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>

Anna Griffin Christmas Journal

 I had published this on my facebook page but forgot to post it on my blog so I'm back posting it for December 30th. So here is the journal I made out of Anna Griffin papers and ephemera products only.

I made the cover with a card front that I cut out windows in. I hand dyed the ribbon tie.

I used the die cut set from the Carte Noel box to make a few houses. I also used the card sentiments on a few pages.

I really liked the ornaments this year but they were just too big for my tree so I put them in my journal and just used them for decorations.

There are just so many embellishments in the box for these that I could have easily decorated dozens more pages if I wanted to.

I did get some snow people this year and I just love them. They are so cute and they go with every page.

I even used my leftover pieces to make a couple of ornament pages. I hate throwing leftover scraps away when they are this pretty.

My finished journal had quite a few pages and six signatures. So there is plenty of room to write, draw and put photos in there.

I had such a great time making all these journals. I have so many Christmas papers and embellishments that I could make four more easily and still have a big supply of all these pretties.

Now I gotta start thinking about Spring and Valentine's Day next. Love to see Christmas coming and I'm relieved to see it go. I don't know if I'll still be making these flip flop journals next year but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be making something with all this paper.

It's Christmas Time!

 I actually made three Christmas journals this year. After nearly two years of knitting and crocheting, I immersed myself in my journal making most of this year. This is the latest finished one.

I started out with a turquoise/aqua with red accent color scheme and somehow pink worked its way in to it. But I really like the way it turned out.

You never know what ideas you get when you are working on these. I had some plastic metallic trim that I had not used yet so I wanted to use that.

So I cut it up into single pieces and used it for tree ornaments on the front.

I also made some more die cuts for backgrounds. I love this die cut. It's perfect for my journals. And I also used some leftover die cut pieces in places. Nothing this pretty goes to waste.

I don't always use pockets and tags in every journal but this one had many pre-printed pockets so I used all the tags and pockets for it.

I made six signatures to go in this one. I usually don't decorate the signature outside pages but I had so many tags and embellishments that I did use them all up.

I love this set of digital papers. It's from LianaScrap on etsy and it's called Winter Tales. The blues are subtle and the watercolors really give it a beautiful look.

I also like to add laces on the pages and I made a couple of pom pom paper clips for this one. 

I used a silver pearl foil paper with this. It really made the aqua pop. I wish I had more of it but I only have one or two sheets left.

I also used a lot of glitter glue on this one. I have a silver glitter glue that I love. It has transparent snow glitter mixed in with it that just makes it sparkle even more.

This journal turned out to be one of my favorites.