Compose Your Life Journal Cover - Part One

The Autumn weather here in the UK has changed into Winter over the last few days, the winds are bitter. So it's a perfect time to catch up with some crafting, and feed my addiction of creating journals.

I die cut Eileen Hulls Journal from mount board and adhered the two pieces together, ready to work on. I adore these papers from Aga Baraniak, they are so beautiful, and could be used for any time of the year. I chose four of the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists to co-ordinate with them. Golden Lime, Sterling, Driftwood and Festival.

I sat in front of the fire, with hot tea and set about cutting all the gorgeous flowers and leaves from the Red Flower Pieces 12" paper. It didn't take long at all, and I now have all the embellishments ready to use with my journal.

To add texture onto the cover of the journal, I glued some strips of muslin, pulling at the loose threads to create even more texture.

I painted the entire cover with Golden Lime Glimmer Mist and before it was dry, splattered Sterling Glimmer Mist into it. It started to blend into the green, and with a little help from a clean paintbrush, I worked some of the larger splatters in a little more, then cleaned my brush along the muslin, as I wanted to create some shadows behind where the flowers would sit.

I love doing this technique, and then knocking the colour back using white gesso. This gives a beautiful soft, shabby feel to the project.

I decided the cover needed even more threads adding for texture, and to create a nest for the flowers to sit on. As you can see my roll of thread started life as white, but is now many shades of blues, greens and a hint of gold :)

I swirled the threads round, making sure that sections would still be seen after the flowers and leaves were added.

All that was left then, was to arrange the flowers and leaves, following the lines of the calico for a guide.

I finished the cover by adding a sentiment cut out from the Compose Your Life 8x8 paper pad, cut out and inked around the edge with a little Black Soot Distress Ink. And to finish the cover just a few black sequins, you know I just can't resist them.

So there you have the completed cover, I love how rustic but pretty it turned out. I'm off to work on the inside now, and add some more of Aga's beautiful papers to my pages.

Happy Crafting.
Elizabeth x

Autumn Holidays Journal

I absolutely love the Autumn months, chilly winds and golden leaves falling from the tree's. It's a perfect time of year for getting wrapped up and getting out for long walks before the snow arrives.

I've created a masterboard on water colour card using some of Eileen's range of the Color Box Blend inks, the colours are stunning. I used Golden, Sunshine, Nutmeg, Leaf, Frog and Stop. I took the ink direct to paper, then spritzed it to make the ink flow and blend even more.

Once my water colour card was totally dry, it was ready to be die cut using the gorgeous leaves from the Journaling Cards, Flowers and Leaves die set. My piece of card was roughly 6" square, so you can see just how many leaves I managed to cut from it, I even have spares ready to add onto the inserts.

I will keep the Waste to use on a project as well. it's just too gorgeous to bin!

I chose three shades to add splatters onto another piece of water colour card, starting with the palest, and building up to the Nutmeg Brown shade. I used the shades Golden, Stop and Nutmeg.

Once it was dry I used the journal card to die cut it to size, and also die cut the word "Wander" from the Journaling Cards die set in black.

Then after cutting out my wrapped Journal in mount board, I decided to add colour with the same three inks, again by splattering them.

I made sure the cover was dry and added some shading around the edge using the Nutmeg Brown shade. I did the same with the journaling card to create a frame and make it stand out from the journal cover.

I always use every last scrap of my sticky pads, the leftovers a perfect for adding bigger layers.

Now to build up the front cover first with the word.

And then arranging the leaves, so they tumble down the cover.

I played around with the design before gluing them down.

Happy Crafting.
Elizabeth x

Craft Stamper Magazine Challenge November 2018

Welcome to November and the start of our new challenge over at the Craft Stamper Magazine Blog 

I've been playing with Distress Oxide backgrounds, Imagination Crafts stamps and my Sakura Gelly Roll pens to create quick and easy Fireworks over the Paris skyline.

We would love you to join in with the challenge and share your projects that have stamping on them with us.

As always we have a fabulous prize up for grabs, just check out this amazing bundle, wish I could enter.

So hop over to the challenge blog to check out how to enter, follow the instructions and join in the fun! There's also the chance to be featured in the magazine as well, how cool is that!

Happy Crafting.
Elizabeth x

Imagination Crafts One Day Special Launching Friday 2nd November

I've loved working with all the new goodies Sue will be launching on Hochanda as a One Day Special on Friday 2nd November. There are stunning Rice Papers, gorgeous new Magicuts and Stencils all with a stunning Paris theme.

Happy Crafting
Elizabeth x

Craft Stamper Magazine Challenge October 2018

It's the first Friday of the month and time for our new challenge over at the Craft Stamper Magazine Blog where we would love you to share your projects that include stamping with us. I love working with Eileen Hull's wrapped Journal, they are such good fun to decorate. The die does all the hard work of cutting and scoring the material for you, all you have to do is decide which fabric you want to cut out, that's the beauty of a steel rule die and of course Eileen's fabulous designs.

So, how do you fancy getting your hands on this fabulous die? It so happens that this month we have one up for grabs as a prize.

So hop over to the Craft Stamper Magazine Blog and check out the entry instructions, and get stamping! After all, you have to be in it to win it!

Happy Crafting
Elizabeth x

Fall Canvas Corp Brands Blog Hop Day 3

Did you get a chance to hop on through our amazing Fall Blog hop yet? You can see what I did for it over at The Crafty Robin Blogspot. I really love what Karla has created for it, see above. It is amazing. Go check our Karla's blog here: Karla Youngworth Designs. Don't forget to hop on through and leave comments along the way!

Fall Canvas Corp Brands Blog Hop Day 2

Did you get a chance to hop on through our amazing Fall Blog hop yet?  I really love what Monica created for it, shown above. It is fabulous. Go check our Monica's blog  HERE Don't forget to hop on through and leave comments along the way!
And if you missed my post yesterday here's what I created HERE

Have fun.
Elizabeth x