Style, Decor and Fashion

 I love to look at the old vintage fashions and furnishings. They really had style back then. Of course the colors are pumped up for graphics but the style still shows through.

I love the pinks, blues and all the lace. And the ladies had so much style back then in their matching dresses and hats.

I trimmed this one in old fashioned lace and hand dyed the ribbon a pale peach.

I did a lot of folded pages on this one because I had a few large rooms I wanted to use.

I sprayed the signatures with paper ink and sewed them in with a nylon thread that's as strong as fishing line but waxed for bookbinding.

I love the panelled walls and the old wall murals.

I kept in a few pockets to tuck things in. Most of the time I will glue the pockets closed and make my own but sometimes I use them to tuck pages into.

I love this blue bedroom set. It filled the page so I made it a tri-fold pull out.

I do cut out a lot of pieces in my journals. By the time I get my cricket hooked up and program the print then cut sheets, it's just easier to cut them out the old fashioned way with scissors. It's good therapy.

I kept a window in one of the envelopes to store extra furniture pieces in. 

Here's another pretty pink bedroom. So old fashioned. I love canopy beds and gold trimmed wall panels. I wish my room looked like this!

The Beauty of Architecture

 I've always loved the drawings of buildings and diagrams to make all kinds of stuff. 

Schematics are fascinating I think. So I was very much attracted to these blueprints and technical drawings when I first laid eyes on them.

I used to dream of houses and buildings when I was a kid. And more than once I would get lost so you really need a good visual map of a building sometimes.

But really, these drawings are so beautiful, it made me want to build a house. Maybe even a miniature one.

I used 3 or 4 different kit pieces from The Graphics Fairy. There are two or three just for architecture with really pretty drawings in them.

I didn't want to get into a lot of decorating with this one but just give a hint here and there of textures and patterns through windows.

Same thing with buildings like gazebos and gardens. Just a hint of what was possible besides the grand buildings. Something to go with them.

I enjoyed working on this one. I've always liked the design and drawing part of making anything. 

I mixed and matched several styles together to get a more interesting book. These are places I want to go see!

This beautiful drawing had nothing to do with architecture really but I thought it was so pretty and went so well with all the other drawings that I had to put it in.

I started getting into the wallpaper patterns and went from architecture to fashion and furnishings. My next journal has plenty of style, even if it's old fashioned and from another era.

Tea Time Journal

I got these graphics from thegraphicsfairy.com . I thought they were absolutely beautiful and I love the color combo of blue and yellow.

I recently renewed my graphics fairy subscription and I can't stop making these journals. 

I also used papers from other kits to pull everything together. I'm not sure what posies are so I used some big yellow roses too. 

I hand dyed the ribbon with Vintaj patina paints because they mix with water and I don't do metal work any more so I'm glad I found a way to use them. I just wet the ribbon and use a few drops of one or two colors and schmoosh it all up until I like it. Then let it dry.

The big project I'm working on is my family tree. It has five main branches and is going to take a lot of work. I'm making it out of a composition book that I've altered. I had to pull a lot of pages out of it to make room for all the prints and papers.

But back to this one... I used Anna Griffin die cuts and lightly sanded the paper to the white core. I also used corner die cuts on some of the pictures.

I try to make different sized pull outs and pockets to coordinate. I like the size of the envelope flip flop journals because you can do so much with them. 

I didn't use the see through windows on this one, I just covered them up. I did print some of the cups and china onto gloss paper and cut out a gold shadow layer.

I used little touches of gold on this one too. It just makes the graphics pop. The next one is about architecture. I love windows, blueprints, garden designs and drawings of houses and buildings. 

I've always been interested in how things get put together.

Mermaids and the End of Summer

Well I've been working hard on these flip flop recycled junk mail journals. I don't really journal but I love to make them.

I cut this graphic into two pieces from prints and overlapped them. I printed them in reverse for the other sides of the pages.

I loved the graphics I got for these from thegraphicsfairy.com I printed out the sea creatures and cut out some pockets and tags to match.

It has an aqua tie ribbon that I hand dyed and I used glossy accents to make the fish look slimey.

I started out with about six envelopes from my junk mail and put them together with the flaps glued to the next in flip flop fashion.

I didn't use any special effect stamp pads but I did sew around the edges on this one. And I sewed around the edges on the cards too.

It has four signatures for writing into or gluing in pictures.

It's very pretty and I'm happy with the way it turned out. I have more to make. I'm obsessed with these but don't know how long it will last. Christmas is coming sooner than you think so maybe something along those lines soon.