it's Jackanory time

I'm not going to do my usual apology for not having blogged in an age, cos, well, I haven't made anything TO blog....

But in the last month I've made two whole things! whoot! A card and a book for a circle journal. In fact I made 3, as I made another card also, but forgot to take a piccie of it.

And I have another book to make over the next couple of weeks too so hopefully I'll be blogging again very soon.

I REALLY hope that this means a return to me regularly creating 'stuff', partly because I love it and I've sorely missed it, but also because I feel really bad that there are things I am waaaay overdue to make for people that I just haven't been able to get around to yet. I promise, if I owe you something, you WILL get it eventually, and if I had forced myself to make it when my mojo was dead, it wouldn't have been any good anyway, better to wait until the creative juices are flowing. Don't you think? Doesn't stop me feeling really guilty though.

But anyway, before I beat myself up too much, here's the card, for my good buddy Tracy for her 21st-again birthday last week:

She called it "special", I'm not sure if that was a compliment :) But I liked it, and surely that's all that matters lol

The background of the card was alcohol inked (2 shades of Tria purple along with Ranger's denim, black soot and silver mixative) - the railings at the bottom were stamped and black embossed and then highlighted with a silver pen - and the moon lady was stamped with Versafine then mounted on a circle of chipboard, edged with silver paint and covered with a few layers of clear UTEE. The purple stars are Papermania gems.

As for my circle journal book (front cover up top there ^), this is another one of those stamping CJs I love to do, and I signed up for this one on a bit of a whim and a hope that it might nudge me back into making things. I've enjoyed putting the book together so much, that maybe the plan might just work.

The way that these journals work is that you choose a stamp, and send the book with the stamp around a group of fellow participants (11 of us in this case, all from the UKStampers forum), and each person uses the stamp provided in their own style to make a page for your book.

The challenge with these is to choose a stamp that is fairly versatile so that all the ways to use it don't get used up by person 4, leaving the rest of the group scratching their heads.

So the stamp I've chosen is an open door....so it's almost Jackanory, it's just it's an arched door not an arched window....and I've asked each person taking part to show me what they think is behind the door. It could be anything, anyone or anywhere, so hopefully I've left no excuse for people to say they can't think of an idea :)

The stamp is actually part of a set, with the door closed and open, so I've used the closed version on the book cover, and also supplied both stamps with the journal so the others can also use the closed version in their design if they like.

To make the background for the cover....

which you can see clearer in this piccie of the back of the book, especially if you click on it to see it up close:

....I used Golden crackle paste, which is kind of like polyfilla, nice and thick textured, but it cracks as it dries to give a lovely worn building look.

It was painted with 2 shades of brown paint and a bit of antique gold glimmer mist to emphasise all the nooks and crannies, and then finished off along the bottom with little pebbles made from airdry clay and painted with acrylics, and plants punched out of green card.

The front cover was further decorated with the stamped and watercoloured door, chipboard letters that had been coloured with a dark brown sharpie and then topped with copper Stickles, and a little door handle.

Inside the book I made pockets inside each cover for the stamps, and an intro page at the front, and sign in pages and an address label at the back:







The door knobs on the little sign in doors are "gunmetal pearls" from Papermania - I found these buried in the bottom of one of my drawers and was chuffed to find they fitted perfectly, and the numbers were stamped onto small punched squares of black shrink plastic, and then shrunk with a heat gun.

And after all that of course I had to do my own entry....I had all sorts of ideas for this one, from a fully underwater scene with mermaids and allsorts, to a fantastical alien planetscape, because I love doing outer spacey stuff.

In the end, following input from my creative director/boyfriend, I kind of ended up doing a combination of the two - a kind of unearthly place where Haida orcas swim right up to the sea wall. My little tribute to the beautiful city of Vancouver and its spectacular views out into the Pacific.

here you go:



The gorgeous big orca on the left was stamped with a hand carved stamp made for me by the wonderful Michelle Ward, based on my backpiece tattoo. I use it all the time, I love it to bits.

The whale was stamped on white card in black ink and embossed, and then I coloured in the white bits with glue and a thin layer of pale green glitter. You can see it a bit on this close up.

The background and also the backing for the waves is watercolour paper painted with various shades of Lumiere paint, and in the case of the pink sky, overstamped with various celestial images in different inks.

The waves are made with torn vellum in different shades of blue, and the wall (other than that part of the wall immediately around the stamped door) was hand drawn and watercoloured.

Over on the right hand side is much of the same, with the addition of a hand painted sun and two more stamped Haida creatures. You can see some of the lovely shimmer in the Lumiere paints on this close up if you click on it for a closer peek.

So that's it - now I'll send the book out into the wide world, and it hope it survives on its journey and comes back to me in 11 months time filled with colour and texture and creativity.

Have fun, book!