Scrapping by Design

This is the picture I made for Lifebook 2014, Week 21. It is taught by the mixed media artist, and the title given was Wonderful Words.

I did not complete the entire project as directed. We were meant to do a lot of journaling aimed at promoting self growth. Sometimes I am in the mood for self growth and sometimes I am not. This time, I was not.

The small filing folder-shaped image was supposed to open up to reveal pages of journaling. I did not do this. I simply made a folder shaped background and drew my girl’s face on the front.

The collage background is colored with various paints and inks.

I made the flowers from papers, eyelets and rickrack.  Some of the papers contain writing that I did on the paper before shaping the flowers.

I am a less than enthusiastic art journal person. For whatever reason, the process just doesn’t inspire me. I greatly appreciate art journals made by others, but personally, not so much.

At Art for the Creative Mind, we had a challenge in which we were to use wax in our journaling. This is what I came up with.

I drew the bird and the tree freehand. Then I covered the page with melted candle wax. I attempted to colour the bird with melted candles of various colours.  I added a little stamping on top of the melted wax and some journaling with coloured pencils. Lastly, I punched out a few leaf shapes and glued them on.

I called the page “Cedar Wax Wing” in a fit of whimsey.

This layout is entered in the Playing in Paradise Challenge # 97. The challenge indicated it was a Christmas challenge — and this is not a Christmas themed layout. It is in a book that will be a Christmas gift, however, so perhaps that will work!

I am making an 8 1/2 by 8 1/2 memory album as a Christmas gift for my cousin.  The scrapbook has a heritage theme. Most of the photographs were taken in black and white.

The woman in the photo is my late grandmother. The picture was taken in 1917, at a farm near Rapid City, Manitoba, Canada.

I have done the journalling  digitally, directly on the photo.

The small blue rosettes are hand made freestyle, using blue card stock.

The second side of the layout will have the same colors, but in reverse. It will show a photo of my late mother and my late grandmother standing side by side.

I have been working on an altered book. I haven’t made one in ages. At one time, I was a big fan of this art form but for a while I lost interest. Now they seem fun again.

In any case, the project was to make a house-shaped item with a theme of “Garden Adventures“.

This is my offering. I started out with a Telletubbies kids’ book that had a shape that somewhat resembled a house. Adding a roof made of corrugated card stock made the house shape more pronounced.

The book has six inner layouts. The right side of each layout contained a door that opened to a scene.

In my project, I placed a garden photograph behind each door. I tried for a different garden theme for each page. Since I used only photographs that I took personally, I was limited to what was in my digital collection. There is a photograph of a rock garden, a vegetable garden, a rose garden, a hanging basket, a flowering tree and of a field of flowering tulips (agricultural gardening).

The entire project is distressed,since I hoped to replicate a weather beaten garden shed.

Tomorrow I will post a video demonstration that I made of this board book — or is it a scrapbook? Or is it an art journal?

You be the judge.

I made these ATCs (artist trading cards) for a swap. We are working through techniques using a different letter of the alphabet each month. This month, the technique had to start with J. I created my own technique for this, which I named Journaling Under Ice.

They don’t show up too well here, but in real life, the technique is quite nice.

Supply List:

1. Card Stock for backing

2. Printer paper in color of your choice

3. Watermark ink such as Versamark

4. Clear UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel)

5. Heat Gun

6. Alcohol Inks in color of your choice

7. Embellishments as desired

How to:

Prepare a page of journaling. You could do this by hand using colored pens and paper, or you could use computer generated journaling, as I did. I used MS Word to write a page of nonsensical journaling. I selected a font that resembled hand writing and used brown for my text color. I printed this out and cut the page into pieces of the size needed for ATCs.

I glued these paper pieces of card stock that was 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches in size. I smeared watermark ink over the journaling then sprinkled with UTEE.

I used the heat gun to melt the UTEE, adding more UTEE as needed.  You could choose to continue adding UTEE and melting it until you have a thick layer of “ice”.  You can also choose whether to heat the UTEE until it is smooth as “ice” or leave it bumpy.  Real ice that freezes outdoors is often bumpy.

When the UTEE has hardened, sprinkle various colors of alcohol inks over top and swoosh that around a little if desired.

Decorate your card as desired.

This is the second layout for an Asian themed Art Journal.

I covered watercolor paper with white, opaque gesso then made ridges in it with a bread tag.  While wet, I stamped the gesso with a leaf design.

After this had dried, I rubbed blue pigment ink over the surface.

I made a collage using a mixture of origami papers, images stamped on Asian news print, a torn picture of a geisha girl and words hand printed on Asian news print.

The hand printed words spell out a Haiku that I wrote for the layout.

The stamped images and collage image feature geisha girls.

My Haiku reads:

“Mysterious woman.
Serene face hiding sorrow
I glance and walk by.”

Gesso is a versatile product for mixed media art.  It is intended, originally, to strengthen and add “tooth” to canvas or other surfaces.  However, you can play with it and get an interesting array of effects.

You can find it at Amazon here: gesso

This project is a combination anniversary scrapbook and guest book. I made it on request of a woman who is planning an anniversary party for someone’s 20th anniversary. She intends to pass the book around so guests can view the pictures in the scrapbook, then sign and leave a comment in the empty pages at the back.

I chose a ring-bound 8 inch by 8 inch album with a cover of black felt with silver threads running through. The ring bindings made it relatively easy to add the Guestbook pages at the back.

My instructions were to put a picture on the album’s front cover, and to use a simple design. With that in mind, this is the project I came up with:

I have attempted to make the facing pages complement each other, picking up colors and using similar scrapbook paper, card stock and embellishments. The entire book leans heavily to a red, white and black color theme. Those colors seem to match with almost of all of the photographs, and I’m told red is the wife’s favorite color.

Not all pages have headings, but those that do are cut with the Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter using the Jasmine Font Cartridge

I’ve used a considerable number of quotations set in journaling blocks, since I know the people involved are fond of that approach.

I hope the Anniversary Scrapbook and Guest Book is a hit.

This hand made journal is my most recent version of my “Welcome to the World” book.

The book is 100% hand made. The covers are cut from book board and covered with double sided scrapbook paper. The book is wire bound using the Zutter Bind-it-all Craft Tool.

If you haven’t used this tool, I have a video demo of the Zutter Bind-it-all at this link.

Now, back to the Welcome to the World book.  I envisioned this journal a few years ago when I was contemplating the fact that I know little about my grandparents and other senior family members who have moved on to whatever lies ahead. I started to think about the time surrounding my birth and wondering what was happening in the family. I thought about the things I wished I knew.

From that musing came this idea. What if there was a journal-type book that grandparents, aunts, perhaps even parents — could prepare for a child, outlining this type of information?  The book would be sort of a baby gift, but obviously not  intended for a baby. Rather, it would be a gift that could be made and kept until the child was an adult and old enough to appreciate the information.

My original Welcome to the World books were shown here yesterday. They were hand bound using book board, faux leather fabric and cord for binding.

The book I show today is the most recent incarnation of this idea.  I have switched to wire binding, thanks to the Zutter, and I am using doubled sided scrapbook paper for the pages and cover.

Here is the video demo:

My plan at this point is to make a few of these books and display them in a local florist shop. I may also consider an Etsy shop, but at this time, I am having problems figuring out how much to charge for S&H. I wonder how Etsy store owners do that? I have tried using Canada Post’s postage rate estimator but it doesn’t seem to be working for me.

If any Canadians can clarify how they estimate postage rates on Etsy, I would be much obliged.

This hand made birthday journal was inspired by a project I saw on a crafting community called Life on the Scrap Beach.

The journal is called My Year, and its a gift for a friend’s birthday.

I made the project 100% from my stash, since I’m trying to use up the supplies I already have before I buy yet more. The downside of stash-using  is that not all pages coordinate well. The upside is that in addition to saving me some money and reducing the piles of craft supplies in my home, it also forces me to use more hand made embellishments and to strive for more creativity in design.

Each page in this little book  has a title and contains tags for journaling.  The book has a wire binding, made with the ZUTTER BIND IT ALL SCRAPBOOK & PAPER CRAFT TOOL. The titles and a die cut on the front and back covers are made with the Cricut Expression 24-Inch Personal Electronic Cutting Machine.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the Cricut because for quite some time I could not get it assembled correctly. Now that its working the way it should, I am warming up to it.

Here is my video demo of my hand made birthday journal:

I have used a number of techniques that I have demonstrated in other videos.   People new to crafting or people unfamiliar with the tools and techniques  might want to check them out:

1. Video Demo of the Zutter Bind-It-All
2. Video Demo of the Sizzix Big Shot Universal Die Cutting and Embossing Machine
3. Video Demo of the Burnished Velvet Glitter Technique
4. Video Demo of Basic Rubber Stamping, Masking and Coloring
5. Video Demo of Heat Embossing

This hand made birthday journal is in the mail now. I hope it arrives in time for the birthday.

PC Crafter gives away free fonts every month. This month, the font is Easter Parade. They’re also giving away two bonus fonts as thank you to their visitors. I believe you have to register to the site (free), but can’t say for sure. It is a long time since I started using these fonts and memory fails. LOL

The fonts are available for both Windows and Mac computers.  They’re easy to install. They come with an installation program so you don’t have to know much of anything other than downloading the fonts and then double clicking on the executable file.

The link is PC Crafter Free Fonts

Enjoy.