Sketchbook Flip Through

Today I am sharing with you a flip through of a completed sketchbook. Most of the artwork you will see in it is either for Brimbles Box products / collections or for my Patreon tutorials or collage sheets. Links to all of those are below. 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 I hope you enjoy!

Purchase the Brimbles Box - a monthly stationery subscription box and other stationery goodies: http://www.mrsbrimbles.co.uk/shop

Patreon: www.patreon.com/mrsbrimbles

Holey Moley Sketch Book Review

Every once in a while I am approached by a company and asked if I would be able to review their products. It doesn't happen all that often and when it does I don't always say yes but when it comes to a product that I feel would be a good fit I say yes. I am even more than happy when it is a fledgling business run by an artist who is looking for some promotion to kick start their business. So today on the blog I am reviewing a sketch book from Holey Moley.



I was able to choose the one that resonated most with me and I chose this super cute pencil design. I thought it was most apt for a sketch book lol. I love how it has been designed and made by the artist Aysha Samrin herself.

So the book itself is handmade and is of a lovely quality. It has a soft cover made from what feels like a heavyweight card stock with a beautiful silky finish. The colours in the design are rich and just lovely. The paper inside, I am not sure what it is but it is gorgeous. I guess it helps when an artist makes a sketch book as they know exactly what sort of paper other artists want! It is a lovely smooth finish sketch paper.

All in all the book is lovely, very well made and designed. priced at £5.50 it is a little pricey compared to walking in to Hobbycraft and purchasing one of their similar looking A5 sketchbooks, however what I believe you are paying for here is firstly, the art and design on the cover as the Hobbycraft ones are plain. And secondly the paper inside as the Hobbycraft ones tend to have pretty naff cartridge paper inside! I have learnt over time that I feel more inspired to create and that creation turns out better when I use nice paper!

Thank you to Holey Moley for sending this to me to review, I am going to very much enjoy using it. If you would like to learn more please check out:

Shop: http://holeymoleystuff.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamrinAysha
Blog: http://ayshasamrin.weebly.com/blog
Design Portfolio: http://ayshasamrin.weebly.com/


PLEASE NOTE: I was given this / these product(s) in exchange for my honest review and opinion, the fact that I was given these does not alter my opinion in anyway. This review is my own personal opionion on the product / company, given in good faith and has not be sponsored or endorsed. None of the links are affiliate links. Unless otherwise stated, all photography is my own.

Creating Daily

During the Christmas break I shared with you what I received for Christmas, well I thought I would give you a bit of an update on how I am using two of the things...

I was very kindly given a Paperchase bound diary from their Dreamscap collection. As you know I do love my ring bound planners for the flexibility of being able to move things around and in/out, Mr B also knows this but he bought it for me he said because he knew that I would like the cover design and thought that I could make use of it somehow. Oh how right he is! How could you not love the design? It is simply beautiful. The paper inside is a cream colour but so beautiful and smooth as well. I do love it.

oh by the way I am showing you photos of my messy artists desk too lol!

I also received a set of Spectrum Noir pencils. I knew they did markers but had no idea that they did pencils too. I have coveted the Prismacolor pencils for a while now but have never taken the plunge to buy them. I don't know why. I see people use them in videos etc all the time but I wonder if I would enjoy using them too. When I think of pencils I always think of the cheap kids ones that you have to really work at to get any colour at all. I know everyone raves about the Prismacolors I am just yet to try them for myself.

So what am I doing with these two things? Well I am putting them together and creating daily. I am working in my Fauxbonichi in the evenings when we finally sit down to watch some telly. After I have done with that I then pick up this book. I love love love my Fauxbonichi don't get me wrong and I do find it relaxing but I do have to think about what I have done that day to record it. Once I have done that I pick up this book and this set of pencils, nothing else and I let my mind wander off and draw whatever it needs or wants to. Whatever comes out of my head goes onto that paper. No carbon pencil and eraser, nope just straight down with coloured pencils. No thinking, no worry about mistakes, just creating and letting the mind go. I love it, not that any journal or creativity is particularly stressful, nor should it be, but there there is something about just letting your mind wander through the extension of your hand and a coloured pencil or two. I have even found a couple of characters that have come out on the page that I would like to develop and take further so that is great.

I am still not sure about the pencils as to whether or not I like them. I don't know if it is just pencils in general that I am comparing to other media but they just don't seem to be as pigmented as I would have liked them to be. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I am expecting too much from a pencil I don't know. Blending wise I haven't yet worked out how to really do that. I know you can buy blending solution but I don't really know what that is and how you use it so I really must look into that. There doesn't seem to be that much information so I will keep digging around.

Anyways for now I am just enjoying my little doodle time at the end of the day!

My Current Journal Collection {Part Two}

Following on from last week I wanted to share with you the remainder of my current journals. If you missed last week you can see it on this blog post.

So let's get straight into it, here are the rest of the journals that I keep...

Anniversary Journal

When we got married I had a picture of us printed onto a notebook from Photobox and I only ever write in this journal once a year on or around our wedding anniversary. Mr B and I went to school together and we have known each other since we were 11, only getting together as a couple age 16 when we left school and realised that we missed seeing each other everyday. We then married in 2007 and this journal was started on our one year anniversary.

In this journal I record how we celebrated our actually anniversary and I also record things like where we are at in our life, what we have done or accomplished that year and our goals and aspirations for the coming year. I also like to record some factual data as follows:

• Who was no 1 in the music charts
• The price of a pint of milk
• The price of a load of bread
• The price of a litre of fuel
• Who is Prime Minister
• Our place of employment, job title and salary
• Our address

I think these things would be really interesting to look at in years to come because it is those simple every day things that we take for granted when we are currently living them that would be fascinating in 50 years time!

Ideas Journal
I have an ideas journal for jotting down and recording all of those little things that one day I may want to refer to.

Home decor ideas
I have a journal dedicated to the house with ideas and inspiration for possible decoration. Whenever I see something in a magazine I clip it out and stick it in. I didn't want to make any rash decisions when it came to decorating the house as this is a long term project so we want to make sure we get it right and take time to formulate our ideas!

Character journal
My character journal is a journal written by my alter ego 'Elana'. It is kind of a work of fiction but also an outlet when I was going through a very rough time in my life. I could write as this person and have fun in a mystical world. To be perfectly honest I haven't written in this for way over a year, which is great in a lot of ways but also I feel it is a shame as I liked her and the story. Maybe I could pick it up again now I am in a better, brighter place?

Meditation / Dream Journal
I like to meditate frequently so I have a journal beside me so that I can jot down anything that comes to me afterwards. I also have some funky dreams sometimes so I like to record those in their too.

Faces Sketchbook
Last but not least I have a sketchbook dedicated to my drawing study of faces. I was always told off at college for drawing what was in my head rather than what I saw so every now and then I like to have a practise and as I very often like to draw / paint faces in my art journal then this is great practise for me. Again I haven't used this one in a while but it it there if I want to. This is a sketch from about a year and a half ago...

And that folks sums up my current journal collection. For now. It will change, I know it will, the reason I know it will as I have something on order currently so that will add to my collection in a matter of weeks. And then of course I will finish my art journal so it will be on to a new one. So it kind of changes in as much as the book itself will change but the format may not. Who knows, lets just wait and see!

I would love to see your journals if you would like to share them with me :D

My current journal collection {part one}

This week I thought I would share with you my current journal collection as it has been a while since I did that. I last shared them with you in May last year and I like to take stock every now and then and look at the journals that I am using. I do this because I like to take time to think about whether they still serve a purpose for me and whether I still want to use them. I hope you also find this interesting and that it might inspire you to journal in some way, whatever way that would be for you.

So here are my journals:

Art Journal
I call my art journal such because it is the term that most people will understand or recognise, however I prefer to call it just my journal, my visual journal or indeed an artiststs journal. In that journal I like to create art as well as incorporate collage and writing.

Sometimes I paint for paints sake just because I have a desire to be creative, sometimes I use it for concept art to develop something else or to learn new techniques. I also like to part scrapbook by using photos and smashbook by adding receipts and flyers from places we have been.

Whatever it is, it is my journal and it is the documentation of my life, my place to process feelings and emotions and a place to be happy or spend time with myself.

No pressure journal
I won't go into this too much as I wrote a whole blog post dedicated to this last week

Written journal
I like to keep a written journal solely for, you guessed it, writing! I like to write reams and reams when the mood takes me and at the moment I am using my A5 Finsbury Filofax for that. I love the feel and quality of the leather and I also like the flexibility of the rings for changing things about. In that journal is my life documented in writing and everything that goes with that good and bad!

My Filofax
I am using my daily Filofax to complement my written journal. In the back of the Filofax  I have blank paper (lined) in case the urge to write hits me when I don't have my journal with me. I just write in her and then add it into my journal later on.

Sea Journal
This was a book that I picked up from a charity stand for 50p. Whilst I started this and intended it to be an altereed book all related to the sea and mermaids, I literally did two pages in it and then run out of motivation for it. I still keep it in my collection of current journals because I really like the book itself. One day I may go back to this but I am not sure but don't want to part with the gorgeousness of it just yet!

BOS
My BOS is my book of shadows

Sketchbook
This is just a cheapy sketchbook that I use for you guessed it, doodling. I use it to test and work out the little characters that then become the ones you see on my Filofax inserts and dashboards.

A whole lot more information on these journals as well as glimpses into them can be found in the video:

I hope you have enjoyed a little look into some of my journals. There are many more to come and I will share these with you next week!

My New No Pressure Journal

If you are anything like me or you are into journals yourself, you will often find that your journals change, how you journal changes and you you feel about journalling changes too.  I go backwards and forward and in and out of love with not just the different types of physical journals I have but also how I am journalling in them. I guess different things suit me at different times and for different reasons.

Next week I will do an update on my current journals but just to give you a brief idea of my current journals, I am using an art journal and a 100% written journal but I was finding increasingly that I wasn't having any motivation for my written journal, I was finding that I didn't have the time, or perhaps more importantly that I wasn't finding or making the time to journal and when I did I just wasn't feeling it or in the mood.

Then one day I decided to set myself a no pressure journal.

I have a few new, empty notebooks / journals on my shelf and so I just went and grabbed the first one I felt drawn to with little thought into it, this was to be my no pressure journal so I didn't want to spend ages pondering over the cover, the paper quality the size and all that jazz. I was creating a new way of journaling, well new to me anyways.

So I set myself some rules for my no pressure journal:

No pressure to write
No pressure to art
No pressure to decorate at all
No pressure to have beautiful neat handwriting
No pressure to use any type of pen
No pressure to write long entries
No pressure to make eloquent entries

I told myself that I could just write whenever and wherever I wanted, multiple times a day if I wanted to. I can just grab any pen that is kicking around the house and just write until I want to stop writing. If I run out of time, or motivation I can just stop and not worry about it making sense or having to pick up where I left off the day before.

This is to be my no pressure, 100% fun journal and you know it is. I am finding myself wanting to pick it up and write in it all the time. Sometimes I will just write a sentence if it comes to me, other times I will write several pages but above all I am not worrying about it and just enjoying the process. I think this is a great tip for those just starting out or wanting to start journalling. Don't overthink it and don't worry about hoarding that beautiful notebook or worrying about not making it look nice and pretty. Who cares! It is just a notebook, it is there to be written in and loved.

I have been journalling for years and often go in peaks and troughs with my journals but I think you need to enjoy it and not force it. If you are forcing yourself to journal you are not being true to you and your reasons for journalling are all skewed. A journal is your companion for telling your woes, your fears, getting negative emotions out, rejoicing in the good times, documenting your life and record keeping. It is all there or should all be there, the real you, the place where you can truly be you and not worry about what anyone else things, so why should you worry about coherrent sentences? You shouldn't, you should just write, write whatever needs to come out and just go with it!

I hope that has helped you in some way, let me know if you have various journals that you use for different reasons, I would love to know.

If you would like to know more about how and why I journal you can watch this video. This is a video that I created in May 2013 but I realise that newer subscribers may not have seen this before and may find it interesting.

Following my obsession! - Journal Gypsies

As you know I am now blogging on Journal Gypsies but I also want to share on my blog what I have posted over there too. So I am going to post that post on here too but only a little later that it appear over there. Confused? Yep me too!

I find that when I look through past journals, I have had obsessions, or influences if you will, that follow me pretty much throughout my journal. Sometimes they are a big influence or inspiration and they make it into other journals, sometimes it is a small stage of my life and they just stay in the one. Does that happen to anyone else?

I was looking back through my current journal and it suddenly became rather obvious to me that I was being heavily inspired by stars, the night sky and galaxies. Every other page has some sort of star symbol in it! I need to look into symbology and find out whether my inner self is trying to tell me something. After all I don’t always intentionally set out to create stars, many times I am idly drawing whilst watching the TV and then I look down and a star has emerged and I very much do paint and draw intuitively. Something for me to look into for sure. Why are all these stars popping up?

I have also moved from just stars to whole galaxies and have been totally obsessed with creating girls who have galaxies as their hair. I just love it. It is so therapeutic to create, just watching all the watercolours swirl into each other and at the end you are left with something really mysterious and magical. Well to me they are anyway.

I am a massive dreamer and believer in magick!

I am really enjoying my star gazing journey. I have no idea where it will take me next in this journal or if it will follow me int the next but for now I am enjoying traveling with the stars.

How to draw a bunny - part 4

I am back with the fourth (can you believe fourth wow!) video in my "How to draw a Bunny" series.

This week we will be taking the cute little faces that we drew last week and we will be giving them bodies with clothes, either dresses or winter coats. Next week will be the final week where we will colour and shade our friends in.

Happy bunny drawing!

How to Draw a Bunny - Parth Three

I am back with the third video in my "How to draw a Bunny" series.

This week we will be taking the cute little faces that we drew last week and we will be adding ears, either sticky up ears or floppy ones. We will also wrapping them up nice and warm with hats and scarves and also sun hats ready for the warmer weather. I love getting this stage and really seeing the characters come to life and pop out of the page. I love just leaving them like this as cute floating heads. For those of you that want to give your bunnies a body and clothes, we will cover this in part four next week.

I hope you are all practising! I can't wait to see the little cuties that you have come up with. I haven't seen any yet and I am bursting to see, so if you would like to share please please please do, I would love it!

Happy bunny drawing!

How to Draw a Bunny - Part Two

I am back with the second video in my "How to draw a Bunny" series.

This week we will be taking the face shapes that we drew in week one and starting to make them look like little bunny rabbits by adding facial features and expressions. You will see that only a few very simple lines or marks can totally change how your bunny looks.

I am really very excited to see all the little bunny rabbits that you have drawn so please if you would like to share with me do tag me in any of the social media platforms so that I can see. I am simply @MrsBrimbles on any of them! Or if you would prefer you can email me privately if you don't want anyone else to see.

How to Draw a Bunny - Part One.

If you follow me across my social media platforms and have seen my art journals and other art work you will know that bunnies for me are a reoccurring theme. Those bunnies be popping up all over the place they really do.

For a while now I have thought about sharing with you how I draw my little bunny characters and then a lovely subscriber asked me if I would share. Of course I am always happy to share so here is the very first part in a little series on How to Draw a Bunny (in my style). In this first video we will look at imagery of bunnies so we really get a feel for what they look like and to inspire us. Bunnies like humans come in all shapes and sizes so we get to look at different types of bunnies and then start to draw different face shapes.

I hope you enjoy this series and have as much fun drawing bunnies as I always do.

Part two will be published in one weeks time (Tuesday 14th January 2013) so you have a week to practise what you learnt in this video before we move on to the next one. Enjoy x

Art Journal / Smashbook Flip Through June - December 2013

I have another art journal flip for you!

I have been very quiet  on the journalling front over the past couple of months as life seems to have gotten in the way which is why it has taken me so long to be able to share a journal flip with you.

I have so enjoyed working in this journal. The paper is lovely and silky smooth, just perfect for sketching and for pen and ink. It does take wet mediums as long as you are easy on the water as it doesn't hold if it is really wet. You also can't get your "wet in wet" techniques with your water colours. That being said I did do several watercolour paintings in here which you will see in the flip. For me this was just a lovely size (A5). I have taken a couple of signatures out of the book but I added a lot of ephemera which is why it is trying to bust out of the spine!

The journal itself is Indigo Bloom for Penny Kennedy which I purchased whilst doing my food shopping in Waitrose for £10. I have found them for sale at Bricknells Stationery: http://www.bricknells.net/shop/assorted-notebooks/indigo-bloom-purple-flower-hardback-notebook-a5/  if you were interested in purchasing one (I am not affiliated).

I love so many of the paintings and drawings in here and I would go as far as saying this is one of my favourite all time journals. I guess it helps that I was in a total place of happiness for most of the creations in here so I also look back at it with very fond memories.

This journal is not just an 'art journal', it is also a written journal, a smashbook and a bit of a scrapbook. I just call it my journal though as it is just anything that I want to do, create and record. I don't like labelling things, I just like to journal in whatever way the mood takes me. A lot of the time I find great joy in just cutting, ripping and sticking stuff down!

Rhomany's Realm Art Journal Tag

I thought it would be fun to do a tag video so I am doing the Art Journal Tag from Rhomany's Realm. To watch the original video and to get the questions so that you can do this tag too, please watch her video here.

I really enjoyed answering these questions, it got me thinking abit more about my creative adventures!

So here is my video with all of my responses and an opportunity for you to find out more about me and more about my art journalling.


If you have watched this video, I tag you to do this too either in video format or on your blog : )

The enchantment and draw of the circus

Back in November I was driving through my town and I saw that the circus had arrived. It was twilight and the lights were just coming on above the big tent. Instantly I felt connect to the circus and snapped an instagram pic as I slowed down to have a look. I was even more delighted to see that it had an Alice in Wonderland theme. As soon as it came, it had gone again. Sooner than the advertised date. It got me thinking all about the Night Circus again. Man how I loved that book. I read it a while ago but it still haunts and enchants me even now.

There was just something about that circus and the book. I can't stop looking at the picture and in my journal themes of the circus just keep on popping up. I even wrote a passage that I thought could be the start of my own work of fiction. I liked the concept if only I had the rest of the story or an idea in my head of where the story could take me I would be off on a writing mission. I think I am trying to hard. I want to write a fiction book. I do, I really do. Just no idea has come to me yet. I am hoping that it will sometime soon.

But I am enchanted and in my journal little touches of circus keep appearing. I wondered dear blog readers if you have ever been captivated in this way, so deeply that is is all you do, all you know, all you become obsessed with? I am intrigued to know, also to put my mind at rest and hope that I am not the only one that it happens to.

I love to read and I do get really engrossed in a book so much so that when it ends I feel sad that I must let go of it and that it is not going to be a part of me any more. I do hope dear readers that it is not just me.

For now I am clinging on to the circus and seeing where it leads me in my journal...

Another art journal flip for you!

I have finished another journal. I loved working in this one, I really did. I loved the size of it and really enjoyed working on the pages loose leaf so that there was no white space on the edge near the spirals. I always feel a bit sad when I finish a journal that I have enjoyed working in. I find it becomes part of me or an extension of me and it almost becomes like a security blanket. Anyway it is finished so I must move on.

Here is a flip of the inside for you to see. Have fun!

My travel art journal kit and summer seaside holiday vlog

We went on holiday to the lovely traditional quintessentially British sea side, Wells next the Sea in Norfolk for a week. It was lovely, so relaxing and the sun was shining. I thought it would be fun to do a bit of a vlog whilst we were there and share some of my holiday with you. Of course I took my journal and some supplies with me and I also share those with you, so what I did and the products and tools that I took.

Come along with me, all together now.... "oh I do like to be beside the seaside, oh I do like to be beside the sea"...

Watercolour journal flip from 2007

We are still unpacking boxes. Lots of boxes. We are getting there though and it is actually quite fun to re-discover your belongings. I found a water colour journal / pad and I thought I would do a flip through of it for you:

Pro Markers "skin" set

I am quite frugal when it comes to art supplies and I try and make do with what I have so as not to waste money on loads of gimmicks and gadgetry. I also believe that limiting yourself also pushes your creativity.  All that being said I do like to have a little spend now and then!

I have a smallish selection of Pro Markers that I have picked up every time I see them on sale or at a good price but I have been wanting the "skin" set for ages and last week I just bit the bullet and splurged £13 on the set of six. 

I had a little play with them and created a little whimsical character rather than a more human like face. I love Pro Markers generally but I think it might take a bit of time and a lot of practice with the skin ones. I have to say I wasn't as pleased with the set as I thought I would be. I thought they were all either on the darker or pinker side and I was hoping for a really light colour too. Maybe it is the way I am using them? I ended up adding a "satin" that I already owned into the mix.

I dunno, I am just not quite happy yet. At least it was a nice sunny day so I had the excuse of sitting in the garden with a cold Diet Coke happily colouring in.

I need to keep playing I think and watch some YouTube tutorials until I get the hang of it.

What do you think? Do you use them?

Another finished journal - time to flip out!

Whoooo hooooo! I have finished my art journal so I thought it was flipping time I did a flip lol!

So I have done two flip videos to suit different tastes. I know some people like me enjoy a longer video with commentary on how the page was made, with what mediums and the inspiration behind the page etc and then there are other people who just want to look at the pictures. So no matter which of the two categories you fall into there is a flip for you!

The first one is the long one and the second is the shorter version (much much much shorter). Grab a cuppa and enjoy : )

A look into my journals...

In this blog post I told you about how I journal and why I journal so this week I just wanted to show you all of my current journals. I previously showed you a picture of them but I thought I would do a video for you describing them all in much more detail. Of course this is just my current in use journals and not ones that have been completed. I know crazy amount but I bet some people have more than me!