Oh Marie!

Everybody knows Marie Antoinette and loves her over decorated fluff and frilly style. You can't out girly Marie! There's been some debate whether or not she actually said, "Let them eat cake!" but I like cake so let the cake flow.

I used a few die cuts from Anna Griffin and I hand dyed the ribbon tie. That gorgeous little shoe is a paper clip.

Pretty cake and fans are a great look for Marie.

This gorgeous shoe is from a 14 year old pattern made by Terri Heinz when she held a Marie shoe swap on Ning with the Marie Antoinette mail art group. I was there and a member. I also did participate in the swap at that time. That's how I remember it!!! There have been many imitations of her pattern since but I cannot find one to pre-date it so I'm calling Terri Heinz the designer of this pattern.

Those cute little cake die cuts!. 

I had several pictures of Marie courtesy of thegraphicsfairy.com . I wanted to fill the pages with them.

I decided to make little frames out of bling for Marie on most of the pictures because I didn't have room for framing them without cutting off the pictures.  Problem solved!

I used a lot of pretty pictures to decorate this journal. I had some fan die cuts already made so I used those. Perfect for Marie.

Pictures of pretty fancy ladies dancing go well with the decorative shoes and fans.

Pretty lace trims make pretty frames for pictures.

Oh Marie, you've done it again! Left us in awe of your over decorated beauty! You scamp you.

 

Another Valentine's Journal

 I'm running a little behind but here it is. I made three Valentine's journals and this is the last one. I used a lot of vintage postcard images on this one.

I picked the prettiest postcard for the front. I used a satin ribbon for the tie closure.

I loved the double heart postcard so I put it on a doily over two pages. I trimmed some pages out with pink lace and matching paper washi tape.

I used a folded paper border around the big cupid heart and found some felt love stickers that were precut.

I cut out some origami hearts with pictures underneath them and put little felt heart pull tabs on a string for them.

I had some sequined ribbon that I used on the length of a few pages.

Vintage valentines with pink ricrac and satin bows trimmed with pearls.

More beautiful vintage postcards. I pulled out all the stops on this one. I glued a metal "love" charm to the front of the ribbon and added a cluster of hand made charms to the top corner and it turned out pretty I think.

 

Red & Pink Beauty

 I saw these graphics on thegraphicsfairy.com and knew I just had to make another Valentine journal. This is from the Tokens of Love pack. I may have added some more of my papers and postcards to it also.

 

Oh these colors are so pretty together. I love the pink, red and red-violet in these. I hand dyed this ribbon and put a faux wax seal on it. I used dimensional fabric paint to give the seal some 3d looks without covering up the print.

I dragged out some more of my charms that I traded in a charm group years ago. I learned a lot about making little jewelry pieces in that group. I have jars of these still.

I put a lot of pockets and postcards in this one. I got some cutout felt pieces from the dollar tree. You have to get those as soon as they put them out or they disappear quick.

I had to take the paper samples and make pages out of them that I could use. And I also used a paper set from etsy from a seller named CottonTwigTX, Valentine Papers.

I did use a lot of fabric lace and trim on this one too. 

 

I used a heart graphic to make my tattered letter paper for the signatures. I made six signatures of four sheets of paper and a red, pink or white doily heart.

The graphics are adorable. I love that little angel in the envelope so I made it into a pocket.

I also used my leftover paper strips like you would use washi tape but I totally loved those vintage postcards! I got those off of etsy from BlossomPaperArt.

Hearts and Flowers Valentine Journal

 This is the first of three journals I've made or am working on. This one has a lot of thegraphicsfairy.com vintage graphics in it and I love it!

I used a little bit of everything on this journal but I really liked the pink and red lace that I had to work with.

These charms are just adorable. I like adding them to the top corner of the main page.

I had some pink Valentine paper that I hadn't used up so I wanted to reduce my stash. It's not easy to make the papers you have all come together but they worked for this one.

I found some beautiful heart shaped prints on thegraphicsfairy.com and just cut out a shadow layer from shiny foil paper for the edges.

I have collected a lot of satin ribbon bows from my Anna Griffin purchases and have a lot of leftovers from cards I've made. 

You can see some leftover Anna Griffin project pieces I put on the back. I don't like to over decorate the back of the journal because I want it to lay flat.

I also used some flower cutouts I had leftover and I used some flat back red pearl beads for decoration.

I like to use glitter around the picture edges too.

This graphics fairy set of graphics came with a sheet of Valentine words so I found a way to use them too.

 

I thought this one was the prettiest one I made but I think the next one I just got finished might have outdone it. I don't know why I'm making all these journals but it makes me happy so I'm going to keep going until I want to make something different than them. 

One Last Christmas Book and a Happy New Year!

 Couldn't help it. I had to do something with all these Santas so I decided to make just one more book even if it was after Christmas.

I just loved the shiny red foil paper I had and I love it combined with the satin red foil paper. So the front of my book has both and a little bling too. I decided to make a belly band for this one. I added a little sticker I had in my stash.

The pockets are just simple shapes. I picked a paper pack from GingerJournals on Etsy called Bohemian Christmas. 

The kit had all the colors I was looking for and they were vivid so I knew they would go perfectly with my collection of Santas and Santa postcards.

I am still cutting out this die set from Anna Griffin and using it in my journals because it is so pretty. It looks like lace to me. I use every piece of this set.

For the Santa shapes I just cut out foil card behind them in the same shape to make a shadow layer. These are hand cut. I don't have a die for the two shapes.

That red foil was so gorgeous I had to use it every chance I got.

This paper pack came with pockets and cards that match the papers so I tried to use them all.

I really love the ornament pattern in this set. I could have cut out some of them and made them dimensional if I needed more ideas to fill in my book.

I made six signatures with six papers in each set, then sprayed them lightly with two colors of ink. Sometimes my ink sprayer clogged and put blobs of ink on a page but I just went with it anyway. Not a perfectionist on these journals. I really don't think you can make a mistake you can't cover up or cut and replace.

I love these die cuts because you can use the pieces as frames and let the beautiful papers show through.

I have a collection of old postcards and I print them out a lot so I try to put a few in each Christmas book I make.

I got these Santas from the Met. You can go online to the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art and do a search for public domain images + Santas and find a whole lot of them there for free.

Well it's been a hell of a year. Hope the next one is better. I got my cabbage and my dime ready for tomorrow. Santa Claus is waving goodbye again until we see him again next year! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and will have a Happy New Year ahead in 2024!!! <jingle~jingle~jingle~jingle sound as Santa flies away in his sled>