Curiouser and Curiouser

The prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was: Trash to Treasure. This encouraged us to use recycled materials in our spread. I very often use images from magazines and catalogues that would normally go in the bin but must also admit that I buy magazines for the sole purpose of cutting them up for collage (in that process I also occasionally read bits of text but that's not their primary usage!). However in this case I used a Wrap catalogue as well as a Reclaim magazine (the name alone seemed appropriate!), retrieved from the garbage,  for all the collage in the background as well as for the two main images and the text.

After the collaging in the background I added Distress Crayons and paints and used them with the L320 Batik stencil, designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stencilgirl Products. At first I used a baby wipe to remove the crayon and paint and then I also sprayed through the stencil and stencilled on the spirals on with a cosmetic sponge.

One of the two images I found to use, looked quite surreal and that inspired the text found in the same magazine (a challenge I set myself). It is of course from Alice in Wonderland.

I have been even more absent from my computer than usual this week using my phone to blog and blip. I was trying to keep an eye on and pacify Flora who is not too pleased with the fact that we have workmen in at the moment. Had they been women she would have been okay but she remains actively scared of most men, specially large ones as these are. So she and I have been for long walks in the forest and trips in the car to keep her sweet and relaxed. It did me the world of good too.

This morning Flo and I were in the forest, and it is amazing to see so many different mushrooms and fungi. In the 22 years we have lived here it is by far the best show ever and my camera/phone is continually in my hand. Walking along the main tracks in the forest is also so full of memories of all our past dogs that I get quite emotional. If only the past 4 could still be here to accompany Flora and I! In my mind though they are there with us.