like nothing better than watching the Winter Olympics from the comfort of my warm home. This week I made a Winter Olympics journal page using resources from Anna Brims February patreon downloads, they were just perfect for this. I used to be an ice skater myself from aged 7 to 16 and competed in many competitions and grueling training sessions from 6am, then school and back on the ice after until 9pm daily.

When I saw Anna's ice skater image that she had painted I was gobsmacked at how similar it looked to a photo of me from an ice show when I skated to Wish Upon a Star, so knew it was perfect for my page.

Firstly I printed out the girl and the photo of me, then chose a pink pastel background image from Anna's collage sheets. The pastel colours look so pretty together. Anna also included a February Hygge collage sheet of her own drawings and the Winter theme continued on these.

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For table gifts for a planner event that I was attending, I had already created some textured watercolour journaling cards. However, due to the snow I was gutted that I couldn't attend, so used one of the pastel cards on my page instead.

 Finally I added some pastel washi tape and a ticket stub that Anna had gifted me in an ephemera swap, then added a bit of journaling about the Olympics. I love the finished page, especially the bit on the right, where it looks like the pink and white icicles trickling down the page.

Do go and check out Anna Brim on her patreon page, her resources are amazing and she now is offering a tier where you receive all the downloads, tutorials and videos as well as a physical Brimbles Box which is making a return.

Take Care everyone, stay warm and stay safe in the snow and ice,
​Kerry xx

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Pages in my journal

Again we have been spoilt with the artwork given via Anna's Patreon. I've managed to create four completed spreads, all with a different theme. The first spread used a lot of Anna's mixed media as they had a Feburary Love feel. I love the colour scheme used, it's not your expected pinks and reds but instead uses blues, pale pinks, purples and a complementary lemon colour. I recently posted about the Crafty Bonbons box, I used a few pieces from here with it being a box of the same theme.

 

I used a February journal card to say what I love about the month and decorated the page around it. I even got to practice some more brush lettering!
 

The second page has been inspired by the Snowdrop doodles. I wanted to use the same colours used in the flower swirl design (on the left) and keep the page fairly simple.
 

I wanted it to have a fresh, happy spring feel. Again more brush lettering has been practiced and I've used a glittery clear brush pen over the black.

 

The third page is inspired by the Ice Skating Dancers.

 

I used to attend adult Ballet classes and loved the positions of the drawings. The feel of the drawings made me think of flower sprits so I decided to sketch and combine this with Ballet.

 

I played with dresses to give them a look of petals at the bottom. I also decided to draw a closeup of a pointe ballet pump, this isn't a stage I managed to achieve due to falling pregnant whilst learning, however it's something that one day I would love to re-visit and work up to.

 

The fouth page is a swatch page. I have been wanting to do this for ages but it's one of those things that have been on my list that I'd never gotten round to. Seeing Anna's mini swatch square prompted me to have a go. I tried to extend the swatches at the end of the mini swatch and after that it was a free for all!
 

Lastly I have actually begun a fifth spread. This is using some of Anna's previous artworks and a quote from my 2017 calendar. I'm not sure how I will finish it but I'm loving how it's looking so far.

 

Thanks for stopping by,
 Kelly.

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Art Journal Page - Watercolour and Collage

Anna Brim has some amazing goodies from the collage sheets and tutorials this month over on her patreon page, so many so that I was having so many creative ideas. It is easy to get overwhelmed when you get new art goodies and I guess this happened to me this month. I tried to create something that people could use as ideas, but everything I tried just didn't resonate with me and it didn't feel organic enough.

I wasn't happy with what I was creating until I thought about the elements on the collage sheets and referred back to my previous art journaling style of the zetti collage style where I rip up sheets and deconstruct the images and manipulate them into something new. It was at this point I came about seeing Anna's gorgeous acrylic pour art sheets as sea. Anna included a lovely sheet with a girl with blue hair and instantly I knew she was going to become a mermaid.

Art Journal Process

I painted a mix of pinks and purple watercolour on to the page, then proceeded to rip up the collage sheet to make the sea, the swirls from the sheet are beautiful and actually remind me of a swirling Lush bath bomb. Next I glued the girls top half on to the page (also one of Anna's collage sheets) and then in pencil drew on the mermaid tail which is half in the water.

 Next came the watercolour for the tail, which was create by mixing blues and white and then adding some blobs of the Gansai Tambi Watercolours in gold (Starry Colours). To finish the painting itself, I added some more splashes of the gold paint in the blue gold, this really added texture to the piece making it seem like it had been sprinkled in sand.

It needed a quote and straight away I thought of 'The Little Mermaid'. I was at a planner meet at a friends house as I was creating this, so asked around the table if anyone had a quote. We found the perfect one: 'She longs for the wild salt air'. A final die cut shape was added to add a coral type look and the page was finished. I am so happy with the final page and pleased that I have gone back to my original style.

5 Minute Art Page

In addition to the art collage page, I also created a quick 5 minute journal page using 2 small journal card sized sheets that Anna had added from her own old journal pages. I added a watercolour wash to the page and then added the girl on the star. I decided to cut up the second quote sheet to spread this out across the page. An instant inspirational quote page for my journal.

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Drawing Gum Resist

A Christmas themed page for this months blog post for Anna (Mrs Brimbles) using her fabulous tutorials on watercolour resist from the November patreon workshop video. I have seen this month that Anna has been using the Gansai Tambi watercolours in gold (Starry Colours) and I just had to get some...they are stunning. I have been so inspired by the content on her patreon page these last two months that I really could have created a million things. I decided to focus on 3 things: Watercolour resist, using the Starry Colours paints and playing around with the December collage sheets.

Watercolour and Drawing Gum Resist Process:

For the page prep, I used some of the Prima spray mist I got free with a purchase at Plannercon Europe (the colour is stunning - Precious Stone). I love the glittery effect of it. I then set to work adding some drawing gum in swirls and as a snowflake pattern. I had always wanted to try drawing gum as a resist, I have used wax crayons before, but never gum.

​When this was dry I added some watercolour using the gold paint and then peeled off the gum. I really didn't know what to expect, but I love the final result and it is so Christmassy. I love the effect the drawing gum over the spray mist with the Starry Colours paint over the top has created. Such vibrant colours and a lovely texture. You can see the entire process in the video below or click here Drawing Gum Resist Video. 

I can highly recommend the Starry Colours paints. At first they don't look like they have a strong pigment, but as soon as you start building up the colour and layering them over one another they really pop.

Using Decembers Mrs Brimbles Collage Sheets

The second half of the video shows you my first pages in my Instagram Christmas photo journal. I made the journal at the Jingle and Mingle meet up from Anna's resources and workshop, so I will use it to add my Instagram Christmas pictures to. The collage sheets/printables that Anna has provided from the December Patreon are stunning, such amazing colours, they scream Christmas! Check out further descriptions at the end of the video (if you haven't already).

Do be sure to check out Anna's Patreon, as well as the current month, you also get everything back dated and it's such incredible value at only $5 or $10 a month - www.patreon.com/mrsbrimbles

​Thank you for the support this year and have a great Christmas and 2017.
​Kerry xxx

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