Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

I have been breaking in my princess journal!

This is my "Smile List".

There has been a Smile List in every journal I've kept since I was about 11 or 12.  It's a fun way to break in a new book. :)

Another recurring page I have in most journals is the "me" page.

I do the "me" page a bit different every time. This one is actually a variation of an "all about me" web I once had my students do.

I also decided to write a little blurb for the back cover.

I have a thing for alliterations.. can you tell? >.>

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On another note- I was the featured artist on Jenniebelie's Tell on Tuesday this week. :) Check it out.

TAT

 

 

And I know I have some new followers who found me thru her blog, so hi new followers!

Inchies, Twinchies, Betwinchies- Oh my!

For the last several weeks I have been steadily filling pages up with little inchies & such.

Some of them are just me using up some cute stickers or doodling...

inchies, betwinchies & some ATCs

However,  I really like to use them for tiny bits of journaling.
Sometimes the idea of filling up a page with how I feel is a little intimidating (especially if it's a "bad" feeling).... or even silly. Like: "Do I really want to do a whole page about THAT?" 

But filling up a little 1-2 inch square? Easy-peasy. ;)

I've got the month of May...

May already??? sheesh

 April all filled out-

and May ready to go!

I ended up re-doing the title several times until I was happy.

Next month will be in my new journal and I can do BIG calendar spreads again!! :D Yay!

Most of the little images you guys see on my finished calendars are Korean "diary deco" stickers. They are adorable and I wish I could claim credit for them- but they are stickers.

My favourite has been "My little friend" by Pony Brown.

Altho, recently I found "Bonnie Series" by Wannathis.

I like her because I think she looks like me! She's got crazy long wavy brown hair same as I do.

I find my stickers on Ebay or Etsy. Just search for "diary deco" and you will find a bunch. 

They are made for Filofax type planners I believe, so they work well for calendars. In fact, they are partly why I started making calendars in the first place... >.> And then I found The Kathryn Wheel and my calendars got fancy!

Transitioing to a New Journal

I think I've already mentioned it (lol)  but, my little "daybook" journal is getting pretty full.  A date has been set for it's retirement (June).

This is what it looked like when I first started using it:

Pretty right? :) It was my first homemade notebook. ♥

This is what it looks like now.
It's a little beat up.

The edges of the cover are badly frayed (I ended up cutting off most of the corners because of this.) The butterfly "flew away" a few weeks ago- altho I know it's somewhere in my house >.> It has paint splotches on the back (from my not paying attention where I set it down).  And it bears tell tale signs of weekends spent at my bestie's & visits to my gentleman friend's place. I somehow managed to yank the ribbon COMPLETELY off at least twice!. It is also about four times as thick as it was when I started.

It's funny- as soon as I know when I will be switching to a new journal, it's like a floodgate is opened & suddenly I have TONS of things to write about or add to the current one! I have filled up more pages in the past two week than I did in the past two months! This phenomenon happened with at least the last 3 journals.

I have started working on pages in my princess journal. One of my little "rituals" when I start a new journal is to do the "things that make me smile" page & an "all about me" page.  It's a nice, positive way to start off a journal :)

Does anybody else have ways to break in a new journal?

Writing pages

Sorry about the long break between posts. I was having some technical difficulties (like my internet being shut off...)

I have been working on some writing pages. I still really prefer writing on lined or grid paper so I decided to put together  a few pre-made ones that I could just stick in my journal as I go along. lol Basically they are over-sized journaling cards ;)

Some bright grid paper plus fun images from an ad I got in the mail ("sale on Dr. Seuss books!")

 

This is just a bigger version of the easy-peasy journaling cards.
These are chalky watercolours though.. which do not blend as nicely as my regular Crayolas. Blah :/

 

This one I DID use what's left of my Crayola watercolours & I like it much better. The circles are made by stamping acrylic pain w/ a lid from a glue stick :)

The painter's tape that I used to mask off the lines still had plenty of sticky left on it when I peeled it up. I stuck it on my old sketchbook so I could reuse it as faux-washi tape.

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lol I think the rainbow tape looks better than the page!!

 

My growing collection of painted tape strips on the back of my sketchbook^

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!

A Page & a Paper Doll

 

I was looking thru old magazines & found this image of a little girl pouting. She was just adorable. This grungy blue page had been left untouched in my journal because I liked it too much to use for anything (one of the hazards of using pretty paper!).  So I'm glad I finally used it!  I wrote the words using my left hand (I'm right handed) so that the handwriting would look like a little kids. I know it's not very fancy, but it is one of my favourite pages :)

I've had a sudden "art craving" lately- does anyone  else get those? lol I've been wanting to make dolls... paper dolls & art dolls & ragdolls & little stuffed monster plushies! It's not  something I've really done much. When I was about 10 I used to make little 3-D paper houses & two sided paper dolls. I don't remember how to do the houes... but the dolls were pretty simple.

 

Ta-da! The first paper doll I've made in a long while!
Her dress is made from scraps of patterned & drawing paper & a ribbon for the sash. Her body is recycled  pages I tore out of my altered book journal.

back

lol I remember that my classmates thought it was very odd that my paper dolls had two sides... 

I think she is quite pretty & have named her Allie :)

Charlie & Audrey- doodle style!

I was having a little Charlie Chaplin marathon awhile back, and got the idea to do a portrait of him in my zombie-doodle-style.

 

 I am usually not very good at drawing men.. lol But I think I did Charlie justice :)

 And I did another little Breakfast at Tiffany's inspired doodle. (cuz it's my favourite movie!)

I did a Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.. but I was not happy with it. 

I am thinking I might do some ACEOs for my shop like this.. maybe make them like little movie posters. :) What do you think? 

March

I had a little problem with my calendar for this month.

See, what I have been doing is making my calendars on separate sheets of paper & then adding them into my notebook. Usually by folding them in half & taping them into the binding.

But over time I have added A LOT of pages this way, and the poor little book is getting overstuffed. I am only a little bit more than half way thru it, & the pages towards the back are starting to roll under. So I need to knock that off.

None of the 2 page spreads I had already bound in the book would have worked very well for the calendar. what I ended up doing was a little single page calendar, about half the size of my others.

I started out with a watercolour rainbow again. Altho, this one is a TRUE rainbow- with primary colours & everything lol.  I inked the edges with a black ink pad, but I wanted a sharper contrast between the colours & the black.. So I went over the edges again w/ some glossy black acrylic, & added some paint splatters as well.

I did the word "March" using my improvised stencils :)

 

The squares about about half as big as my usually ones, and I still had to re-arrange them several times to get them all to fit >.>

I highlighted the dates for each week w/ a different colour. The rows didn't really line up, so the colours help me keep them straight (I hate when I end up writing on the wrong square!)

Despite the fact that it is a mini calendar, I ended up quite liking it except for one teensy little thing...

THE WEEKS START ON SUNDAY!!

I use my online calendar as a guide when I make these, and somehow I didn't notice that it was set so the weeks start on Sunday.  I ALWAYS set it to start on Mondays.. I hate having my weekends wrap around. >.<   bah!