I'm sharing these journal pages today over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog and I decided to journal as I wanted to use the lovely quote stamps from the amazing Alison Bomber. I'm working in my vintage altered book journal and chose to use the friendship set of stamps.
Process steps
1. With a palette knife cover the pages with a layer of gesso - don't worry about it being smooth, the rough areas create wonderful texture later on.
2. Tear some brown paper and collage papers and adhere to the pages - leave some white space too.
3. Scrape some black gesso in a few random places and when it's dry repeat with some more white
gesso.
4. Choose your focal vintage image, some ephemera, cheesecloth and interesting die-cuts to add to the design. It's usually about this point I will arrange things on the pages to see how it all fits together. I take a photo whilst it's on my desk so I can put everything back in the same place when I come to do the final assembling
5. Take some small stamps and add some numbers and text in purposefully placed areas - this part is not random as you want the stamping to keep the cohesiveness and balance of the pages. I kept it very subtle as there was already lots going on in the papers.
6. Edge all your pieces with brown distress ink. I had found the wildflower stem on my table and had dipped it and the bee in watery ground espresso distress ink. Adhere all the bits to the pages. My stamps hadn't arrived when I had got to this point so I was unable to place my quote in position but I knew I was going to stamp on media paper and cut it up to fit on the left hand side where there is plenty of room.
I was happy when they turned up and I could complete the project.
I have to be honest and say I was expecting them to arrive that day and they did. Susan is so reliable with her dispatches.
Here are the pages individually.
Love my paper dolls and the strong and bold palette of limited colours and you can see I wasn't frightened of leaving some white space. In fact it took me quite a while to decide on where to place the words to keep the composition looking right. And it worked!
Here are the pages individually.
Love my paper dolls and the strong and bold palette of limited colours and you can see I wasn't frightened of leaving some white space. In fact it took me quite a while to decide on where to place the words to keep the composition looking right. And it worked!
Thanks for joining me today and ....
xxx
