More on the Positive

Hello again everyone, I do hope you are having a fabulous day!!!  I'd like to welcome my lovely new followers too.  So glad you decided to join me ladies, I really appreciate it!!

I'd like to share the next page of my Positivity Journal with you today.  

I have been doing quite a bit of creating lately but most of it is Design Team work so I actually can't share that with you all  just yet.  I was able though, to do a bit more work on my little Positivity Journal and that I certainly can share!

So, first of all, here is the next page!!

Started the background with some Acrylic paint which I mixed myself using Vermillion and White and then watered  down and poured into a sprayer.  Then I added some Walnut Stain Distress Re-Inker.  I simply popped a few drops on the page and then sprayed with water to make it spread.  Was quite pleasantly surprised that it worked so well and love how it turned out.  Once all that was dry, I stamped with Kaisercraft's Arty Stamp and Memento Fade Resistant Dye Ink in Tuxedo Black.

 Popped on some washi tape and a little tag and then added a Prima Flower and a KC diecut which I think came from their 'On this Day' Collection. 

 The chippie is a piece cut from Imaginarium's 'Moroccan' which was painted with white Acrylic Paint and then clear embossed.  The little blank was coloured with Crushed Olive Distress Ink and also clear embossed.  I'm not putting a lot of embellishment on these pages because I really want the backgrounds to be the focus.

And now the first of my tags.
With these I discovered I also couldn't add much in the way of embellishments.  As I want to put 3 to 4 Tags in each pocket they really can't be too thick  so I'll  have to keep the embellies down to just some stamping with perhaps the odd die cut or two.

The flourish was  stamped with embossing ink and then clear embossed.  This stamp and the butterfly are from KC's Tiger Lily Collection.  After embossing I coloured this corner of the tag with Distress Ink in Wild Honey and then with Fired Brick .  Love the way the stamp just stands out.

The butterfly was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black.  I was going to colour it but decided I liked it just the way it is.  The sentiment stamp is from KC's Blubelle Collection.  

The backs of the tags will be left blank  so I can do all my Journalling there.

I may have said this before but I'm really enjoying working on this Journal since I started over.  The pages are so much easier to work on and the tags are a much better size as well.  Am loving this!!

Thank you so much for visiting and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Take care and God Bless.

oxox Marg

Positivity Journal - Revisited and Recycled

Hello everyone!!  So pleased you're here for a visit and hope you are having an enjoyable day!

At the beginning of the year, Astrid Maclean from Astrid's Artistic Efforts posted about a Positivity Journal she had started to create.  The purpose of this Journal was to record one positive thing that happened each and every day.  Just little things like someone opening a door for you or giving you a smile.  I thought this was a wonderful idea!  To have a little journal with just positive things in it so that when we get a bit down and think that life is just a bitch, we can look at this little book and see the positive things that do happen to us each day.  If you'd like to visit Astrid's original post on this project you can find it HERE.  My Journal became a little different from Astrid's in that I actually record events in mine.  Things like going to the movies, or a family picnic or even going to lunch or dinner with a group of friends.  Simply recording ordinary activities that we thoroughly enjoyed and want to remember.  So, I created my book and posted about it and started creating the pages for it and it did start out looking good.  Unfortunately it turned into a bit of a disaster!!   The book was too small!  After inserting a half a dozen tags it was bulging at the seams and, each time I created another page  using a wet medium everything just leaked through all the pages.   I was tearing my hair out and actually gave up working on it.  Anyhow, the other day I was cleaning up my Craft Space (Shock!! Horror!!) and came across an old Manilla Folder and I had an Epiphany!!!  Instead of throwing it away  I could use it to make a new Positivity Journal.  So that's what I did and here it is!!

The pages measure 6 x 3.5 inches and, although there are only 5, each one is a pocket that will hold 4 tags.  So I can actually keep 20 reasonably sized tags in this booklet which should give me plenty of room to record on.

 I found some scrap designer paper to use for my pages and will simply decorate each one before sticking them into the booklet which means, no more leakage!!!  Woo!!  Hoo!!

 For the first page I used Chipped Sapphire and Walnut Stain Distress Ink on the background and also gave it a quick burst with Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray in Cape Cod Coral.  I then used KC's Crackle and Flutter stamps with Memento Tuxedo Black Stamp Pad.  The butterfly and the grass stamps are from a free set that came with a Get Stamping Magazine.  Both were coloured with water colour pencils and the tufts at the end of the grass stalks were created with Flower Soft Citrus Crush.

 The little bit of texture was added using TCW's Mini Tile Texture Stencil and some home made texture paste.  The little frame is Imaginarium's Brackets on Oval Frame which I simply coloured with acrylic paint and then lightly swiped with Versa Color Gold.

 On this page I've used Broken China and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.  The paper is actually a yellow base and so the blue of the Broken China turned greenish.  I love it!!  The background stamps are from Prima and the Washi Tapes are my favourites from Tim Holtz.

 The clocks are a free printable.  Unfortunately I cannot give you the Web Site because it's been closed down.  I stamped them with KC's Script stamp and mounted them on some paper board to give them a bit of dimension.

 Cut the heart from another piece of designer paper,  mounted it on paper board as well and coloured it with Fired Brick Distress Ink.  Used the Mini Tile stencil again and hand drew the small hearts with a white gel pen and coloured those with watercolour pencils.

So, my new Positivity Journal has been started.  As you can see I still have more pages to decorate and also still have to make the cover and the tags as well, so there is quite a bit to do on it.  This will be a project I will work on in between my card making for a bit of relaxation.  I loooooveeee getting messy with inks and stuff and this will be just for me so I can do whatever I want and not worry about pleasing someone else.  Fun!! Fun!! Fun!!

Thank you so much for visiting and I hope this post wasn't too long and that I haven't bored anyone.  Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg

Positivity Journal

Hello everyone!!  So pleased you've come for a visit!!

Today I'd like to share a little Journal with you.  Those of you who visit Astrid Maclean's Blog will know all about this one.  At the end of last year Astrid posted about a Journal she was starting up and invited others to join in with her.  Each day you write down something positive that happened, such as someone who smiled at you, or opened a door for you or even seeing sunshine through the trees, just something nice that happened to you that day.  To keep a record of all these things, create a little Journal to keep them in.  If you'd like to see that post HERE is the link.

I thought this was such a lovely idea that I just had to join in, so I created this Journal just for that purpose.

As luck would have it, my DDIL Kerry-Jean Watson had just learned how to make books using Coptic Stitching so I asked her to teach me and that's how I put this little book together.  I don't think Kerry-Jean actually did a post on the books she's made yet but if you'd like to have a look at her blog you can find it HERE. What I really love about this method is the fact that the pages sit really flat ...

which makes them so much easier to decorate.  The papers I've used are ones that have been in my stash for a long, long time and they are quite thick and sturdy so hopefully I won't have too much trouble with them when I ink and spray.
Here is the back of the book.  All I've done here is inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink ...

... and here is the front.  It was actually covered in the same paper as the back and then I used a separate plain sheet of paper to decorate it.

 To colour the background I used Distress Ink in Fired Brick, Mustard Seed and Walnut Stain.  Simply pressed each of them fairly close together onto my non-stick mat and then swiped the paper through it.  For texture I used the Cracked Paint Stencil by Scrapbookingncraft with my homemade texture paste and also did some stamping with a text stamp by Prima.

The die cut is Memory Box's Honey Blossom Sprig which I cut in two and glued to separate corners. 
I wrote the Title on some tissue paper with a Sharpie pen and then simply glued it onto the cover.  It doesn't blend in quite as nicely as I would have liked but I am fairly happy with it anyway.

The Butterfly die cut is Memory Box's Vivienne Butterfly.  I mounted it on some tissue paper, trimmed around it and then simply glued it onto the cover sheet.

 Here is the other half of the Honey Blossom Sprig die cut.

I did a bit of shading around the die cuts, etc. and also a little bit of edging in gold acrylic paint
and that's it.  My Journal is ready to go.
If any of you are interested, please visit Astrid's Blog for the full details and let her know that you wish to join in.  There is a logo that you can get as well.  You can see it on my side bar, this shows everyone that you are a part of this project.  I am really enjoying this, it is a lot of fun and a great reminder that good things happen even on bad days.

Thank you so much for visiting and I do hope you will take part in this Positivity Project, I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I am.

Please take care and God Bless.
oxox Marg