The Conservatory

 I wanted to make this about 3 or 4 years ago when I ran across the digitals on etsy. It's a conservatory by Laura Carson and the digital prints are drop dead gorgeous just like all her stuff is. I came to a sudden stop on this because I realized it was only ATC size. That's 2-1/2" x 3-1/2" and I don't like to work on journal type books that size.

So I just put it on a back burner until now. But I ran across my digital files on it and decided it was too beautiful not to make. I couldn't find the cutouts in a larger size so I just decided to make my own page shapes and enlarge the sheets. I drew them freehand and cut them out of recycled cereal boxes.

I found that my printer has a poster feature that will let me enlarge it to 2 x 2 size which turns out to be around 5 x 7" when all four sheets are printed. Yes, I had to do some piecing together of some items but that's O.K. I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to junk and scrappy journals.

I also used the best quality print paper for photos and presentations and the highest quality ink setting I have on my printer. They turned out pretty sharp at 300 dpi when I imported them into the Gimp first where I could work with them.

I already had some transparency film but it had yellowed over the years as I don't do very much with it. But I found a full box of transparency film at the thrift store for only 3 bucks and it was pretty new. You really have to know how to work with it to get it to print but all I do is stick the starting strip onto regular printer paper with double sided tape so it will feed into my printer without sliding around. It works.

I printed out two of each "stained glass" window and glued them together so the colors would be brighter. I pretty much followed the original project except to make a few changes here and there. I put the fountain statue over the front door and added as many different paper and fabric leaves as I could think of.

I didn't have hinges so I made mine out of heavy card. I used what I had. I liked the short gate with the urn but all I had was a piece of lace and some sticks so I made my own. Then I spray painted it black and rubbed a black silver finish on it.

I had some metallic ribbon that I liked so I made a fence on the brick sun room with some of it. I also had some puffy sticker urns that I wanted to use and I filled them with reindeer moss all from the dollar store on a few boards.

 

I finished it off with a belly band to enclose it. It's a two to three day project for me and I'm already on to the next. But this project was so beautiful that it haunted me for years until I finally made it. As I personalized it, it became part of me. With all that stained glass it gave off a churchy solitude feel. It's a beautiful place to go to in a hectic world and isn't that a good enough reason to make something beautiful?

This is my fence after adding flowers to it. I loved this project.

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Forest Gnomes Journal

It's done! The first one always takes the longest because that's where you iron out all the details. I have an extensive library that I've accumulated over the years from thegraphicsfairy.com. I've been wanting to make a forest gnome journal for a while.

I get so much junk mail. So I decided to do something with it and this was so easy, I love making these. I've done three already and I'm on my fourth one. 

    

The Graphics Fairy and ink tank printers are a match made in heaven. I print out a lot of graphics and still only refill my tanks about every 18 months. And the bottles of ink are just as affordable as what I was paying for the cartridges. No more throw away ink because I ran out of one color. You get so much more ink for the money.

I basically use four kinds of paper. A standard printer paper and a card stock, standard matte photo paper and card stock photo paper. I also have printed on transparencies and file folders.

I sew around the cards and folders and use alcohol inks to color my ribbons.

There are several ways to make pockets for these. You can use the envelopes themselves as pockets or add them on separately. This one has five signatures that are sewn into the folds of the envelopes and each signature has four or five decorative and blank pages in them.

You can make them as thick as you want but I like to use five to seven envelopes in mine. That makes them quick and easy to decorate and get the journal done in a reasonable amount of time. 

I have so many ideas for these. My graphics library is endless and thegraphicsfairy.com comes out with another themed set of graphics every Monday. 

It's going to be so hot here in the next week and then hopefully the 90 degree days will be over this year but until then, I picked a winter theme for my next journal. I'm going to make some beautiful snow paper that my grandma used to make for her Christmas cards.