It’s an arty sign

About 4 years ago I did a few sessions of counselling to get my head around some stuff. We also worked on me sleeping better, without huge success. We identified three things I wanted to achieve in the counselling; she said 3 is about the max you can do at any one time. One of the words we settled on was content; not content as in “no growth needed” but content to let the process work and accept life as it happens. There were a lot of very good reasons why that was needed.

And, full circle, the same thing applies now. There’s a lot of change happening in my life, and I can’t control much of it. It’s important I feel content with life regardless.

I’m inspired by Claire Stead‘s art and have just got her new release from Funky Fossil through Natalie May Scrapbooking in Australia. I got some clear text stamps and her collage paper. I was working in my 6×6 Dina Wakley kraft journal, one of my favs, this morning and flicked through the collage paper book and there it was — “I am content”. The universe wants me to know it will be ok!

Storing all my paper

I’ve just started the 2023 #100daysofcollage with Froyle Art. Last year I ended up doing 163 collages. This year? Who knows, but I’m excited to get started.

I have a lot of paper, and storing it so it’s manageable & findable is a mission. I have a large drawer of full,page sized gelli prints. I have manila folders of images cut out of old books and magazines, sorted into religious icons, people, architecture and other.

My paper scraps are sorted by colour into plastic envelopes and file boxes. As soon as I cut or tear into a full size gelli print, the remains go into the paper files. The colour sorting is ‘best guess’ based on the main colour of the print. It’s a loose system, but it works well enough for me.

Manila folders of cut out images, maps, book pages etc

Plastic folders with paper sorted by colour

Plastic folders of cut out images