Life Documented 2017 - Sept. Weeks 4 and 5

This is my spread for the week of Sept. 17-23. It was mostly a catch-up week except that my husband had a heart ablation (his fourth) on Thursday and my oldest daughter from Austin flew back into Dallas from Spain, stayed overnight and then drove home the next day. It was fun seeing her and hearing about her awesome trip.

For this background I started with Distress Stains. Since this is just regular paper, they didn't blend very well so I added gesso lightly over the pages. I used doodled blocks for the days of the week and added various stickers and doodles in the blank areas.

And this is this past week ending today. I dry-brushed and finger-painted bright Scribble Sticks (Dina Wakely) on the background and made marks on the dark blue areas with a white pen.  I love these watercolor crayon sticks, but it is hard to get anything to write over them as they are a bit waxy. I went to the annual Pinners' Conference yesterday with a friend and the red and white polka dot strip I used is part of the wristband from the show.

For the right page, I found a great quote from the words I cut and save from magazines and also a cute photo from an old Somerset Studio magazine. I layered the image with two different colors of tissue paper.

Make a Magazine Journal

Here's another fun project from YouTuber craftyhodges.  You can make an art journal/planner or whatever kind of book you'd like from a magazine!  Basically you rip out as many pages as needed for the size journal you would like, reinforce the spine and decorate the front and back covers. Joann's instructions are very thorough and detailed so if you are interested, I suggest you click the link above for more information.  She also did a Traveler's Notebook version here.

I made a TN version from an old craft magazine I was going to add to the recycling bin.  I am going to use this for collage and have already added my three quirky collages from Joanne's You Tube series to the book. I love making something useful from what was going to be discarded!

The first photo shows the magazine cut down to size from the top. (Most standard-sized magazines are just about the right size in width once you fold the pages in half, so you don't have to cut the side.)  The spine is reinforced with white duct tape. You can see where I started to fold before I remembered to photograph it.

This next photo shows the pages folded in half and glued.  More tape is reinforcing the spine in the middle of the magazine. I also reinforced both the inside front and back covers.

Here is the journal folded, taped, glued and ready to decorate.

I added papers from Jane Davenport's awesome paper pad to the front and back covers and used some dimensional black sticker letters for the title.  The spine is covered in very old 7 Gypsies gaffers tape.

I also made a pocket on the inside front cover.

Can you guess what I will be using this for? 

A Collage Project

I'm always looking for new projects to tackle. I recently found discovered Joanne (craftyhodges) on YouTube. She does awesome collage work and has a new 6-part series making quirky collages. Her instructions are very thorough.

I decided to follow along and make the collages along with her. The series is free and she posts a new collage each week. To do the collage exactly like hers, you need to purchase and download two sets of collage sheets from Mischief Circus, but you could always make up your own crazy combos with magazine cutouts. These are sized for Traveler's Notebooks (4 1/4" wide x 8 3/8" tall) but could be resized for whatever substrate you are using.

Week 1 - "Tenny Bird"

Week 2 - "Rosebud"

Week 3 - "Home Sweet Home"

The original had "Home Sweet Home"
stamped in upper left corner, but I haven't
added anything yet.

Of course, these aren't my original art, but I'm loving them anyway! So fun to work on something you don't have to design for a change!

 I have scanned them so I can reuse them in various forms. Joanne suggests making them into cards or ATCs or using the focal image as stickers for a journal or planner.  In a future post I will show you how I am storing them in yet another craftyhodges project.

Life Documented 2017 - September

I'm late in posting the first few weeks of September's planner spreads, but here they are!

September Monthly View

Watercolor background, washi tape, hexagonal stickers for dates

Week 1 (only two days so I decorated the left page for fall)

Scraped paint background, paper and magazine scraps,
planner stickers and die cut leaves

Week 2

Left page - watercolored background, lots of Freckled Fawn planner stickers, tip-in with photo

Right page - multi-layered colorful background, then applied bird mask and painted
with dark navy on entire page, doodled and journaled with white pen

Entire spread

Week 3

 

Painted background, washi tape, quote journal card, flower from magazine

I took photos of my process while doing the week 2 spread. If you are interested, keep reading and scrolling. Or, you can just finish the post now!

THE MAKING OF A PLANNER SPREAD

Step 1

After adding washi tape to the edges, I watercolored both pages with purple and green.  I handmade this Traveler's Notebook insert with just regular copy paper which is not the best for watercolor, but most will be eventually covered up anyway.

I was sent this sticker set along with a TN planner cover from Freckled Fawn so decided to use it on this spread. They have super cute products and a monthly planner kit.

Step 2

Since the days of the week were already printed on the insert, I just highlighted them with a black pen. I stamped the numbers with one of my favorite stamp sets from Rae Missigman and permanent black ink, then filled in the scallops with my favorite white pen - Signo Uni-ball.

Step 3

Added narrow washi tape dividers.

Step 4

Then I went to town on the left page detailing events of the days and adding many of the cute Freckled Fawn stickers. I also made a tip-in with two photos from our weekend with our grandsons. The photo below shows the other side of the tip-in. I used one of the circle stickers from the set, folded in half, as a tab at the top of the tip-in.

Step 5

On the right page I added many layers of color, forgetting to take photos of each step. First I added red ink with a chevron roller stamp, then orange paint with a foam circle stamp. Then I stamped yellow paint with a bottle lid and stenciled it through punchinella. Next came green and pink paint smudged on with my finger, then white paint with a circle stamp and black ink with a splatter stamp (these last two can be seen in the bird below).

Step 6

I placed a bird mask (a very old Heidi Swapp product) on the page and then painted all around it with  Dina Wakley's "Night" paint - a beautiful opaque indigo. I love this technique! I outlined the bird with white pen to highlight it and doodled scallops for added interest. Finally, I journaled with the white pen.

And here again is the final spread:

I hope you enjoyed following along with the process!

A few art projects

I've been catching up on some art projects for swaps this past week.

First, I am participating in a round-robin altered book swap. Each person has chosen or made a book of their choice and decided on a color scheme. Then we are rotating the books through the group so that everyone creates a spread in each book.

This month I received a tiny little book with blue and rust as the chosen colors.

This is the spread I created, each page measuring approximately 3" x 4." I found a very old piece I had done as an encaustic wax sample years ago (the image of the little boy) and built my spread around that. The background is several layers of Stormy Blue and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. The metal gears and the chipboard clock die cut were covered in Prima's Rust Paste kit (three colors dabbed on randomly until it looked nice and rusty).  These elements were layered over a partial doily and a strip of script paper. Lastly I added some typed words and a metal Tim Holtz word band altered with distress paint.

The book owner had asked us to write a bit about our inspiration or how the page came together so I taped the right page into a pocket with the following page. I added a distressed tag inside with my explanation. I hope she likes it!

I was hostess for another quarterly swap where we are revisiting old techniques.  This quarter the technique is "Cracked Glass" (aka Shattered Glass) and the substrate needed to be either an ATC or a 4"x4" art piece.  For this technique, several layers of embossing ink and UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) are placed over a stamped image. Then it is put in the freezer to completely cool for about 15 minutes. After removing, it is gently bent in several places to make it crack.

I stamped the butterfly image over a previously distressed paper of turquoise and brown inks. Once it was cracked, I added it to a background of Vintage Photo Distress ink layered with a doily and the "FLY" 3-dimensional alpha stickers.

It's been a busy few weeks!

I'm back and have no idea where to start! My last post was on Aug. 21 and we left early Aug. 23 (my husband's birthday) for Chicago. We visited our youngest, Sara, there for a day and a half. On Thursday night we flew to Albuquerque to babysit our two grand boys, Drew and Grant, while their parents went to Durango for a race (they are runners).

We were supposed to fly from there on Sunday to Austin for our other grandson's first day of kindergarten on the 28th. Hurricane Harvey rolled into Houston on Friday and changed our plans! No flights were open into Austin on Sunday from Albuquerque, so I flew home late Saturday night (my husband stayed to cover the babysitting) and then flew into one of the only flights into Austin on Sunday (at 7 am!).  I was determined to be there for Carl's first day.  Wouldn't you know it, school was canceled! But at least I was there for Tuesday. 

So, the last week has been for resting, getting back into a "normal" schedule at home, and catching up on everything.

I have three weeks' of my Life Documented planner to share.

August - Week 3

This was the week of Drew's first day of kindergarten so I used the right page of the spread to document that special moment.

August - Week 4

This was birthday week for my, my son-in-law, and my husband; travel and Hurricane Harvey.

I used the CTA card (Chicago transit) as a tip-in and added a photo of us with our daughter at Lincoln Park Zoo. (Photo below shows the tip-in opened.)

August - Week 5

This week Carl finally got to start kindergarten too. Again, I used the right page to document his first day.

I'm hoping to get back on schedule with more frequent posts...