Friday Postday, December journal

Hello lovely friends and followers, thanks for checking in here this Friday, which from now on will be the day I post here.

Today I am sharing some pages from my December (almost) daily journal;

I used the Eileen Hull journal die to cut the cover from mounting board and then decorated it with various Tim Holtz products, - collage paper, ephemera, a paper doll and some stamped elements.

Here are a few details:

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The background to this lovely lady was a stamped piece of card, using one of Tim's new background stamps, to give her something to stand on I added some cheesecloth, adhered with mat medium.

A few ephemera tugged into the side and some splatters for a wintry feel.

Here is the back, just some coloured collage paper.

I added some glitter to the berries, to add a bit of sparkle.

The inside of the cover was made with a piece of Stamperia rice paper. I used a lot of traditional Christmas colours for my cards this year, and wanted to use some different colours for the rest of the journal.

Alright, now to some of the inside pages. All of them in my favourite vintage style, using scraps of rice paper, paper serviettes etc from my stash, - so good to use up some of those hoarded pieces. The challenge is always to integrate these scraps into the rest of the page, using paints, stamps etc.

For the top side I used another bit of Tim's collage paper. He did another coloured Holly one for Christmas, which at first I regretted not getting instead, but now I am actually glad, as this one I can adapt to whatever colour scheme I am working with....

This page uses another scrap from the Stamperia paper and a paper doll. I tried to pick up some of the colour from the paper in the background.

I always think that  adding some shadows to these collaged people really helps to integrate them into the page.

The quote I found in a wonderful alternative advent calendar which has a quote for each day.

Another wintry page. At the bottom I added some stencilling with a brick stencil to link to the bricks on the image. At the top another bit of the collage paper.

And a close up of the stencilling....

And here is the final page I will show today, using a paper napkin for the main image and then some paint and stencil work to pull it all together.

As you can see I also used some washi tapes to kind of frame the main image.

Well, that's it for this Friday, - a lot of photos today...…

Like usual, thank you so much for your visit and I hope you can find some creative time during these last few busy days before the 25th!

xxxxx

Junk journal with video flip through

Hello friends and thanks for dropping in! About 10 days or so again I shared the cover of a junk journal I am working on and today I am finally ready to show you some pages. I have also made a little flip through video, if you would like to see more.
First a few photos:

What I am showing today is just the first insert. I am in the process of making three in total.
Here you can see the cover, made from Kraftcard and embossed with one of Tim Holtz's new 3D embossing folders.

Here the first double page with a pocket, you can find a tutorial for these here and a number of different tags, a tuck spot and journaling card. All the papers used are tea dyed and then inked with Distress inks.

Another double page, this time with an embossed belly band, a pocket created with a die and another tag with space for journaling or a photo on the back.

Yet more pockets and tags/journaling spots

And finally one more page with quite a bit of stamping and stencilling as well as a little altered little glassine bag holding yet another little tag.

There are a lot more pages and if you would like to see them, just click HERE to go to the youtube video. As it is my very first actual video rather than just a slide show, I do apologize for the quality, I am still learning...

Well, that it's for today, thanks for visiting like always and until next time.

xxxxx

The final set of cards

Hi all, how is it going? December seems the fly by at top speed, - hope your prep for the big day is going well.

Today I have my final set of cards to share, all pretty much following the same design, and using up bits of  Maja Design papers left over from various other projects. They are small, the finished cards are just 4 x 4".

Here is the full set. Like with most of my Christmas cards this year, they are kept flat and are only embellished with die cuts.

All of the central images were edged with Stampendous Aged Silver embossing powder,  love the effect that gives and if you do a whole batch at the same time it goes quite quickly.

Well, that's it, all done and dusted and in the post to their recipients and I look forward to getting on with some different things. 

I have one more design team project coming up before Christmas and then shall take a blog break until closer to the end of the month.

Hope you are all having a good week and manage to carve out some time for yourself, - I shall be off for some cookie baking....

Thanks for your visit like always!

xxxxx

The end is in sight...

Hello friends, how are your preparations for the big day going? Being retired, I am for once fairly on top of the game, and as far as Christmas cards go, I am nearly there. So here is one of my last sets, using bits and pieces left over from other cards and projects.

 All these were done with Graphics 45 papers and mostly die cuts using Tim Holtz dies.

As you can see, all are done in a very similar design, with just subtle differences on each card.

It very much speeds up the process......

Anyway, that's pretty much it, I think the photos are really self explanatory, so no longwinded descriptions this time.

Hope all your preparations are going well, wishing  you a peaceful time ahead, and thanks for your visit like aways

4 cards Tim style

Hello friends, - today I have some more cards to share. I called them Tim style, as I have used quite a few Tim Holtz products for these, though on 3 of them I used some backgrounds I still had left from an earlier cardmaking session.

The backgrounds were made as explained in an earlier post HERE

I then added collage elements, stamped, fussy cut from some of Tim's papers or using some of his ephemera pieces.

I decided not to purchase Tim's new Christmas paper dolls, as I knew I would never use them all and I have still tons of his other paper dolls, so I just found some old photos on Pinterest, printed and then fussycut them myself, - easy enough 😃....

All of them were simply embellished with some diecuts, in an effort to keep them flat for posting.

This one uses a little snow angel I still had in my stash.

This little guy came on the same photo as the other one, I just cut them out separately.

The globe image was cut from gold metallic Core d'inations Kraftcard and then treated with alcohol ink to give it an aged look.

And here the final one, collaged onto some of Tim's last year's paper stash, with another found photo.

Well that's it for today. Like always thanks so much for your visit and kind comments. They are always much appreciated, specially during this busy time of year!

xxxxx

Vintage Christmas mini album

Hello friends and welcome! This is my second post on this busy first of December. So many new challenges starting on this day, and this particular one is for the Mini Album Makers December challenge.

Eileen Hull is our wonderful sponsor this month and so I created a Christmas themed album using one of her fantastic dies, the Mini Album one.

Below a quick tutorial of how I put this together:

I cut the cover for the album from matboard and then cut the angel with the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapes Cherub die. I embossed the bottom half with a little embossing folder, first the front and then the back cover  and finally coloured and stamped the outside with Distress inks in Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire.

Next I added some pearl glimmer mist for a bit of sparkle (sorry, hard to see on the photo)

My next step was to make a little panel to glue behind the Cherub cut out. I took a bit of scrapbook paper in dark blue and brown tones, added Decorart Crackle glaze, let it dry naturally and when the cracks appeared and the piece was dry rubbed white Decoart Antiquing cream into the cracks and then adhered it behind the angel.

Here is a close up, where you can see the cracks a little better.

Next I started work on the inside pages. I used scraps of two different collections for my inside pages, 7 Dots Studio North Country collection and the newest Maja Design Christmas Collection, Joyous Wintertimes, as it has similar blue tones and I thought they would work together. I used the die to cut the inside pages.  Eileen shows exactly how to do this in a video HERE

I used elastic cord to slip in my pages, below a couple of photos:

What I love about this method is that you can add more and more pages as you need them. I have created 5 pages so far. For those of you who would like to see them, I have added a video slideshow at the end of this post.

I added some charms to the spine and the album closes with a simple sheer ribbon.

There are many pockets and tuckspot on my pages and I created little tags to fit inside, but of course you can also add photos or whatever you like. Below a quick flip though video:

Well, that's it for now, thank you so much for staying with me. I do hope you will check out the wonderful albums my teamies have created, all you need to do is click HERE, and of course we would love it if you play along with us and create an album yourself to share with us there.

Happy creating!

xxxxx