ART JOURNALING ANOTHER PINK BOOK AND FINALLY A COVER

Well after a rather eventful snow day and a lack of ability to actually go out in the car today we've been stuck in!  Goodness knows what it will be like tomorrow morning but I really could do with getting back to work!  Anyway enough of the weather if you wanted to know about that you could just turn on the 24 hour news channel for them to tell you its snowing. 

Anyway as mentioned in previous post I made two other 'Pink' books just before Christmas, one for my niece and one for myself, this is mine.  It's a mixed shape book based on a chipboard base.

The black 'frame' in the centre is actually a Maya Road minibook that was hinged together on thin jump rings, I loved the shape of it so dismantled to use as frames in the book.

Another close up of the inside of the book! I loved the photos they so lent themselves to the red and orange background which I created by using a baby wipe and painting acylic directly onto the chipboard, then stamped on the book with some new Tim Holtz stamps that I've got, before using my bind it all.  Here's the back of it in all it's glory...

and those gorgeous ribbons - next a close up of the cover.

As the original Maya road 'frames' were hinged with jump rings I had holes in the 'frames' - therefore I've covered the holes up with some punched hearts.  Another close up...

Loving this close up, yes it looks like a metal frame, but it's not it's silver mirror board, cut into a frame shape with my Big Shot, then but through my Big Shot with an embossing folder and then painted with cheap black paint, then wipe off the excess paint with a piece of kitchen roll, if you take the excess paint off in one direction it really does look like metal! 

Here the book is in all it's glory - can't you see why I loved making all three of these books. 

Now a bit of art journaling from inside my A4 book

I've had the pages prepared for some time but never finished it, I had a disaster on the photo page when I fought with a silver pen and lost!  However, I love the fact that art journaling means you can keep your mistakes!  So here it is in all its glory (plus you can see the real colour of the page)

I left it as it was, did a bit of moving around of the silver paint, a bit of stamping over the top and there you have it!  

For part of my sisters Christmas present I made us matching art journals - they are only small but quite sweet, the idea behind them is to generate a double page layout per month and then swap them.  We've chosen the word 'Positive' as the prompt for the entire book - this is my decorated 'Positive' page just inside the cover

I'm trying to go for more texture at the moment, hence the wired ribbon and this is January's double page layout, may still add more to this, so into layers!

I love it when I finish a page! 

Finally I've done the cover to my A3 journal - hurray!  It's taken an age to decide what to do, but some aged music sheets, with Tim's stamps and then a little bit of playing not to mention a large amount of red paint have meant that it is finally done.

And because you can't see the bottom corner due to my appalling photography here's a close up!

So there you have it, a few bits of art journaling to get me into the January mood!  If you stop by leave a comment I love to find out whose been along! 

Another Christmas Box Frame Gift

Done another box framed book, this time using some Christmas Forever Friends papers from last year, the pack size was 6" x 6" but the book was about 7" tall, so I just added a strip of co-ordinating paper to the bottom of the page! Painted the frame in blue, glued the glass into the frame, did the outer book and attached the frame to the front.

Cut out the envelopes for the inside and decorated with co-ordinating papers (I'm seriously starting to run low on the cardstock front with all these mini books LOL)

Views from inside the book!

Co-ordinating tags inside the book!

I love the gingham paper

Think it may go to my neice for a Christmas present

I bought her a Forever Friends gift set last year which she loved

So another gift made - need to start wrapping and designating these!

BLONDE MOMENT INSPIRED CHRISTMAS GIFTS - I'M ON A ROLL

Well I can't believe how long it is since I last put something on my blog - sorry!!!! The problem is that I've got into art journalling and well it's kind of private - some of it isn't but most of it is - so I'm in a dilemma - to share or not to share LOL!

Anyway as you can see these little beauties are not art journaling - they are however teacher and teaching assistant gifts for my son to take in at Christmas - don't you love those papers!! Some of you may be wondering why so many - explanation - my son attends both after school club and breakfast club - so many many gifts to make!

I bought the papers from Dyan of Art from the Heart fame http://www.afth.co.uk/ when I went to the Great Northern Papercraft show in September. The papers are an absolute delight to use and lend themselves to the colour yellow - which I discovered in amongst my stash I have rather a large quantity of! Woo - hoo - so not only using gorgeous papers but also using up cardstock that I obviously don't use a lot of! Apologies for the reflection, the front of the book has a 6" x 4" frame attached - hence the reflection.

Close ups - added xmas red stickles and glossy accents.

The present makes you feel so Christmassy - it's like tinsel!

I love all the images amongst the papers!

This one's my favourite - little red xmas stickles to his hat!

Cute robin!

Santa's boots

The inside of the book is paper on the inside covers and then a concertina with pockets attached, the tags are all made with matching papers!

Even when supplies were starting to run low - a little bit of distressing and before you know it you've managed to cover the inside page! I actually think this looks even better than just one paper!

Loving the trees and the Baubles!

Then what to do with the leftovers? I bought some cheap gift bags (3 for a £1) and used a blonde moments stamp with stazon and then attached the little left over papers, corner rounded with added stickles and glossy accents. Going to cut the teacher's names out with my big shot to attach to the front of the bag and ta-da - all done! For the bargain price of wait for it - wait for it £2.96 excluding yellow cardstock (of which I already had ample supplies) - so not only handcrafted gifts but on a budget as well. The downside - well they are so addictive I'm wondering who else to give one to for Christmas - well it's a way of using up yellow cardstock and means I can buy more of the papers tee hee.

Gold gift bag this time

Promise to try and be a better blogger! Thanks for looking - if you like what you see leave me a message!

ALTERED FRAME

I love it when you come across something in a shop that makes you think scrapbooking immediately! I was in our local town at the weekend and realised that one of the many shops that has closed in recent months had reopened so I went in to have a wander. The shop was full of all sorts of things from cushions and duvets to food stuffs but it was definitely the area of picture frames that I was drawn, I found three frames costing £1.99 each.

I immediately fell in love with the three dimensional lettering and the way your eye was immediately attracted to it! So once home it was taken (quite literally to pieces), the frame had been given it's three dimensional insides with some rather poor quality plastic etc, but the letters were deep foam letters easily removed from their backing, so I literally disposed of everything bar the frame, glass, backing board and letters!

On the grounds that I knew i would want to display the frame in my home I opted for a colour co-ordinated look (it'll match our bedroom), set to with a plain piece of cream card, stamped a script stamp on the background in black stazon, stamped some red hearts which I decorated with stickles, some black star stickers, a piece of black scrap paper on the left, found a Tim Holtz swirl which I stamped in red and edged in places with glossy accents and found a film frame sticker. I've had the film frame sticker an absolute age and never found a way to incorporate it, but it was ideal for this, found three photos from a trip out of me, hubby and little one and before I knew it it was done. I glued the glass into the frame with glossy accents and put in a couple of tiny chipboard offcuts that I coloured black just to keep the backing board in place. I taped the picture to the back board and then it was done.

The photo below is what one of the frames looks like prior to being altered! This one is friends and the other I've got is Memories and the letters for that are in white, I altered got hold of a bigger frame with the word MEMORIES in it in white letters. So plenty more to go at.