WOYWW #726 - Promised Tip for Christine

 Good morning, crafty friends.

After posting last week, I found my note to share links for Christine on what to do with those lovely UK card/ stamping magazines. 

I have a post for the project. I linked to Angela (aka Crafting With Jack) on her process. I hope you find this post helpful:

POST 1

Okay... on to the desk!

The box in the middle holds the things from my haul video I recorded yesterday (it's live on my YouTube channel now). Nothing else exciting. LOL

I've been busy as usual this week. With Bob's first week behind me, the twenty-one days are flying by. 

I've finished the April spring journal. I'll have the video posted here after it's uploaded an available on my YouTube channel. I hope you'll take a moment to visit and subscribe. I'm not out to monetize, just show higher up in the crafty rankings. Thanks! 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

TECHNIQUE THURSDAY - En Masse Journal

YouTube Intro

By Shannon Green

Before we go further, if you missed my first post about the En Masse Journal project, you can see that HERE

This is the massive amount of tags I punched for the En Masse Journal. There are 60 white ones and one of each color. They did not take long to punch... only about 15 min. I also scored them so they will fold.

I took the white ones from my white CS scraps:

Since it's a scrap journal, I couldn't see punching them from good white CS. These were a blend of shades. 

The journal itself, came together nicely. 

In this picture you can see the 4 black dots which were my stitch holes. I used waxed, non-flavored dental floss to stitch. Looking from Left to Right, I came up hole #1, down hole #2, up hole #3, down hole #4.. then reversed the process working my way back to #1. I did this with each of the 4 signatures:

Since I could not get that AWESOME travel journal cover Shannon Green was lucky enough to acquire, I painted mine a Chestnut brown, then covered it in brown packing tissue paper I had scrunched up into a ball then flattened out. After gluing the 3 pieces in place (one on the front and one on the back plus one over the spine area to seam the whole thing together) I then ran TH Walnut Stain Distress Ink pad over the cover, letting the raised areas pick up the ink. I heat -set that with my heat gun. I finished off the edges with masking tape.

I'm really happy with how the journal came out. This is my first stitched journal. I haven't decided if I'm putting any kind of a focal on the cover or if I just want to use twine and a conch shell as a belly band. We shall see as I begin putting things together.

Come back May 5th for the next installment. I'll have all of my tabs in place and can share my Journaling Prompt List with you. 

Creative Blessings!

Kely

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - En MassE Journal

How many of you have a collection of magazines? Why are you hanging on to them? Do they need recycled?

I had a light bulb moment the other day. Magazines that are stapled in the center are nothing more than pre-made signatures!

These are all magazines I plan to mulch the garden beds with (they are not glossy pages - just the covers)

So I pulled 4 'signatures' for my new En Masse art journal

Before we get to how I'm using them, a bit of background on the cover..

When Bob was helping me organize the mixed media side of the studio the other day he was not

impressed with a box of food boxes. I had him sit and watch a video by Jennibellie on YouTube on making journals from Cereal Boxes.  I had been saving boxes for awhile.. but selectively. Only boxes that we purchase the same products of... such as this Stouffer's, cake boxes, BelVita bars or FiberOne cookie boxes.  This lets me narrow down what I keep and should I choose to do a journal of just chipboard pages, then I'll have enough that are the exact same size. FYI.. I'm loving the shape of Healthy Choice Steamer packages.

So with this Stouffer's box, I'm diving in! My first big project to launch the 'almost' completion of Creative Dreams Studio is to finally start an art journal. Not just any journal but an En Masse Journal.

I first heard about the concept from my junk journal mentor, Shannon Green over on YouTube. Shannon got the idea from Kagedfish

Shannon created hers from two Oklahoma Travel guides with the most awesome cover. You can see a picture of the most awesome travel guide cover EVER in the first picture of her En Masse Journal Post  HERE

First thing I did was order my Oklahoma Travel Guide... This is what I got:

Rather a let down from what I'd hoped. I guess Shannon's was the 2015. Oh well... I still liked the concept of the EnMasse Journal so I began with the Stouffer's box.I started by opening the box on the long side seam and trimming off that excess flap. Then I covered the entire outer box with Gesso.

Then I found the center of the 'spine' and separated the box into 2 pieces.

I did this because the spine was 2" wide... too wide for the number of signatures I plan to include.

I also tried what Jennie did by folding in the flaps. The glue was not holding so I wound up pulling them up and cutting them off.

With the Spine cut in half, I then layered them over top of one another to form a firm spine.

Once the Gesso dried, I covered the entire outer side with a Folk Art Nutmeg. I plan to use a brown packing paper crinkled up to form the final outside cover and I feared the product images would show through. Since I'm after kind of a 'western' theme for the journal, I thought the dark nutmeg beneath the lighter brown crinkled paper would add a nice depth to the overall cover. I left this to dry overnight

This morning.. and the reason the pictures are late... I came back in and marked the holes for  my four signatures. I made a template (shown laying on top of the spine)  and found the center. 

Then I drew four lines on the spine and marked these holes in the appropriate placing along each of the four signature placement lines. Here you can see the holes on the outside of the spine:

With the holes in place, I went back and covered the inside with this American wallpaper from my scrap bin:

I used Aleene's Tacky Glue and have a few wrinkles but this is a junk journal - a perfect opportunity for me to try and reign in my OCD tendencies and just see where this takes me. 

Next Monday should be the MARCH Tim Holtz Tag. From here on out, I hope to use the 4th Monday of each month as the En Masse progress post.

If you've never tried any kind of art journaling, I recommend starting with a Junk Journal of some type. We all have Junk! Why not make it pretty :-)

Creative Blessings!

Kelly