Art journaling kits and fun stuff

The idea for travel journal kits, or journal kits... or anything like this, isn't exactly original - I am NOT claiming in any way that this is some grand idea that I had all on my own.

What I did do, was realise that I have an awful lot of goodies collected from years of hoarding, working in a scrapbooking store, and general magpie tendencies. I will never use them all, and that is a real shame, so I have collected some things into packages, made some books to go with them, and come up with these.

I personally think the books are GREAT. These ARE my idea, because I don't like it when books swell up because they get overfilled (which happens all the time) but I also don't like wire ring type bindings.
This way, I have been able to put together a lot of paper that I love, make a book which is wire bound - and can therefore expand as things are stuck into it, but have a cover to protect the spine, and cover it up when it's on the shelf.

As easy as 1 2 3

Earlier I was going on about what I wanted to put up in Gabriel's room.

So today I made this... it's super easy and uses up paper scraps of which I have many. 
I got a cheap plastic frame from a $2 shop (it cost more than $2, but on a side note, those shops are seriously awesome) Then I cut some craft paper to fit inside, traced letters onto different patterns of paper, cut them out, stuck them down and closed the frame.
So easy.

 The letters I traced were die cuts (di-cuts?)... (whatever)... from Basic Grey that I had from my days working at the Scrapbook Burrow. This is the first time I've used them since then. I imagine that it would be a simple thing to use any kind of font you wanted (thanks The Internet) it would just take a little more prep. That way you could change the size up too.

I didn't have the time, or patience. I did this while Gabe was sleeping.

Easy.

Handmade Christmas

I am more excited about Christmas this year than I have been in a long time. I don't know if that's because there is a very real sense of a 'count down' due to the fact that I have opted to make everyone's prezzies this year or something else. Whatever it is, I like it.

Kyle and I haven't really bothered with Christmas trees in the past. This will be our third married Christmas, but its the first one that's in our own home (apartment) where we can't share in the light of our parents collectively decorated trees.

I had neither the money or inclination to buy a new one AND all the decorations it would take to populate it. With Gabe getting into everything it wouldn't matter anyway. So while I'm riding this whole 'handmade' Christmas thing, I thought I would make one.

I was inspired by a picture in Australian Homes and Gardens, but this is definitely more on the Eleanor is ghetto side of craft.

I very often HATE what I have painted, and so sometimes after layers of paint have gone onto a particular canvas I will cut it off and throw it away leaving a naked wooden frame ready for new canvas to be stretched over it and primed and painted and all that stuff. Instead I took one of those frames and stapled some linen over it.

Then I cut a tree template out of contact, stuck it down and then painted over the fabric with some mistinted house paint I picked up a month ago (with grand intentions to use it for something else)

I then nicked off with mum's glue gun and stuck anything I could get my hands onto on the tree. I have a tendency to keep a hold of things for a long time, and also to buy things for projects which never get made. So I had heaps of buttons, faux gems, decorations from Gabriel's baby shower, pocket watches that I gutted to turn into perfume lockets, old jewellery, odd earrings, a dream catcher, fabric flowers and badges that had no other purpose.

The star at the top I made by following a kinigami tutorial (in portugese?) on YouTube and then adapting it with a heap of folds and some glue and beads.





Our Christmas Tree!!