Cathy Michaels Design by Cathy Bluteau

Ready for you to enjoy!!

Whoosh – it’s been a long few days as I complete the finishing touches on my New On-line Class “Journal with Me II – New Journaling Techniques”.   Creating the video is easy – it’s the technical |stuff” after that that takes long but it is now done done done and ready for you to enjoy.

 

The online class is available at Creative Workshops but I re-added the preview here so that you can check it out again.

 

 

 

 

Available Sept 5 at Creative Workshops

 

 

I also wanted to mention that for this class I prepared some mini kits that go right along with the class. 

 

 

 

The kits don't contain all the supplies you need but just the key pieces that will make it fun to apply these new journaling techniques.

 

 

  

These will be up in the shop on Sunday Sept 4 just prior to the video release on Sept 5  and are really affordable as part of your online course fun!

 

 

 

 

 

Just a sneak peak at these

 

 

 

 

Have a good Wednesday and we will talk again before the end of the week!

Cathy

Tools of the Trade II

Another day and I am over at Shimmerz for part II of my tools of the trade.  See more on how I used these:

To create these:

So head on over to Shimmerz to see more detail on how I did this.

Cathy

 
 
 

And more journaling pages

More journaling pages from my What do I want to be when I grow up journal:

 

I love the black and white above don't you?  not sure where I am going to go with this but we'll see

 
 

Text and leaves always a good combintation - this is a two page spread of same.

 

 
Have a great Monday all

Cathy

Friday Flickr Favs

 

Books and Roses ... what more could you want on a Friday  ; )

 

 

1. Halloween Inspiration Book-6, 2. Roses (For The), 3. Old books in San Juan Bautista church - Remedios, 4. Worn out with Knowledge, 5. rose + magazine + shot = design, 6. Zig Zag 2, 7. Old Books, 8. Book, 9. 26, 10. Danbo reading an old book, 11. Old book, 12. zig zag 1, 13. Vintage books, 14. pretty rose buds ttv, 15. Day Dreaming in the Library, 16. Zig Zag 2

Back to journaling

 Seems like a long time since I shared some journaling pages – actually seems like a long time that I worked on journaling pages – so I wanted to show you these because I have somehow been really inspired by how this journaling is working out.

 

I decided that the theme on this one will be "Who do I want to be when I grow up?":

 

 
And I wanted to explore that idea of who I am and who I want to be ... so this one will be filled with pictures of me, my family, 

 

 

some random thoughts here and there

 

 
 some hiding places for my most secret thoughts

 

 

and working on improving some of art skills - like watercolors

 

 

the more I work on this the more involved I am becoming in the process.  

 

The pages above are nowhere near finished but I thought it would be fun to share them as they (and I) progress.

 

I think that in doing this I may just have come up also with another idea for an on-line class.  :) so we can share in this process together.

 

Happy Wednesday |

 

Cathy

 
 

Tools of the Trade

Check me out over at shimmerzpaints today where I talk about some of the "Tools of the Trade" that I use in many of my journal workshops.

You'll have to run over there to see what I do with these  ...

 

 

To turn pages into these ...

 

 

Cathy

New in the Shop

Finally got my kits done and pictures taken - these are in the shop now but I wanted to give you a preview here.

If you remembe last week I hosted a giveway and asked you to comment on what you would like to see more of.  So many of you responded kits, kits, kits AND some of you suggested try some new color schemes and so I did.

 
You'll still see my favorite blue and pink as always, but I also did some black and white for those of you who are adventurous and want to try creating with those colors, and I did a couple of off white kits that I just love.

So enjoy and take a trip over to my shop.

If you are not familiar with my kits take a look at my feedback section  on etsy and you'll see what people are saying - here are some excerpts:

Love, love love this kit! Can't wait for more It came so fast and it's prettier than the picture! Lots of great papers and embellishments! Thank you very much! I've bought many paper kits from this creative Etsy shop. Each one has been great...but this might be my favorite. Lots of unique little vintage pieces to spark beautiful pages!!!   Another beautiful kit! Pretty packaging and there are so many wonderful things! Almost too pretty to use! Thank you!! Also a special little extra gift. Ahhh, can you hear me screaming with delight? I haven't even got this one yet, but I am going crazy in antipicipation! It is official, I am addicted to Cathy kits! Forget about fruit or flowers of the month, how about Cathy kits of the month? LOL! I'm in!!

 

 
 

Enjoy

 

Cathy

 

 

Have a good week all

 

Cathy

 

Let's Scrap + More kits in the shop

Today I am over here at Let's Scrap!   Go check it out - there is a giveaway of one of my paper kits as I sponsored them this week.

Great way for some of my regular customers to get a free kit!

 

 

Also - because of this I will be posting (hopefully tomorrow) a whole slew of new kits in my shop.

I will try and post them all here tomorrow before they get into the shop so that you know about them first  * )

So go check it out at Let's Scrap

 

Have a great day!

 

 

 

Winner of Blog Giveaway!

It's time to post the winner of my Blog Giveaway!  Thank you all for your feedback on what you would like to see more of in my shop and right here on my blog.  The feedback was great and I will do that again since I love to hear from you all.  

But now, the winner of this months' issue of Art Journaling from Somerset is .....

 

donna!ee

Thank you Donna for playing along, send me your address and I'll ship this right off to you!

 

Stay tuned this week - lots of news coming up!

 

Cathy

Friday Flickr Fav

 

It's a Friday Flickr Fav - but it's all me  ; ))

 DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY EXPLAINED OVER IN THIS POST RIGHT HERE

 
.

. Inside journal pages 4, 2. journal pages wip, 3. New journal pages, 4. New journal pages, 5. Journal of "My Favorite Things", 6. My Dream Large Journal, 7. Untitled, 8. More journalling, 9. And more journals, 10. experimentation journal, 11. Art Journal Every Day!, 12. Art Journal Every Day!, 13. journalling, 14. art journal everyday, 15. art journal everyday, 16. More journalling - Girls retreat , 17. More journalling - Girls retreat, 18. more pages, 19. more pages, 20. Art Journal Every Day, 21. ART JOURNAL EVERYDAY, 22. texture i, 23. Journal - The Writer, 24. more on journalling

Preview Video - Online Journaling Class

Before I forget, let me mention that my Monday Giveaway giveawy will be on for one full week – so that’s till next Monday August 15th.  Just leave a comment in answer to my questions and I’ll enter your name in my draw for a copy of Somerset’s .

 

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Now, I have a Preview of my new Online Journaling Class coming up September 5th at Creative Workshops.

 

 This time I managed the video and the music!!

 

Have a look here.

 

 

 

 

 It's going to be a fun class where I share some of the techniques I use in my journal pages - it's really simple to do when you do it step by step!!

Have a good good Wednesday

Cathy

Monday Giveaway!!!

Hoooooooooooooooray!  Today - we are going to have a giveaway.

Since I had purchased extra copies of the latest issue of Somerset's Art Journaling I thought I would post a giveawy of this beautiful publication - in which I have 2 - count 'em - 2 feature articles - just sayin'!! LOLLOL

So in order to participate in the giveaway you have to post your answers to two questions:

1- What would you like to see more of in my Etsy Shop?
            Journals, jewelry,paper kits, collaged tins, gift tags, prints of my work, online classes, 
             - or anything else - you name it!

 

2- What would you like to see more of on my blog?
            Journal pages, journaling techniques, online classes, organization ideas, how-             to's to's,  personal  stories, giveaways (lol - don't pick this okay - it's a given - lol)  -             or anything else you would like to see!

 

Here is the issue I will be giving away.  I'll go through your posts and have my son pick a random name.  You send me your address once I post the winner and it's yours!!

 

Inside pages:

 

     
 

Have fun with this - your answers are important to me - take your time, give me your thoughts!

Have a great day all

 

Cathy

New News

Lots of good things coming up this September so I thought I would give you a little preview.

  

First up – I will be offering more online classes at creative workshops so I wanted to give you a preview of the promo material coming soon to creative workshps.  In fact I think Gail will have something up today so I’ll link it here if I see it by tomorrow.  Here is the banner you will be seeing:

 

  The class will be live September 5th and in it I am going to show some new journaling techniques that I use in my latest journals – so much fun so stayed tuned for more of that.

 

Second – I will be doing something on Crescendoh – if you have not been over to crescendoh yet – go take a look now.  There is lots to see so spend some time on that page.  The curator of Crescendoh is Jenny Doh who was previously with Somerset magazines.  She is will respected and it is really an honour to be working with her.

 

FInally, but not good news, I was rejected by yet another licensing company – called Demdaco.  They license a lot of great artists that do work similar to mine so I thought it would be a good match – in fact they are currently licensing some of Kelly Rae Roberts’ work.  Anhew they sent me a thank you but no thank you note.

That’s okay – still lots of other good stuff going on so do check back here at least every Monday, Wednesday and Friday which are the days I always post (if not more).

Have a great weekend

Cathy

Let's shelf this idea - Part II

I thought it was so fun sharing my new bookshelf last week that I thought I would show you a few more of my great finds for “getting organized”.

 

You really don’t always have to use bookshelves just for books.  You can use it as an extension of your studio or your desk.  That’s what I had in mind when I decided that this

8 foot by 10 foot bookshelf would take over one end of my living room !!!  But I love it!

 

Here’s some of the different types of boxes and baskets I used to get and stay organized::

 

My markers always sat on the hearth of my fireplace in the living room.  WHile I loved it my hubby always said - do they have to stay there all the time.  Now I found a new place for them:

 

 

In a recent obsession of mine I made tons and tons of tags.  Years ago I had also started "collecting" them.  I never use them because I never knew where they all were.  Now I found this handy dandy index card box to keep them on my bookshelf close at hand.

 

 

I used to have a good filing system for all my bills and misc papers before we redid the kitchen.  Then my filing system moved downstairs and because it was downstairs - none of the bills got paid - no just kidding - but I just wouldn't go downstairs to get all my papers. Now the bills sit neatly tossed into this lovely little organizer.

 

 

And here is how it sits on the shelf:

 

This was a good find - sits on my desk!  The mags that I was published in were always all over the house - I like them all together and now they are and take center stage on one of my shelves

 
The mags that I was published in were always all over the house - I like them all together and now they are and take center stage on one of my shelvesThe mags that I was published in were always all over the house - I like them all together and now they are and take center stage on one of my shelves:

 
I love having these handy now

 

and look how pretty on the shelf

 

 
We had like everyone I guess lots and lots of photo albums - these are keepers of course but not so pretty since some of them have been around for over 20 years (patterns on photo albums were not as pretty as they are today   ; )

So I put them in these large 13 X 13 X 15" deep linen boxes - the albums fit "perfectly" in here standing up!

I like the pretty detail on these boxes - the handles are lovely and make it easy to pull them out of the shelf 
 
and now, even my nice notepads our out for me to see:

 

I had so much fun with this bookshelf and it's so nice that now all my things are close at hand.  Chances are I will change and rearrange over and over but that's the fun of it.

If you are looking for any of these items here are the

Sources:

• Woven basket, index card box, 4 drawer organizer, pitcher for pens, brown magazine holders - all from HomeSense
• Linen basket holding blank cards, and large line basekts used for photo albums all IKEA
• Expedit Bookshelf Ikea
• All organized items - Cathy Bluteau  (lol lol)

Have a good, creatively organized weekend all!

Cathy  xx

Etsy Favorites

Thought today I would share some of my favorite shops on etsy.

Go check it out from here!!!

 

 

 

Have fun hopping and shopping!

Cathy

SALE TODAY IN MY SHOP!

 

SALE ON TIL TODAY MONDAY AUGUST 1ST AT MIDNIGHT!!

20% OFF EVERYTHING IN MY SHOP

CHECK IT OUT HERE

 

Have a good Monday - and treat yourself today

 

Cathy