Menopausal Mood Swing

Women my age (ouch, doesn’t that sound like I’m an old tart? I’m only 50! ?) most likely will know what a mood swing is… It’s part of that phenomenon that’s called ‘Menopause’. Unlike many other women, I don’t have the hot flashes (hope I’m not jinxing it now… 😛 ).

Occasionally I do have night sweats, but I wonder if that’s not just from living in Southern Spain where it’s usually warm, even during the night. Also, being the perfect example of someone with ADD, it’s a normal thing for me to be forgetful. So nothing strange there when I seem to be forgetting a lot.

But the one thing I do recognize, besides the annoying irregularity of my periods, is that I’m starting to have mood swings. I’ve had a loooot of problems with mood swings when I was younger, but for the last fifteen years my mood has been stable as a rock. I pretty much always was my happy, cheerful self. Sometimes a tired cheerful self, but nevertheless cheerful. Until last week…

All of a sudden I had this enormous bad mood. Like thunderclouds inside my head. For no reason at all! And I recognized the feeling, because it felt the same as when I was a teenager. Right before my periods I used to be filled with chagrin, which disappeared within a day, or two at the most. But that was ages ago!

This time it wasn’t just anger or chagrin. It was a real mood swing, ’cause I suddenly found myself crying like a baby over a movie… After the movie had finished for about ten minutes, I was still sobbing! No idea where it came from. Hormones, probably? But anyway, it did inspire me to make an art journal page about it 🙂 .

Getting to it

After weeks of only making cards, I felt it was about time to do ‘something’ in one of my art journals. I randomly picked one, the Studio Light square journal. I decided it had to be a spread of two pages.

Having no clue at first what I was going to make, I just started by painting a background with some Dylusions paint. And going along with the flow I was in, the pages evolved.

I had already colored a sheet of watercolor paper with some Dylusions shimmer sprays, and stamped three different Katzelkraft birdies on it and cut them out.

I added grass on the bottom of the spread with a stamp, and colored all the grass blades with a Stabilo pen. Then I added another layer with another stamp (tiny leaves and flowers) and gave the hearts of the flowers a white accent with a water-based white Sharpie.

Experiment with embossed flowers

By then the picture in my mind began to take a bit more shape. The idea for a swing with one of the birdies on it came up. The more I thought of it, and placed the birds on the spread and moved them around to see where I wanted them, the more I felt content with what I had in mind.

I also wanted to try some new things with embossing powder. I’ve got a lovely, tiny ‘fluffy bulbs’ stamp (they’re actually grunge circles) and I figured that these could perfectly be flowers. So I stamped them with Versamark and put embossing powder on top, then heated it with a heat tool. And voilá… nicely white embossed flowers.

Now the experimental phase started: I wanted to give them color. But heated (and then dried and cooled down) embossing powder has a shiny and smooth surface. So at first I tried watercolor paint. That didn’t work, haha, so I wiped it off again. Then I tried alcohol markers. And yessss, that worked! But the surface was matted by the alcohol.

Hmm… When I had to dry the ink of the stamped birdies with the heat tool, I also ‘hit’ the embossed flowers… and the re-heating made it shiny! So I re-heated all of the embossed, and colored, flowers and they were all shiny again. Whoohoo! 😀

Mood swing in full swing

Well, to cut a long story short: I drew a swing and a trapeze and stamped two birdies on them. One sitting upright on the swing, the other hanging by its feet on the trapeze. And then I glued the already colored and cut birdies on top of them (the pre-stamping was necessary, since I had cut all the curly hairs and legs off 😉 ).

To give the page something extra, I added a couple of butterflies from the Studio Light signature collection by Miranda van den Bosch. And on the top of the spread I’ve put some hanging leaves from the Studio Light Ocean View collection.

Only one more thing was needed: a text. I took one from the Dylusions Coloring Sheets by Dyan Reaveley and in my opinion it’s the perfect text! See for yourself…

Below I’ve put a list of all used materials, and a link to the photo album in which I’ve put some more close-up pictures.

• Used materials:

  • Studio Light square journal
  • Kippers WaterArt paper, 185 grs
  • Dylusions Shimmer Spray: Funky Fuchsia, Pure Sunshine, Bubble Gum Pink, Postbox Red, Tangerine Dream
  • Katzelkraft rubber stamps: KTZ217
  • Posca marker: Yellow
  • Sharpie white water-based marker
  • Dylusions Paint: Lemon Zest, Fresh Lime, Periwinkle blue
  • White Gesso
  • Grass clear stamp: Crealies Bits & Pieces CLBP108
  • Stabilo 68 pen: 88, 36, 38
  • Twinmarkers: 47, 54, 7, 77, 84
  • Flower-leaves border clear stamp (no idea what brand)
  • Grunge circles clear stamp: Crealies Bits & Pieces CLBP79
  • Stampería Crackle rubber stamp: WTKCC137
  • Marianne Design texture clear stamp: MM1603
  • Text stamp (brand unknown)
  • Studio Light Signature Collection by Miranda van den Bosch clear stamps: STAMPMB18
  • Studio Light Ocean View Collection clear stamp: STAMPOV370
  • HeroArts ink: Unicorn White
  • Memento ink: Tuxedo Black
  • Versafine ink: Onyx Black, Crimson Red, Olympia Green
  • Versafine Clair ink: Medieval Blue, Shady Lane
  • Stazon ink: Jet Black
  • Uni-Ball Eye UB-157 fineliner: Black, Violet
  • Dutch Doobadoo glue pen
  • Versamark
  • Wow embossing powder: Opaque Bright White
  • Stabilo All pencil: Black
  • Text from Dylusions Coloring Sheets by Dyan Reaveley
  • Distress Oxide: Ground Espresso

And last but not least here’s the link to the photo album, where you can enjoy a couple more close-up photos.

Thanks for reading (if you’ve got this far anyway 😛 ) and see you in the next blog. Gosh… I just remembered that I still owe you another one, with the card that I’ve made for a ‘precious little person’! Will do that one in a couple of days. Promise!
ADD: Done! You’ll find that blog => here!

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Greetz,