I Love Making Journals

I don't know what it is but I love making journals/books of all kinds. The construction of this book was inspired by a class I took with Kelly Kilmer, who teaches all over the United States and a really great person. This one was constructed with a book that had all the pages taken out of it and painted with acrylic paints. The canvas piece was also painted with acrylic paints and adhered to the book covers with gel medium. The inside of the book has two signatures of 140 pound Wassau papers. I loved learning about this paper because it really holds up well to a lot of paint layers, etc. I call it a cheaper alternative to watercolor paper and I use it a lot in making my decorated papers. You can buy this by the piece or ream at places like Kelly Paper, Paper Zone, etc.

I added some of my metal findings on the spine while I was sewing in the signatures. Some other metal pieces are hanging from just a skin of tar gel and acrylic paints. The acrylic skin was one of those things that I created when playing around with tar gel and acrylic paints. I liked how it looked and then had the idea of adding the metal pieces to it.






Here are a couple other books that have been made in the same style as the one above. On the first one I rubber stamped on the canvas spine and inside the book. On the green/blue one I used a crackle medium so the color underneath showed through.

A Great Giveaway on The Land of the Lost Luggage Blog

Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen are offering a great giveaway..........their online class, "Color--Beyond the Basics". I have Chris Cozen's books and they are wonderful but have not taken a class from her or Julie; however, I have heard wonderful things about them.

Click here for a chance to win.

It's All About The Junk Jewelry

While I was in Oregon a few years back, I had a couple thrift stores on the Oregon Coast that had a lot of neat old jewelry which I gathered while I was there. Just recently recovered it from my storage unit and it now has a new home.......a Radio Flyer wagon which was a retirement gift from my sister. Isn't this a great way to display the jewelry and you know it is all about the digging and seeing what lies beneath......

I will also have to confess here that this is not the only junk jewelry I have but the poor old wagon couldn't hold anymore. There are a few more drawers full.

Altered Lunch Box

This piece was done a few years ago at ArtFest in three separate classes taught by Ramona and Tom Ashman. It had an Ocean theme so I did this in memory of my Mom and Dad who lived by the ocean in their retirement years. One class was for the lunch box itself, one for the bracelet and one for the glass journal. The legs which you really can't see are made of copper tubing. By the way, the picture was probably taken in 1944 or 1945.

Another ROD Journal

This journal was made through the inspiration of Mary Ann Moss' Remains of the Day class. It is a wonderful class and I highly recommend you check this out if you have a sewing machine and can do the basic stitching and you like to make journals. You don't have to be an expert seamstress to do this........trust me on this one. I have posted some of the pictures of the other journals I made through this class in an older post.



This is the back of the journal where I hand stitched the chain to the back of the book.



This is the front of the inside of the journal.




This is the last page and inside of the journal.



Here are a few pages that I made for this book. There will be a lot more added to these pages as the actual "journaling" is not done yet. These are just background pages and there will be writing and pictures added and stuff put in the many pockets of this journal. It was fun using up all those scraps and bits and pieces of paper, trading cards, punchinella, flash cards, fabric, you name it, it is there.

A Wonderful Ebay Find A Few Years Ago

A few years back when I was cruising ebay, I noticed this wonderful lot of metal watch faces. It looked like a real good find and when I won and received it........all I could say was "WOW". All of the big ones and most of the smaller ones are metal and just wonderful to use in projects. Although I have used many of them myself, I have given a lot of them away as little gifts. Now that these kinds of things are so popular, I wouldn't want to guess what you would pay for them today.

Another Decorated Cigar Box

This cigar box was decorated with Graphic 45 Papers and an old sewing pattern I had. For the places where the Graphic 45 paper is, I put the paper on first and then put the sewing pattern on over it using Collage Pauge by Traci Bautista. In the inside of it, I just used the sewing pattern. I spelled the word Dream using Idea-ology Type Charms. The corners and center piece was an order gift from Bonnie's Best Online Store And the skeleton key is from my stash.

This is the outside of the lid.




Don't you just love all the goodies inside







This is the bottom of the box.





This is the inside of the box.