It's January 2- A 2025 Arty Look Back

     Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I hope your week has been warmer than it's been here in New Hampshire. Brrr.😨

     Last year I had a lot of fun playtime making art, and so today I thought I would share some of my favorite art pieces I made in 2025. I'll be linking  up to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break, Nicole's Friday Face Off, and also, as  it is January 2, Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's Second on the Second. Second on the Second is a time to post a previous post again

   First off, here are some art journal pages. There's lots of faces scattered here and there throughout.

In the above photo, I love the use of color, and in this next photo, I love the splatter and simplicity of stamped images on a page.

In these next 2 pieces, I made  successful scenes.

And I really love how the collaged scene , that you can see through the window,  came out in the photo below.

In the butterflies above, I love how I made this  page mostly just by cutting up tissue paper. And below, I like the freehand background and how it works with the details of my images.

In this next page, I like the lightened background and then the splatter to make it look uncovered in spots. Plus I like the mostly monochromatic look of the daisies and then on the butterfly page below the daisies.

I used lots of sticker to make a fun Harry Potter scene.

I like  how I layered the images in this next piece.

Next, I used the 2 long sides as my focus edges, instead of the top and bottom.

For Mia's September background challenge at Art Journal Journey, I had fun making some more detailed backgrounds.

I can't forget Halloween fun.

And I think the season I am most inspired by is autumn.

These next 2 just  came together nicely.

And I bought some of these graphite watercolors this past fall. I love the look of them.

 More backgrounds, this time a little more simple.

And I also love making winter holiday pages too, even snowy pages.

And I hope  you aren't sick of my re-look yet 😉 as  I made  several tags this past year including an envelope journal to hold many of those tags.

 

   I have lots of ideas of things I want to try out in my art this year, including some face drawing for Nicole's challenge. 😏

     Thank you everyone for your support by stopping by my blog last year. It was much appreciated. ❤ I  hope that you get to do a lot of whatever makes you happy in 2026.

     Have a great first weekend for the new year.

An Artful Look Back at 2023

 Hi everyone. Happy last day of 2023 to you.

Do you like to look back on the past year and take stock of the year that has or is about to wrap up? I like to see what I accomplished, where I fell short, and what I could have or should have changed. It helps me look and maybe see where I want to go forward in the new year. One look back  that I don't mind sharing is my artful look back. Sometimes I don't feel like I've accomplished much variety of art, but after looking back through my blog all year, I can say it was a pretty good artful year. ❤

Warning-this is a bit of a long post today. 

1-A Florida Travel journal

You might remember the hubby and I tried to escape the cold for a week in late January, and we headed down to Florida. When I came home I made a great little travel journal using an old book cover and some sewn in pages.

2- Charleston Travel Journal

I did the same thing after I spent a long weekend away with a friend in May. This time I made my journal in a small (bought) ringed notebook.

3- Iceland Travel Journal

And my last travel journal for 2023 was from my early June trip to Iceland. Sadly I haven't yet finished it. 😕 But since it hasn't gone anywhere, I have plans to get it done soon before I head off someplace else. This journal has pages that are sewn in to an old recycled book cover.

4- My Bee Journal

In the spring I made another journal to keep track of my 2023 bee adventures and also to put in some random artsy pages. I put too many pages in this journal, so I will continue to use it to record my 2024 bee adventures also.

5- I was a guest designer over at More Than Words back in January. Thank you ladies for having me.

6-In the spring  I made a junk journal to do a bit of work table and paper pile cleaning

for this journal I just folded some 81/2 x11 inch paper in half and then stitched it together. It has not hardbound cover.

7- I joined many Tag Tuesday challenges

8- In November I won the challenge over at Creative Artiste Mixed Media with this piece. 

Thank you ladies for your support. 

9- I hosted AJJ in February with my RED challenge. 

I learned a lot about using the color red, which was my goal with this topic.

10- I made a few cards 

 I feel like I have to be so neat making cards (mainly I have to keep my dirty fingers from getting prints all over the card front-😏). I used to make a lot of cards, and I've since gotten away from doing that. To change that, I made a few in 2023 that I was really happy with.

11- I also made some postcard collages

I was still using up those never ending accumulating scraps.

12- I did a few paintings; here's one I shared online

I definitely need more practice painting. 😏

13-  I started (and now just need to sew together) an autumn themed cloth journal

And I definitely need to do more sewing in 2024.

14- I made a fun bingo card Halloween book:

15- I almost finished an old phone directory Christmas journal:

I have 5 letters left. Anyone have any ideas for the letter K that goes with Christmas?

16- And I made A LOT of art journal pages.

For the sake of brevity, I'll share more about those journal pages some other time.

Yes, it was a good art year. In 2024, I hope to expand what I do. I want to get back to some jewelry making (which I haven't done in years) and fabric dyeing (which has also been on hiatus for a few years). I'd like to do more fabric art, and finish up the journals and projects I need to complete. I have a new trip journal in mind, and of course, lots of  journal pages. As the cliche goes, variety is the spice of life.

I also want to thank everyone for the inspiration you shared  in 2023. My art gets better because of you sharing your art.

 

Have a great last few hours of 2023 or start to 2024, depending on when you read this post. I'll back tomorrow with some New Years wishes.