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I recently broke my arm and had a choice of colour for the fibreglass cast so I chose red. I added a transfer of my business logo and some scrapbooking rubons to dress it up a bit.

oh okay… actually I did the decorations in Photoshop - with my left hand mind you! The swirls and things are free brushes downloaded from the internet.

I tell you, I am getting really bored and frustrated with not being able to do much! I can’t believe it’s only been 2 1/2 weeks - I still have about a month of this!

ps thanks to all who have sent their good wishes for a speedy recovery!

Well I have always been a little interested in scrapbooking - it has all the elements of art and design on a small scale and lots of subject matter availalbe if you have cute kids and a good camera.  I know, there are some really cheesy cringeworthy examples of scrapbooking, but there are also some great artists making some great layouts. 

There are lots of great techniques and overlap between collage, papercraft, card making and scrapbooking so I have been reading up on scrapbooking a bit more and taking note of some artsy techniques to use in card making and other projects.  Somewhere along the way I kinda got attracted to scrapbooking itself.  oops.  And then I discovered digital scrapbooking and I knew I could do that.  There’s also “off the page” scrapbooking which is basically taking the concept and applying it to canvas art for the wall, which is exactly what I also want to do. 

Over the weekend I investigated free digital papers, elements and stuff to download and then worked on a layout last night.  Here is my first ever digital scrapbooking layout.  I am really happy with it.  What do you think?

 

Of course it helps to have a cute model! 

I know, it’s been a few days since I’ve posted. I’m not going to apologise to you though, Dear Reader, because well, it always seems a little sad to see someone feeling guilty that they haven’t posted an entry in the last few days, so no guilt here! Sometimes you just don’t feel like posting. My reason is that I have been dealing with depression again, if only fleetingly.

If you don’t remember my post on it from ages ago, I suffer from PMDD - Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder - which basically means that for about a week before my period is due every month I have three to seven days of depression, lethargy, etc and of course the most frustrating part of it for me is that it pretty much stops my creativity. The best part is that I am very grateful not to be suffering every day of the month, but even though I know that it is only temporary it still wipes me out every time.

I felt it creeping up on Saturday and then I spent Sunday in and out of bed, sleeping or laying on the couch most of the day. Then by 9.30 on Monday morning, I was in tears over nothing, then I pulled myself together pretty well to go to Playgroup with Emma (I felt a LOT better after my big pathetic cry session at my sisters) then I forged on to the Gym afterwards - exercise being good for shaking the mood - and ended up just walking out of the BodyBalance class before the end. Tuesday I was still feeling pretty blah, though I managed to get a few things done, in between zoning out in front of the telly or computer. I had no patience with the poor kids though. And then today, Wednesday I woke up and felt absolutely fine again. It’s as if nothing different had happened these last few days.

It’s a weird feeling really - comparing how I felt yesterday and the day before with how I feel today. Completely opposite frame of mind and energy levels.

One thing on the plus side of having PMDD (you have to find the silver lining!) is that often on the day that I come out of it, I am so pleased to be back to normal that I have a frenzy of activity. This afternoon I completely tidied up my workroom. Well, halfway anyhow. I will be finishing it up tomorrow so you will have to wait until then to see the evidence.

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like earlier - the before shot:

In other interesting news, I may have broken my left wrist! My non-dominant hand, thankfully. Astute readers will remember that I had a fall about a month ago (you can read about it here if you are not that astute! ha!) and hurt my wrist as I put it out to break my fall. It hurt quite a bit but that was to be expected and it soon felt almost back to normal. I had a niggling pain that remained but wasn’t too annoying - it was only when I had to do something that involved putting pressure on bending my thumb back. Helpful advice included the classic “Well if it hurts to do that, then don’t do it!” I managed everyday things quite fine and just was reminded of it here and there.

Then over the last couple of weeks I noticed the pain getting quite a lot worse and it was a dull pain pretty much all the time. Then the pain seemed to be travelling down my wrist, to the inside part of my forearm and I started getting quite worried! Of course it took me a bit of procrastinating to get to the doctor but I went today and she said that it sounded like I had fractured my scaphoid bone which is right inside the wrist. I just found this great site with lots of info (some of it a little scary) that you might like to read… you know if you are bored, interested or if you are my mother - hi mum!

So I have an x-ray tomorrow to see if it’s broken and then if it is I will probably have a cast put on my wrist on Friday afternoon. How often does a person get advance warning that they will be in a cast? So I have some sewing to get out of the way quicksmart as I’m not sure how easy it will be to guide fabric through the sewing machine with a cast on! Am I typing all this using my left hand right now? uh… yeah.

Now here’s a pretty picture:

This is a shot I did a few months ago - it’s a giant orangey marrow that Paul’s dad grew, and it is sitting on a great old leather couch of ours, full of wrinkles and texture. I worked on it in Photoshop obviously but it did already have that glorious colour. We didn’t end up eating it but I’m pretty sure it was a marrow, though I didn’t realise they could be orange.

When I took the photo I was thinking of the amazing pinhole photographs of Bill Brandt - like this, this or this.

I haven’t looked at this image for a long time, but I still like it. I recently uploaded some Digital Art from a few years ago to Flickr.

I really have to stop looking at Flickr and sew the rest of these Christmas presents! In-laws arrive tomorrow and the fold out sofabed is in the studio!

My Eyes, originally uploaded by JenRedInstead.