I love listening to music while I'm creating. Sometimes I stumble upon an artist, album or song that inspires me more than others.
I was watching Grey's Anatomy earlier this week and “Skin” by Zola Jesus was playing. I have never heard of her before but when I heard the song in the background I knew I had to hear the rest of it. I got hold of her album (Conatus)and can't stop listening to it. Listening to it tonight while I started my art journal I was in a creative zone like I haven't been in for some time. If I didn't have this nasty upper respiratory tract infection I would have been compelled to burst into song. I think the first page of my art journal will be dedicated to her.
Another artist I recently discovered (also through a soundtrack) is Francesca Battistelli. Her song “It's Your Life” features on Soul Surfer. When I heard the first few lines I could have sworn I was listening to Kim Walker-Smith from Jesus Culture. She sings “happy” Christian songs and I love listening to her music while I'm creating.

In my last entry I mentioned that I love to use song lyrics in my layout. Someone commented on this and directed me to a website called Scrapping the Music. They give you a song and you can use any part of it in your layout. I love it! This week's song is “Who Says” by Selena Gomez. I decided to use the opening line “I wouldn't want to be anybody else” but as you can see I added one word in there, changing the line to “I wouldn't want (you) to be anybody else”. I used the colours from this week's The Color Room and also loosely based it on their sketch.
The photo was taken by my sister-in-law who wanted to test her new studio equipment. This was while Karla's fringe was still growing out after Annemarie and I cut it a leeeeetle bit too short

YES! I have finally finished my light box. Actually I finished it weeks ago but I finally got around to buying some lamps to use with my light box. Only problem is that it is slightly small so now I have to build a new one. But here she is...

It is one of my favourite things to scrap - song lyrics. Sometimes the lyrics to a particular song just go so well with a layout or photo. Sometimes a song just pops into my head while I'm creating a layout and I just know I have to use it. An example is “From this moment on” that I posted here a few weeks ago.
Last week a friend (Bennie De Klerk) posted some beautiful photos of their December holiday on facebook and I asked him to send them to me. They were just so gorgeous and I knew I had to create something with them. As much joy as scrapping Karla's photos gives me I have realised that I need to break away from the norm every now and again or I will fall into a rut. This proved a huge challenge to me and creating a layout that wasn't chock and block full of “candy” and at least one spot of pink, purple or baby blue was not easy.
While creating the layout the words to “Lighthouse” by Elvis Blue (winner of SA Idols 2010 and one of my favourite SA artists) popped into my head and I decided to use the second half of the chorus as my journaling and title. “Lost at sea, I see you shine for me, you are my lighthouse.”

For inspiration I used this week's sketch from Sketchy Thursdays.

I still have a few photos to work with and am hoping that it gets better as I go along. Thanks for looking!