April & Altered Book Backgrounds

Wow, April already? o.O Whoever is fast forwarding thru my year needs to stop it right now!

Anyway, here is March all filled up:

 

And April all ready to go:

I did my April calendar awhile ago & I didn't like it at first. Then, this week I added the green butterfly & it brightened up the page & now I quite like it :) 

Like I said last month- I can't add any more pages into my little overstuffed notebook so I am trying to work with the ones already in there. I used some of the scraps left over from making the notebook for the squares.

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I have also been working on prepping some backgrounds in my altered book journal.  I try to do a few pages whenever I get new paint- that way there will be a nice variety throughout the book :)

lime green acrylic sprayed (with a mini mister) over dried black acrylic

 layered acrylics

bubble wrap + acrylics

acrylics tinted w/ watercolours

For this spread, I mixed dark pink watercolours in with the pastel pink acrylic paint to brighten it up a bit :)

I have a vague idea of keeping this journal for sometime when I will be very busy (say.. the first year I have a FULL TIME teaching job maybe? lol)  That way I will have a book with lots of pretty, ready to go backgrounds (that I still did myself!)

Hope everyone's April is off to a good start!

February Calendar

*grumble grumble* too much real world drama lately >.<  

Anyways, it is February now right? So time for a new calendar :)

I did a loose calendar grid & the month with a white Prismacolor pencil (which works almost as well as a crayon for a resist effect & you can get a finer line!) before I made a watercolour rainbow.

After it dried, I added the squares for the days and some hearts in white watercolour & the white Prismacolour pencil again. And some colourful heart stickers I found.  I do wish I had remembered to ink the edges of the squares, but I still like this one a lot. :)

I usually try to stay a few months ahead.. but it is already February & I haven't even started the one for March yet- don't even have an idea in mind. o.O Oh dear. lol

December

Ah it's December.
Sad to say, December is not one of favourite months..

I know, I know- there's Christmas & ♪♫ the most wonderful time of the year. ♪♫ meh..

Anyways, so no, I'm not making a December Daily. And my December calender is not exactly festive.. >.> but I like it :)

One of the few Christmasy things I DO like is Nightmare Before Christmas (in fact my Christmas stocking has Jack Skellington on it!) :)

So that is the inspiration for my calender this month.

It might not seem like a cheerful page to some people, but it makes me happy :D

I didn't want to ruin the effect with my usual bright calendar stickers.. so I made some special ones just for Dec.

 I'm especially proud of the smiling Jack in the second row.. I think it looks just like him! Not that he's a terribly complicated character to draw but still lol


My calender pages in my last notebook were all boring, half sheet grids stuck in the back of the book.  They were not pretty enough to be included in the journal proper so they were exiled back there >.>

But since I started following The Kathryn Wheel and have been making PRETTY calendar pages for my journal they are not banished to the back anymore.. Which is nice except I kept having to flip thru the pages to find where the calendars were because I can never remember..

So my brillant solution:

Hope everyone enjoys their December!

Altered Book Art Journal

I've seen some REALLY cool art journals made from altering & re-purposing an old book. The problem is all the tutorials I've seen have called for gesso... Which I don't have & since my current art supply budget is about $2 a month >.>  I had to think of a way to improvise...

For my poor man's altered book journal I used:
* cheapest Apple Barrel acrylic paints
* masking tape
* watercolours
* ink pads
* discard book from library

I got a $1 hardcover book from the library's used book store They sell discard books & books that people have donated... I love books so it took me about an hour to find one that was a) the right size/shape b) sturdy enough and c) one I wouldn't feel guilty about ripping up & painting on o.O  lol I spent a lot of time in the diet & "politics" sections..

altered book

This is what the book looked like after it was reincarnated into my journal :)
The book was originally a dull blue so I used  some blue acrylic & shimmery watercolours to brighten it up

When I was putting my name on it, I accidentally put it on the back cover so now the text on the inside pages is upside down. But actually, I like it because now the text in the background of the pages look more abstract. :)

I ripped out about 1/3 of the pages & then went thru & taped the remaining ones together with masking tape in groups of 3 to make thicker pages. I also put masking tape in the center of most spreads to help prevent pages from falling out & keep paint from seeping into the middle. 

I only had three colours of acrylic paint (pink, blue & white) so I experimented a bit combining them with watercolours since I have more of those.

watercolour over white acrylic + bubble wrap texturing

I really like the effect of watercolours over dry white acrylic. It's kind of dreamy

watercolour over white acrylic 

watercolour over white acylic

watercolour over white acrylic, inked edges & stamp

 Look at the  difference between the orange over the acrylic covered page & over the naked masking tape in the middle! This is one of my favourite pages :)

watercolors over acrylic... giant bubble wrap!

white acrylic, watercolours, ink pad & spider stamp!

Painting over the white acrylic obviously makes the colours much lighter.. so on the left side of this spread I left some space free of the acrylic. It came out nice & black.. but it seeped thru all three pages :{  That didn't happen on pages that were completely covered w/ the acrylic paint so I think if I want really black pages, I will need to find some black acrylic. I used a black ink pad to make the edgers darker.

Another attempt to try & get a darker background.. this time I used the blue acrylic as the base & built up layers of black watercolour over it.

The top right corner is scotch tape which I coloured w/ permanent marker & then partially scrapped off. 

acrylic, inked bubble wrap, magazine image & stickers

This is my other favourite page. I had been saving this image from an issue of Gothic Beauty, and when I mixed this dusty purple colour it just seemed to work perfectly with it. I added some red heart stickers to tie in with her outfit.

I also added graph paper to several pages.. I taped 'em in with masking tape so I could paint over the edges & blend them in with the background.

pink & white acrylic, masking tape & graph paper

I am TRYING to leave some of the pages bare for  ideas I might have when I'm actually using the journal... but it's hard to resist the blank pages!

Clouds, Hearts & Compulsive Doodling

Hello!

I've been making more notebooks :)

This is the first one I've made that has co-ordinating papers & a theme rather than just a random mix.

Another homemade notebook!!!

I make a simple little watercolour painting for the cover.
The clouds & hearts were inspired by my favourite washi tape.. which I have used all up, sadly.

decorated pocket pages

After I finished the notebook I decided to make some matching journaling cards & stickers to go with it... >.>

And then I decided to do my November calendar...

And some more stickers...

lol I'm wondering, am I the only one who gets these funny little fixations where they want to doodle the same thing over & over?

Last week I did 3 dozen "creepy cute" face stickers... and before that, it was butterflies >.>


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If case anyone's interested.. the notebook & matching goodies are for sale here --->Daybook Kit: Clouds & Hearts

and so are the stickers ---> Clouds & Hearts Stickers

:)