Hand made journal

I have been itching to have a go at an idea that started brewing in my head a few weeks ago but because of my inability to stamp for any length of time, this little handmade journal took three days to make!!!! I can manage a little bit of stamping but my shoulder soon tells me when it's time to stop so I had to dig deep to find some patience and take my time over it.

My journal is made from two pieces of calico that I painted with watered down Beach Hut and Hey Pesto Fresco Finish paint. When it was dry, I used Honey Dew to stamp some leaves and flower heads from my Electica stamps. These pieces of fabric were placed back to back to create both the outside cover and the inside lining of my journal.

I stamped one of my favourite Lynne Perrella images on a piece of Egyptian cotton, using Jet Black Archival ink. Egyptian cotton has a finer weave than calico and gives a more detailed print. Before painting the image with watered down Fresco paint, it is important to remember to heat set the ink otherwise it will smudge when it gets wet.

I then started to lay some lace to the edges of my journal and realised that my background was definitely missing something, it was way too bland so I decided to add a small amount of stencilling around the edges.

You can see from this close up picture that I took much later that the chicken wire detail just adds that extra little bit of interest.

I thought that this phrase from  Sara Nauman's ESN01 was perfect for a journal so I made a little tab that I stitched to the journal cover. In fact there were quite a few of Sara's stamps that were perfect for this project, I used five in total, see if you can spot them!!!

This was such a nice project to make and although it took a long time, I really enjoyed making it and there is something to be said for taking your time, it allows you to think ahead and plan the next step more thoroughly.

Now that summer has finally arrived here in the UK, I hope that you all have a fabulous weekend.

Lin