Monday, June 24, 2013

Small Spooky Book

I am still working on my big, Halloweeny journal >.>   And in the process I have accumulated a lot of spooky scraps & several pages that I had doubles of. So rather than waste them, I decided to make another, smaller journal out of them.



I put a thin layer of gesso over the 2 pieces of cardboard that were going to be the cover.  Then using an old credit card, I scraped across grey & black acrylic paint so that there were all three layers showing thru. It made a nice textured effect that I like a lot :)

The two pieces of cardboard were slightly different widths. I was going to trim the wider one, but instead decided to use alternating black & white tabbed pages to fill the space :)

The saying is from a Halloween paper pack. It orginally said "A Night Filled with Fright.. etc etc" but I trimmed off the first part so that it now refers to the contents of the book! :)

Here are some of the fun pages inside:





This one is an illustration from one of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books..  The arch behind the girl reads "memento mori" so I thought it would be appropriate. 


And a pocket made from the envelope my Walgreens photo prints came in :)

This book is for sale in my Etsy if anyone's interested. 

Now I just have to finish this books "big brother" lol 

Friday, June 7, 2013

Notebooks- One for me, One for Sale

Hello!

I finished two notebooks this week :)

The first one has been one of my long-term notebook projects (in case your curious, I am currently in the middle of making 3 other long term projects lol)

I had collected a lot of these full pages that I didn't want to cut up or fold in half but still wanted to use in a journal. So I decided to try making a ring bound notebook.


Mickey here was the cover of a school notebook that was too cute to chuck when the term was over.



I included several photos from an old calendar I'd hoarded (I am always asking people if I can have their calendars when the year's over!!!)



I found a pack of  cardstock on clearance ("watercolour painted rainbow") that has  faux-painted backgrounds in pretty colours

They are good, thick cardstock & the opposite sides are white! Which is perfect for me, because as much as I like using pretty coloured page when I am making notebooks- when I actually get around to USING them I always wish there was more plain white pages. White pages & black pages actually..

Anyway, here are a few more pages in my ring notebook.


Some fancy stationery.



and an image from an alumni newsletter sent to the previous occupant at my address.



The other book I made was this pretty one for my shop.



The cover is made from the same cardstock, and the pages are made from K & Co's "Jubilee" paper- which is SO pretty!





It is sewn by hand & the binding is tied off on the inside.  Since my knots tend to be big & obvious- I used a little butterfly cut out to camouflage it.



knot camouflage!

I added a few other butterflies too. And even gave this creepy looking bug a makeover!




I did one of my fold up pocket pages, but instead of closing the ends up with tape I used some of the scraps from trimming down the page.


What do you think? :)





Sunday, June 2, 2013

June Calendar & Art Purchases

A new month & the first calendar in my new journal! 



Ooh it is nice being able to do full two-page spreads again. I decided to make a fun cityscape for June.







I also bought a few little art prints this past month. This first one is by Zindy Nielsen- an amazing artist I've followed for years. 



I got a greeting card print because I figure I can use it for a bit of hidden journaling on a spread (and because they were on sale hehe)

And I got a couple of ACEOs from Jessica Grundy's etsy shop



 When I first saw this one, I thought it would be perfect for my reading page!


 And of course- I had to get the bumble bee girl.

She threw in an extra ACEO card as well- this one of a little girl with her pet angler fish ( "My Fishy Friend"). I put her in the pocket next to my zombie girl... seemed fitting since they share an affinity for monstrous pets ;)

She also sent me a  notecard that has Ripley and a little alien.


Aren't they cute? :)