Unruly Nephew (and Wife?)

True to my promise to myself, I have made a start on my next present for Allie's Christmas Through the Year challenge. I am making name panels for all my nieces and nephews using Unruly Quilter Tonya's techniques. You can see previous panels here, here, here and here. This one is for my second eldest nephew, Charlie:



As you can see, it's not quilted yet. I think I will have to keep the quilting pretty simple given the crazy nature of the background fabric!

And, then I have this Unruly Farmer's Wife thing going on in my head. You will probably have seen all over blogland, peeps taking part in the Farmers Wife Quiltalong. Now, I don't really *do* making other people's quilt patterns, or following rules and templates but I keep seeing the blocks and thinking "ooh, that could be free pieced". So now I'm thinking "how about a liberated/free pieced/wonky farmers wife quilt?". And I could call it the Unruly Wife, which would be much more up my street!! I'm still thinking about it...but it is growing and growing in my head :-)

And I realised I haven't blogged about the ICAD Challenge for a while. I have still been creating an index card a day, although I admit it is getting harder to know what to do each time! Here's a few recent ones:

Cards inspired by my love of quilts:


Doodley ones:



Favourite poetry:


Cards reflecting my spiritual journey:


But of all the index cards I have made, none of them make me smile as much as this one made by my six year old son, Waif:



I love it!

Playing with Paints

I've dared to start painting in the Eagle annual!!

I prepped the pages with good ole gesso, then tried watercolour painting, followed by a sprinkle of salt for this background:



This one I painted, then lifted some of the paint with scrunched up clingfilm:



I decided the plane was worthy of being kept in and was taken with the words from the story: But at this moment, when escape seems so imminent, his hopes are shattered by a firm inexorable downward pull. Not sure where I'm going with this, but just loved the words!

And if immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I am thrilled that both my boys have decided to keep their own art journals. Gman (11) is using his to explore feelings, emotions and poetry, so won't be sharing pics, but Waif (6) is enjoying experimenting with paint, collage and mama's stamps and inks. Here's his first spread:



I think it's fab!

I haven't been able to find any kids books on art journalling, so if anybody knows of any, let me know!