The final pages in my journal

Over the last few weeks I've been faffing on the last couple of pages in my journal (really looking forward to opening a new one!) and I think they're just about finished now.

This first is the penultimate page, the journal has got very bulky now so it's more or less impossible to stamp direct on the page so I went down a different route

I had the starting point - mop up paint, some shiny washi tape - already in there...

and there is sat for a few weeks.



As luck (!) would have it, a piece of dried baby wipe fell out of the scraps box, and it was all blues and greens...

the green is actually darker in real life, I can't get it to photograph accurately




I have as you may have seen (!) been splurging on new Paperartsy stamps over the last couple of weeks

so it was time to put ink to some of them - these are two of Sara Naumann's latest release, and they seemed to fit the colours of the baby wipe.

I was surprised (given that the baby wipe was quite hard and crumpled with paint) how well the stamped image worked on the surface.

I cut them loosely and stuck to the page (although as you can see, the glue hasn't grabbed everywhere)


I then found a scrap of paper and stamped one of the sentiments  and inked it with Distress Oxide (cracked pistachio) and edged it with Leaf Green archival ink.

so that's page one.

the final page (back inside cover of the journal) was painted a bluey green as well

when I saw the Tracy Scott stamps for Paperartsy, I thought these big stars looked reminiscent of comic book illustrations... so went with it (a great alphabet set sitting next to my craft mat had just the right sort of type face- I have no idea who it's by though)

I coloured the stars and flowers with my new Ecoline brush markers, keeping to a fairly limited colour palette -  and stamped some of the little shapes from the Tracy set, in the background.

So, that's another journal actually full - not all of the pages are "finished" and I may come back and do something on the cover one day...




Thanks for looking - happy Sunday!  I'm not doing much today after my mammoth day out yesterday.

More new stamps playtime - In the Stars

So, I also got a set of Sara Naumann stamps in my Paperartsy splurge.. the star set.  here's what I've done with them so far.

 I started with a coat of Stone Fresco and then added a couple of dots of Purple Rain, one of the new lovely purples across the top, but when I spread it out, it was too 'in your face' for what I wanted to do next, so I wiped at it with a babywipe to knock it back.   Added Bougainvillea from the Limited Edition LB set... love this pink!

Stamped the big star from the SN set, in black archival, randomly over the page, (the imperfect stamping in the bottom of the left page is due to the bumpy stuff on the page underneath, not the stamp's fault!

 added the circles, which I love, from this set - used both black and then Magenta Hue archivals , and the script is in Watering Can

I wanted something else, so as I went to bed, I added some Glass Bead gel in the centres of the stars and let it dry overnight - when it goes on, the base gel is white, and you never think it's going to dry clear....

 ...but it does! Time for words...







I stamped one of the quotes from the SN set, and cut it into pieces, mounting it on black card

...  I stuck most of them flat on the page, but wanted to further accentuate the main words - stars and ourselves - so used 3d foam for those.
Left the author of the quote, just on the white card without mounting it.

Really pleased with how this came out, love Sara's stamps  - may have to go back for more...

Craft Barn Q&L 19 - Patience/Better

Just before I left for my (second) day at Ally Pally on Sunday I saw the prompts for the latest Craft Barn Q&L challenge - Patience and/or Better.  I didn't have time to start looking for my quotes until a couple of days later, and of course my last entry used better quite by chance as well as that prompt of Easier, and there were lots using Patience that I liked;  but rather than just re-enter the previous page again (grin!) I went with "Positive anything is better than negative nothing" attributed to Elbert Hubbard.

I took a piece of 12x12 tissue bought from Paperartsy and brayered on some Frescos (no step by steps , oops) I used Vanilla, Pumpkin Soup, Zesty Zing, Chalk, Haystack, Autumn Fire, Cheesecake and Caramel... not necessarily in that order...
before stamping using Pumpkin Soup and Snowflake, using Sara Naumann and Ellen Vargo stamps for Paperartsy

the petal by Ellen Vargo,  in Potting Shed archival
- and then I cut it all up into strips...

 Gluing it to my journal as shown... I used matte medium, under and over the strips to seal it well.


Typed my quote on a piece of thin card and cut it into individual words and glued them to the left page.

 I did wonder about putting a focal image on the right page, but can't decide what, so for now, it's blank!

entering the Craft Barn challenge here