Personal Top Ten of 2024

 Tis the season for 'Top' lists... I've already done an Art Impressions Top 5 list, and on Instagram you can see my Top 9 based on likes & comments.  Here's my personal Top 10 - based on my own favourites from 2024.  This was harder than usual!  Being newly retired, I produced more cards this year, as well as had more time to spend on each project if I felt like it.  That may be the best part of being retired, just taking the time to enjoy crafting at my own pace.  So here they are, simply in chronological order:

May 5th - Art Impressions Birdhouse

May 17th - Geraniums from The Greetery

June 2nd - Art Impressions Gnomes

June 5th - Hoopla from The Greetery

June 23rd - Spellbinders Floral Spray

July 24th - Fresh Picked Anemones/Buttercups by Spellbinders

August 4th - Art Impressions Butterfly

August 11th - Spellbinders Betterpress Peacock

October 10th - Pigment Craft Co. Floral

December 5th - Betterpress Cozy Fireplace from Spellbinders

It was definitely a Spellbinders year, as I acquired several new floral sets, and really jumped on the Betterpress bandwagon.  Happy to have several of my Art Impressions paintings make my list, as I really spend time working on those projects to make them worthy of posting.

As always, thank you to everyone who takes the time to view, like and comment on all of my social media posts.  I look forward to more crafting in 2025!

Woodland critter cards

Over the past month, I've coloured up all of the 5953 - Woodland Critters and 5954 - Woodland Bears images with Copic markers.  I had the idea to pair them up with lyrics from Christmas songs, so set about die cutting a million (or so) letters from several colours of cardstock, and set about figuring out my layouts.

I kept my colour palette limited, and had used the 5963 - Winter Woodland papers for inspiration, so I used that paper pack when planning out my cards.  I made all of the cards 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" - so that restricted which words would fit in the space!

It was a lot of fun putting these together, and I have several more images and song lyrics kicking around - so I'll keep going if time permits over the next couple of weeks.

My Top Five Ai Watercolour cards for 2024

I'm on the Art Impressions blog today, sharing my Top Five Watercolour projects for 2024.  They're in no particular order, but are all ones that I really enjoyed creating:

May Birdhouse

June Gnomes

July Fairies

August Floral Butterfly

October Grateful

I wanted to take this time to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who views our work both here on my blog, Ai's blog, and on Ai's other social media - and for leaving hearts and comments.  They're so appreciated!  And of course a huge thank you to Bonnie, and everyone at Art Impressions for their generosity, and for giving us all of these wonderful products to create with.  I'll be back for the Watercolour Weekend in January with some new watercolour inspiration - Happy Holidays!

Watercolour Christmas

I have another watercolour Christmas card using the 5857 - Baby Mini Foundation Set from Art Impressions.  I was painting this a few weeks ago, and deemed it not adequate for my monthly post!  But persevered, and was happy enough with the results to finish it up and share.

My hesitation was over my attempt to paint the aurora borealis in my winter sky... not what I'd hoped, but again, kept working it until I was satisfied.  We're always our own worst critics.  I mounted it on the 5853 - Christmas Magic paper pack.