Journal ring wrap up

Dear Shayne,

I know I've been quiet lately -- I've been craftin', but I haven't been postin'. There have been several little home improvement projects going on around here, including some work on the craft room/office. I should post photos of that sometime.

In the meantime... here are the rest of the journal pages that I made in the journal ring that I've spoken of. You might want to grab something to drink and get comfy, cause this post is kinda long...

Here are first ones that I made... they're also my favorites. After I finished the entire round, I realized that I would have been perfectly happy just doing variations on this set. But that would have made for a boring blog post, eh?


On this second page, you can't really tell from this photo but...


The "S" actually has a tiny little envelope on it. It's got a Scrabble tile inside! (Sorry it's blurry -- scanner.)


Love that.

Next up is another collage that I'm not too sure I like. The owner of this book said that this year was a big year for her of growth and change. I found an old copy of The Little Prince (it was actually in French, so... Le Petit Prince. Oh, I'm so fancy.) at the thrift store (Le Store Thrift? Hrm.) that day, so I decided to use some illustrations from that...


On that page, I hate the stamps I used to write "ROOTS." That font is awful and I've never liked it. I don't even know where they came from, but I should probably get rid of them. I keep focusing in on that because they look so weird.

My favorite part of that page is the word "GROW." I used a button for the O and it just worked perfectly. Also, I messed up when I stenciled the letters, so I turned that mistake into a "Happy Accident" and made little roots coming off of the letters -- I never free-hand anything, so I was pleasantly surprised when it came out well.

The second page is also from The Little Prince:


Again, I feel like something is lacking here, although I do like some of the "vignettes" on these pages... for instance, in the lower left hand corner, I like the airplane postage stamp, butterfly charm, cut out definition of "fly," and the words "Fly away." That works for me. In the upper left hand corner, I like the sign language spelling out "F L Y" with the Scrabble tile paper behind it. The rest... could use some help. I'm doing another round of this journal, so perhaps I can fiddle with it some more when it comes my way again.

Are you bored yet? If not, these next two might do it. I had an exciting idea for these, but it kind of... fell flat. I guess that simplicity is okay sometimes (I like a lot of, um... visual clutter... I guess you could say) and perhaps these actually work in a non-clutter-y way. I don't know.

Here they are. The left page:


And the right:


Those vintage looking postcards are sweet reproductions I found at the ever-awesome Scrapbook Territory. They even look like vintage postcards on the back. Like, with a canceled stamp and everything -- they're very cool. I attached them with fancy-ass round paper clips so the journal owner could take them out and look at the back. Cause they're that cool.

Here's the final one -- I actually like how this came out. I found these little "face shape" diagrams (you know: round, oval, heart, etc.) that I made into little tags. I cut out envelopes from the dictionary pages that corresponded to those words to put the tags in. Then I glued a little something to the front that matched the shape. Like this:


You can't really see it here -- but if you click on it and check it out 0n Flickr, you'll see the first is a circle (button), the second is a square (that one's a stretch -- I was going for the square in the middle of the coin. It frames the square that illustrates "square" on the dictionary page) and the third one is for "oval" -- eggs in a nest.

Here's the facing page:


Again, better seen on Flickr... the first one is a heart (obviously). The second one's a stretch -- I couldn't think of anything off-hand that was diamond shaped, so I went with "diamond looking." You know -- rhinestones. (Oooh -- sparkly!) The final one was a rectangle. I glued that stamp on upside down, but I think I'm okay with it.

On a side note, the backgrounds (the little bitty edge of paper you can barely see peeking out behind the number paper) of these two journal pages takes me forever to do... I use individual letter stamps. I don't know why I'm in love with how that looks. I wish I wasn't, cause it takes so long. But I do think it looks good (also used on this one). So I can't resist its siren call.

As a side note to that side note: when using individual letter stamps to "randomly" stamp, you have to be verrrry careful about inadvertently spelling things. Put down an F, then a U, then a... whoops! Don't use that C there!

Here is the Worst Photo Ever of the tags inside (taken on the floor of my cube at work -- I realized I had not taken photos just as I was about to mail this out):


Do you see the face shapes now? Do you see them? Huh? Huh? Do you? Do you?

(Meanwhile, I can't figure out my own face shape, even after studying these lovely gals. Perhaps I need someone else to choose for me...)

Oh, wait... here is the actual Worst Photo Ever. Of the backs of those tags:


That photo is so bad I shouldn't even post it. I got a new camera last week and I'm still working out the kinks. Sorry about that.

The journal that came back to me was mighty fabulous. You can view all of the pages from it here (on craftster). As I mentioned, I signed up for a second round, so it will be going back out in another week or so to get more stuff added to it.

Whew! Sorry for the long post. (Are you still reading?) Here's hopin' I can get back on the Blog Wagon and post more frequently again soon. What's happening in your crafty world these days?

love,
kelly