I have been feeling the desire to imbibe of late. It is a time of year, when the drinks flow freely, there is a lot of alcohol on offer and our summer season here in NZ is beginning. Although I am 2 and 1/2 years alcohol free now, this time of the year it is like alcohol totally flaunts her fancy pants and calls out your name. I know that I can’t just have ONE, and I am a determined soul, but at times when everyone else “appears” happy with a glass in hand IT IS DIFFICULT to stand with your glass of sparkly water.
When I feel like this and everything starts to feel overwhelming due to the end of the school year, more work for me, the twins birthdays, getting ready to go away, doing Christmas rosters, buying the presents and all the while trying tokeep a smile on my face, I know that I need to do something that makes me relax and feel happy. It is time to journal and create.
I noticed Kasia from Everything Art was offering a little Christmas Advent art journal class for free and she is 8 months pregnant and managing to make time for this, so I decided to join up. For 14 days there are little video prompts based around self care concepts and so far I have done the first five. The idea is to take a small amount of time each day for yourself, gather a few supplies and choose a 3 colour palette near each other on the colour wheel. I tried to start with green, yellow combos, but somehow the magenta kept shouting pick me up, so we got green, yellow, pink and magenta, plus whatever else I reach. Well it is a Christmas vibe, so it is kind of green and red!
DAY 1 – A prompt about wasting time. I don’t like to think of journaling as a waste of time, so I journaled about the negative and positive time wasters in my life. YES – social media can be a negative time waster, but I love the inspiration I get from all the amazing women who share their art and souls online.
DAY 2 – Looking for and finding beauty. I like this one! I started out with my 3 colour palette, but I got lost along the way.
DAY 3 – Do what you can, where you are with what you have. This is such a great reminder, to just get on with it.
DAY 4 – ART IS FREEDOM – Yes, I spelt freedom wrong – was I that tired? And it is DooM, but I have made peace with my mistake and I am just going leave it and even share it just to show how imperfect I am.
DAY 5 – FILL YOUR CUP. I didn’t do this page in my junk journal, as I had stuck this picture of a pot and cup of tea in another journal ages ago – waiting for inspiration. I don’t really like how it turned out, but I was practicing writing with my fineline and it is what it is!
My little stack is building up and I am randomly adding colour as I go. It makes me happy.
It’s far from perfect, but I am drinking tea, and drinking sparkling water and grape juice (sans alcohol), so it’s working.
Lots of love
Cherie x
Yellow Azalea 