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.

dec-daily-stack

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.

dd16

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.

tea-dyed-pages

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.

tea-dyed-pages-inside

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

dd16

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

Christmas In The Shop

In the studio card making production has gone into overdrive.  There’ll be glitter and sequins flying all over the place.

The shop has some of my favourite things for Christmas crafting at the moment and it’s all I can do to keep my hands off them!! Firstly for anyone needing to create a quick card or two I’ve put together these card kits. The kit includes 5 blank cards and envelopes, a gorgeous stamp from Indigoblu, a mini Versafine ink pad (water resistant for using water colour paints etc), some twine and enough backing papers to get you started.  If you click on the picture it’ll take you directly to the shop so you don’t have to search around for them.

 

christmas cards

Also I’m so in love right now with this Dutch Doobadoo stencil of stars. It’s an A5 size so is perfect for card backgrounds or journals.

BSDD007

As well as the Indigoblu stamps in the card kit there’s also this much bigger A6 size Christmas stamp called Baubles Flourish and I think it’s my favourite.

baubles

If you like a bit of the shiny stuff too – and lets face it who doesn’t? I’ve got flakes also from Indigoblu to complement the stamps.

BSIB002 BSIB003

Happy crafting

Jaine

Finding Inspiration To Make Tags For Christmas

December 2nd is here already and I know lots of you have been making cards and decorations weeks in advance but, here in the studio, I’m only just starting to think about it which is totally like me. I’m so last minute, why change now?

Anyway, I thought I’d make some tags and show you a couple of ideas for firstly finding inspiration which, let’s face it, is sadly lacking at times and, secondly, making it quicker to make multiples of things. So lets get on with it.

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