Artline Monday - New hobbies for a new year?

Are you thinking about taking up a new hobby this year?  I love to learn new things and keep my mind active but I also enjoy doing something relaxing or creative too. For today's post I thought I would tell you about some of my hobbies and you could decide if you wanted to give any of them a go.

Hand lettering

Stix brush markers

Last August I went to the Pen Museum for World Calligraphy Day, I attended a couple of workshops and got to try some fun new activities.  By the end of the day I had been completely bitten by the lettering bug and started to practice different kinds of writing with all sorts of pens and nibs.  I am no where near perfect yet but my handwriting has improved over the past few months.  This year I thought I would try my hand at brush lettering using my Artline Stix brush markers.  The letter formations are practically the same as calligraphy but using the brush nibs is a different kind of skill so I will be working on that whenever I get the chance to.  

Slowly improving

Learning something new

Study tools

In my spare time I love to learn, at the moment I am interested in languages and reading some English literature classics.  I make notes in the margins and underline important information with my Supreme highlighters.  What can I say, I've always been a bit geeky!  

Rock painting

Preparing our rocks

I only heard about rock painting recently but it really is a lot of fun!  My girls love to join in with decorating and hiding their creations so we get to spend some time together designing the rocks and then we get lots of lovely fresh air and exercise when we all go out to hide them.  It's the best of both worlds for a hobby!  If you want some more information about this activity check out my previous posts here.

Colouring

Colouring book and Artline fineliners

There's something so relaxing about colouring in!  I don't know if it's just a case of revisiting my childhood or the act of concentrating solely on the page with no other distractions that calms me but I always feel better after I have spent some time with my fineliners.  This hobby is very flexible, you can fit it in when you have a spare 10 minutes or you could dedicate a whole evening to colouring.  It's completely up to you.  It is such a great feeling when you finish a picture, especially when you are using a book for adults that has lots of tiny fiddly bits and complicated patterns!

So how do you like my hobbies?  What are your favourite things to do during your free time?

Planner Friday - January

My first Planner Friday post of 2018 is now up on the Trendy Twine blog, please pop over and say hi!

So how is the first month of the year treating you?  I have to admit January is probably my least favourite month but I wanted to start this new year on a positive note so I decided to look for the good and concentrate on things that make me happy.  I wanted to create a spread in my travellers notebook to highlight some things that I enjoy about January so I dug out my Annie's Paper Boutique stamps and got to work!

My January spread

The start of a new year always makes me feel like I have been given a blank slate, the past is over and done with and I have a whole new year full of possibilities to look forward too!  The Choose Happy set sums up this feeling perfectly so I used a couple of these stamps to remind me to keep trying to achieve my goals and to make each day a little better than the one before.  

I added a  mini calendar to the spread to keep track of whether I reached my move goal each day (so far so good!) and I am using the little tick stamp from the Check It Off set to mark off the days I complete my goal.  

Products used: Choose happy stamps

Check it off planner stamp set

Drinks & more planner stamp set

Title it planner stamp set

How's the weather planner stamp set

Not pictured: Mini calendar cards

Journaling card

Goals and memories

On the second page I used a cute snowflake stamp from the How's the weather? set because I love snow days when you can stay at home in the warm or go out and play if you are feeling brave!  I also used a coffee stamp from the Drinks & more set because there's nothing better than a nice hot drink to warm you on a cold day.

You can read the rest of my post here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Artline Moday - Valentine's Day rock painting

Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away and I thought it would be a great time to create some love themed rocks for me to hide around my home town.  I wanted to do something a little different this time so I ordered some white stones to use instead of the random ones my children have been collecting.  These have given me a nice, bright surface to work on.  

Artline calligraphy pen

I love my Artline calligraphy pens so I wanted to try and use them on the rocks, surprisingly they worked even better than I could have hoped for!

Using the Artline 853 OHP marker for details

I then added some extra decoration using the Artline 853 OHP markers and wrote my message on the back of the rock.

Message I'm adding to the back of my rocks

I hope the people who find my rocks will share a photo or two of them online with the tag #ARTLINEROCKS so I can see where they end up!

All you need is love!

All you need is love is one of my favourite Beatles songs and goes well with my Valentines theme.  The calligraphy pen I used to write the word love is water resistant and the 853 OHP pens are permanent markers so this rock can go out into the wild without a protective coat of varnish! 

Little love bug

I turned my next rock into this cute little love bug.  What's a love bug I hear you ask?  She's a ladybird with hearts instead of spots!  

With the finishing touches

I used the red calligraphy pen to colour her in and added details with some Artline supreme permanent markers and a white paint marker.  Isn't she sweet?

Love you to the moon and back

I love you to the moon and back is a popular quote but as this will probably be found by a stranger I left out the word I and just wrote "Love you to the moon and back".  Again I used an 853 OHP pen and a gold metallic marker to colour in the moon, I also used a blue permanent marker for the eye and added a white spot to the pupil with my paint marker.

Valentine's heart

This stone was almost heart shaped so I drew one in the middle and coloured it in with pink and black permanent markers.  I added some extra decoration with the white paint marker once the ink was dry.

You are my sunshine!

This is the last rock I decorated.  I drew part of the sun and coloured it in with my Artline stix drawing pens, then I coloured the sky in with a blue supreme permanent marker and wrote "You are my sunshine!" using the black 853 OHP marker.  

Finished set of rocks

Here are my finished rocks!  I am going to be hiding them round Birmingham over the next few weeks so they will be found in time for Valentines Day.  I really hope they brighten someone's day and maybe encourage other people to join in with painting and hiding rocks, it is such a fun hobby! 

Which is your favourite out of my designs?  I have to say I am tempted to keep the you are my sunshine one but I will set it free and see where it lands instead!