The latest circle journal adventure

This time it was the turn of the beautiful Lynn whose lovely blog you can find here.

Once again I am obsessed with trees but it was a complicated process to get to these trees I can tell you!

I started by putting a layer of tissue paper down as I wanted to play with texture for this journal but first underneath it all was a music score I had in my random pile of old papers.

With the tissue paper I scrunched it up to create the texture and once that was dry I painted roughly over it with a mixture of gesso and a pale peach paint. Then when that was dry added some distress inks swiped over the surface and rubbed in with tissues.

Under the tissue on the right hand side of the page though I had stuck a alcohol inked piece of card which was stamped with the friends stamp which I found in my craft box from a small project I had made at a class and wanted to repurpose... This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do this.

I also decided I liked the look of the sequin stars under the tissue so I added another layer of tissue paper on the top of the sequin stars which helped to blend the square piece in a little more, and added the sequin stars. I must point out at this point I really had no plan at all as to what I was going to do ... I was just playing with textures and the found objects I had come across searching for inspiration. It was a hard journal to work on, as they all are, as they are filled with wonderful pages, and on this occasion my mojo went walkabout!

Anyway I then added some doodles (this always helps me connect to what I am doing!) and added the metal friends charm I found. I also then searched for a quote I could use about friendship and hand wrote that. It was then I discovered writing and drawing on all this texture can be a bit of a nightmare.

To finish this side of the page off I added the trim and ribbon from my stash that seemed to coordinate although I must admit this was the last thing I did!

The other side stared at me for an age as a blank page ... Full of texture and painted roughly in the creamy peach but not really telling me what to do next. But then the tree shape emerged in my head and I wanted to try the doodling type of zentangle so this is what happened!

It is difficult to see in this photo but the tree trunk is painted in a metallic bronze acrylic and the tree ... Well green obviously! Then the green is completely covered in circle doodles which I drew myself over the top. I also added the doodles to the trunk and added the quote which I stumbled across as the start to a poem but now have no idea whose or where! Oops!

As one of the finishing touches I then added the black, charcoal, silver beads which I have loads of from a necklace that was constantly shedding beads all over the place so thought why not add them to my trees.

For the tag I went for texture again! This time with a pattern tissue paper that was not as translucent as the plain white and has a silver a grey stripe pattern. This is still visible through the painting ... Same peachy creamy colour as before.

I chose to do another tree ... Even more tricky as more texture, but this time decided to complicate it a little further and also add some white doodles in the souffle pen over the black pen doodles. I also added the writing around the tree.

On the reverse I added the streaks of the gold/bronze paint, some printed name elements and the buttons ... All 10 of them. Just like there were ten stars on the page, I added ten buttons to represent each of the circle journal group as it turned out that was my theme in some way for the journal pages I was creating for Lynn in thinking about our friendship as a group.

I have to say until the last elements were added I really had no clue if I iked what what I was creating ... But in the end I was pleased with it.

Now I am working on another beautiful journal for the equally beautiful Jayne ... But more about that another time as now it is time for my beauty sleep!

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my creative process for the journals.

Circle journal ... Two months to catch up on

Wow how time flies... Having gone to post about this months journal that has just made its way to the next recipient I've realised I hadn't posted about the one before yet!

So here goes.

The journal belonged to the beautiful Janey and I chose a quote to inspire me and decided to make that the feature for the first half of the journal layout...

As you can see I went orange! Yes very orange indeed! This was created using inks and painting with them, and then adding some larger blobs of ink and letting them run down the page to create the texture in the background. I then used some different lettering techniques to layout the quote from Mary Anne Radmacher using the India ink pens and the white souffle pen. I then added additional texture with the ranger enamel accents in blacks and white.

For the other half of the page I doodled a bare tree on book print and cut it out. I inked it up with some distress inks and stuck it down.

I then added the dot leaves for the tree using the orange, yellow and white acrylic paint.

Finally I added the leaves which are Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves cut out of laminate floor colour samples so have a wood grain to them.

Then I added some writing on the tree, some writing under the leaves and doodled some hearts hanging and the date stamp up the edge.

Now I have a confession to make ... The leaves were not part of the original page but instead were there to cover up an error. I did try to paint a woman under the tree but it went horribly wrong as the acrylics I have got are not great quality and she looked awful on a small scale and I couldn't get her right .... So the leaves connect the too pages with the overlap but were designed to cover the error! As it is I actually really like them so it was a happy thing in the end!

Janey's journal page for me was about my exploration of lettering ... And this continued to the tag!

I doodled the tag with the big Friend and patterned the letters and then added the friend quotes around the edge. The tag itself was also painted brightly with the shocking pink ink this time! The back I used the inks as sprays for a change and sprayed both colours and then stamped the flowers over the back too. Then I added the collection of bright pink, red and orange ribbons through the tag to finish.

So that was the journal page I did for Janey. The next post is all about the pages I did for Lynn.

Circle journal catch up post...

Although the intention was to do some cards tonight, my parents arrived and we spent some time chatting instead so I thought tonight I would blog about the last journal spread I completed in the lovely Lea's journal.

As Lea is currently planning her wedding I figured a love inspired spread was appropriate. I firstly found some lovely paper which formed the basis of the first layer. To this I added gesso, white acrylic, pink spray ink and red spray ink. Round the outside I also coloured it using aqua markers and diluted with water a little. I also cut a stencil out of some waste card of a heart and gesso through the stencil to raise the two hearts... You can see one more clearly than the other in this picture.

I then added some journalling around the outside of the paper rectangle and some doodling and outlining for the hearts too in black pen. I decided it then needed some bling and to make the hearts stand out more so added some glitter glue in bright pink to the hearts.

Next I decided to add some more doodles across the page in little trails of dotted lines etc looping round just freehand wherever it seemed they should be. At this point I decided it still needed more glitter so added another layer to the hearts this time in the iridescent glitter so they are very raised.

At this point I got a bit stuck not knowing how to tackle the middle space. I turned to the list of likes for Lea and chose the song she had mentioned as one of her favourites and used the words for this to bring the next part of the page to life.

I took the words and hand wrote them as decoratively as I can and cute them into individual pieces. I then edged and decorated each with different doodles then stuck them down on the page.

For the tag I decorated it with a mixture of gesso and ink and then stamped one side with the Dylusions stamps I got in a sale recently ... Just couldn't resist! I then added some beautiful Kaisercraft rubs I had got for the sentiment and the edges.

To the other side I also added some heart stamps from the freebie off craft stamper magazine and some more delightful rub ons.

The final touches were the mixed buttons added to the heart as lea is a button fan and the mixed ribbons and yarns for the top of the tag.

Am now working on the next journal in our circle and have gone down a different route entirely ... Need to spend some time this week finishing it off before posting it on and then I will of course update my blog accordingly!

Hope you enjoy this little view of my journalling for my lovely friend. Thank you for visiting! Take care and happy crafting all!

Circle Journal - Becca's journal update

Please note this is an old post from December and I edited it so it's jumped to the top of my blog - oops!

Catch up as promised on the circle journal.... becca's journal.

So the tag first... This was a lovely dark blue tag with some lovely texture and I loved the way the paints worked with the texture to the cardstock. I kept to bright colours and it was only as I was doing this I thought of doing a she art girl. It came kind of naturally. Here are a couple of pics of the tags.

So now the main journal spread. I got this lovely stamp off eBay which is sunburst I think but could easily be a flower and decided on a very bright yellow and orange page. This was painted with my aqua markers and some spray ink ... Golden fish I think. Then plenty of mod lodge to varnish the page at the end. I used the buttons for embellishments and saw the phrase somewhere and thought it was perfect to finish the page.

So a brief update but with some pics of my work... Hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave your comments here... Always happy to read them and love to know who is stopping by to have a peek.
Take care and happy crafting!
C xxx

Circle journal update... Jackie's journal

Now that the journal has been passed along to the next recipient it is time to blog what I did. In all honesty it has been quite some time since I did the work on the journal but we took a break from posting them on over Christmas to avoid the Xmas post and gIve ourselves a break at the busy time. So jackie's journal has been wrapped up safe and sound for about a month waiting to post it.

Then of course i forgot to take pics of the final pages and so have to thank the lovely Tracey for doing the honours and some amazing pics I have to say... Far better than the ones I would have taken.

So here you go... Jackie's work is usually full of texture and she loves using book print etc in her work so I decided to use this as the basis and just started with some random shapes of book print and spraying them with the ink sprays... From this I decided upon a layered flower ... And this meant lots of bits of folded and cut book print, half stuck down to provide little flaps. These were all sprayed in different lilacs, silver and pinks.

Before I stuck them down however I wanted the page itself to also have a texture. So I gessoed the page using a stencil I made from some card with the flower punch. Once dry I washed it with some of the lilac colours, stamped some leafy images and some random statements about friends etc and added the punched flowers too. and some embossed images for more texture.

Then came the job of sticking down the Book print... Boy did that take some drying... And also some courage to keep going with it even though jackies journal is now possibly the most bulky thing ever!

Then I added doodling and some rub offs and some other little bits of stamped bits. And of course the sentiment I chose to write. I couldn't find one that was exactly right so I wrote my own as jackie has become such a good friend in a short space of time it seemed more apt.

Phew ... Think that's it for the pages... Now onto the tag.

So jackie has a thing about writing about when she completes a piece of work... So I did the same in my message to her, but the background was stamped images of flowers and mixed in some heat embossing too. Unfortunately when I mod podged over the top there was some smudging as I forgot to use a waterproof pen, and also caught some paper on it before it was dry, but you can see what I was going for. On the other side however I wanted to use some fabric I had bought from stampin up so created the ruffle with the ribbons/threads trim with the button and per stamped the flowers in the blue underneath and added the good friend tag.

Fingers crossed the lovely jackie liked it... It was terrible not being able to show her her journal when she visited the house but it was only fair for the group that we don't share just because we live round the corner from each other and wait until we hand over the journals in July when we have our grand meeting in Harrogate. More about that later!

So hope you like seeing how this came together... Have a postcard to make this week from Spain and a dream board for willowing... Shame work is getting in the way of me being creative ... But must remember it keeps a roof over our heads and paper in the craft cupboard so needs must!

Have fun until next time and thanks for stopping by... Please feel free to leave comments... Always nice to read.

C xxx

Circle journal work... Catch up time

Ok so catch up time.... Firstly I lost this post once so may not have the patience to repeat it all.. Sorry if it seems a bit brief!

Circle Journal ... Well what a merry band we are! Firm friendships have been made in our sisterhood and I truly dont know what I would do without them now!

Since I last wrote I have had another two journals although can only blog about one as the other has to wait to be posted on to the next recipient!

Becca's is full of bright colours and sunshine and a little She Art girl. Inspired by her bright colours I chose to go all sunny bright yellow and orange for the main spread. And then added texture with the buttons to finish it off. I also wanted to make Becca a She Art girl as I felt she needed some positive vibrancy on her tag too! unfortunately the pics for this aren't around at the moment so will add them in later one via a link.

Now what else...

Secret Santa Sisterhood
Our circle group decided on secret Santa as well and I made a small recipe journal for my recipient, the wonderful Jayne, full of Christmas recipes which I love loads. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this but she has posted a couple on Facebook that I have nabbed to put on here.

Talking of Christmas i made three lovely She Art canvasses for my wonderful work friends who have really stuck together and with me over the past 18 months ... Literally through roller coasters. Fortunately they loved them so I am so proud to show them off here... I even got commissions from others at work wanting one making for them too... Obviously I cant sell them but more than happy for them to pay for the canvasses and I will create for them! Link to pics to be added ASAP.

My Christmas cards were so well received a friend bought some from me and my mum knitted me a beautiful scarf for Christmas in exchange for the cards I had given them... Such a lovely exchange. I also made some cards for one of the girls at work in exchange for a Christmas cake. Again such a great idea to share our individual skills.

The princess also had her bedroom decorated for Christmas and I included in her room my first she art piece and also the second one I made which I framed for her. A separate post will show the pics for this and I will insert a link in here later.

And that, dear reader I think is it... What will next year hold... Well you will have to wait for another post to find out... But safe to say there is a lot to do and I will be busy busy busy but so looking forward to the challenges.

Ta ya for now... Thanks for stopping by

C xxx

Ooooh. Just found out I can add multiple posts in one .... How exciting! Will still wait to see how this turns out before adding more!

Such fun!

Circle journal ... my first work on someone else's journal ... eeek!

So Marie's was the first journal sent to me to work on after my own and boy was I scared! Her work is so different to my own, plus the responsibility of not ruining her book was definitely in my mind. But then inspiration struck.


Inspired by the colour she had used on her cover and the eye kn the flower on her inside page in my head I went with peacock. I then spent ages tracking down a suitable poem and practising drawing peacocks. I soon realised I had no chance of achieving a peacock but maybe a feather was possible.


So here is what I did...





I used inks and gesso to make the background so it was a more muted green but still peacock shaded. Then I painted the peacock feather using inks. Then I added mica paints to make the eye of the feather shine.





Then I added texture with paints and spray inks to create a different effect from a flat painting. The poem from SaDi I then wrote on strips of card which I inked and stuck to the layout. I decided it needed some more texture and balance so I added the painted book print to the corner and lastly some rub ons.


Now the tag I used a similar colour for but wanted to use a star theme poem that spoke to me...





I.also wanted to crackle and sparkle the star as the main feature so I painted it silver and added a small amount of glitter and then did triple embossing and stuck it in the freezer and then crackled it.




I then added the poem with some words picked out in the inked card and then some more rub ons.


I really wanted to add some ribbon to the tag so I took a scrap of crochet lace and inked it in the green ... resulting in very green.fingers. then I added some other ribbons and wrapped it round the top of the tag.


And the back of the tag has a little.about me and ties in (hopefully) the page and the tag with the painted book print. I also added the key stamp just because I love it and it seemed to work.





So this was my work...

I should be getting Becca's journal soon. I hope the nerves don't come back and I am suitably feeling inspired!


Happy crafting all. Snooze time for me.


C xxx