Friday In The Studio – December Daily

This is where I was a couple of weeks or so ago, all happy happy and totally prepared to fill my December Daily with lots of mixed media goodness and Christmas cheer but after filling only the first 3 pages I left it and pushed it to one side.

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The reason was hard for me to admit to but I simply didn’t like it. I really didn’t like anything about it. After all that work and all that expectation that my tea dyed pages would look aged and wonderful, in fact they left me feeling disappointed and let down. The pages were too stiff being water colour paper, the look I was going for wasn’t an antique one but bright white and clean like the robin paper on the left. I just pushed it to one side and left it not knowing whether to go on with it or not. Several times I opened my travelers notebook and wondered whether I should carry on in that instead.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea sooooooo…..

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last weekend I started to deconstruct my original DD and use the photos and some of the stickers I could rescue and start from scratch in my TN.

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Now I feel so much better. I love how the pages which have been painted on go all crinkly once they’re dry and I love the size and format of the whole thing.

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I’m now up to date with it and much more content.

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Have a good weekend everyone.

Jaine x

Friday In The Studio, Hello December

Here we are at the beginning of December and the madness of the season is upon us. I have been itching to start my December Daily and at last I get to play in its pages. Here is the first of my three books which are inside the altered book cover and it features my robin design which I love to bits and have plastered on anything and everything this year. I should make him into a stamp for next year.

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I’m also very happy to say that I’m helping out Clare Brown at Paper Pen And Plan with her December Daily photo challenge.  Basically there are 31 prompts to follow every day in December which are used as inspiration for a photo which is uploaded to Instagram or their Facebook group using the hashtag #PaperpenandplanDec2016 and there’s a prize on offer for someone who has followed all of the prompts with the hashtag linking them to the group.

Hubby came back from Hong Kong last week bringing this cute little red bag with him which I thought was perfect to keep my supplies in for my DD.

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Here’s day 1 complete,

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and day 2.

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Have a good weekend where ever you are and what ever you’re doing.

Jaine x

Friday In The Studio – Getting Ready For December

Who documents December in a special journal? This random pile is a few of my journals from past years including an altered book, fabric, faux dori and a mini file folder for Instagram photos, I’ve tried them all.

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This year I’ve decided to go once again with an altered book but this time I’ve taken the pages out and used only the cover.

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I thought I’d go with an elastic style binding to hold the pages in which will enable me to reuse the cover next year.

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I used watercolour paper for the inside pages as I can paint, glue and do almost anything I feel like to them without them falling apart and just as a bit of an experiment I decided to tea dye the paper for a bit of a vintage feel.

Oh boy I had no idea that it would make me so happy once the pages were dry. To be honest, I really should have done it before I sewed the pages together as it was a bit of an afterthought but I was so happy with the colour, the staining and even how the pages curled and buckled once they’d dried. I was positively squealing with delight.

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I’ve three books or signatures of five papers each sewn together on the sewing machine and these fit through the elastics in the cover.

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The cover has been decorated with firstly some Collage tissue paper from Canvas Corp along with some lace, tags, stickers and a few sequins.

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I am more than happy with it and can’t wait to dive in.

I’d love to know if you’re going to document December in any way? Let me know.

Have a good weekend.

Jaine x