Layout 1: Overwhelmed

I often use my journal for debriefing if there is no-one else suitable to listen! This was such an occasion, after a "not so perfect playdate" with my daughter when she was having a few social problems. I chose the photo as it looks like Iam literally pulling my hair out - which I felt like doing!

Materials include patterned paper, crackle paint, glossy accents, stamping, twine, graphite pencil, chipboard and rubons

I wanted to emphasise the overwhelmed feeling - so just started to cut and curl over  the top of the cardstock, the glossy accents symbolising the tears that were shed. The pencil shading was just a primary-school type accents ;) 

Layout 2: Fraud ?

This layout came about quite spontaneously - I was reflecting on my qualifications & how I have never really accepted being a Speech Pathologist, even though it says so on paper!

Materials include: patterned paper, buttons, glossy accents

Layout 3: My Ideal....my reality

I don't like the house we live in - it is very old and rundown, full of cracks, not enough bedrooms, no storage. Rather than whinge about it I made this - my ideal seems so far away...right up in the clouds.

Materials used  include stencil & silver mist,  resist  & patterned paper , fabric cloud paper ( I emphasised the cloud shapes by cutting out the top portion of cardstock and leaving a cloud-shaped top edge.) , stamping, chipboard frame & shapes, photo of nest

Layout 4: The General Anaesthetic

This layout evolved as I was reading a journal extract that I wrote after having some surgery last year - the first time I had a general anaesthetic.

Materials used include: patterned paper, rubons, glimmer mist, alcohol ink on transparency, acetate overlays, stickles, felt heart, butterfly punch, public domain image of skeleton.
I printed my photo onto some patterned paper for a 'foggy' blurred effect; overlaid it with a transparency that I dribbled with alcohol inks , and then 'framed' it with a 4x6 acetate overlay.

I decided to add this tiny felt heart beneath the skeletons' ribs, glimmer-misted him/her and gave it wings for added mercy value ;)