Altered Journal

~ Another cereal box moment:) ~

I have been getting loads of promotions in my in-box recently for Christmas in July which triggered my thoughts back to last holiday season where I began in November for my handmade crafts and almost didn’t make it.  Although some of my crafts were dismal failures (think misshapen soaps and freakish looking body scrubs), I was able to complete journal totes, bookmarks and prayer cards in the last hour.  This summer, I decided to go ahead and get started on some recycled journals.  I’m not sure why these have been calling to me more than the altered spiral bound sketch pads I was using.  I definitely run out of pages quicker but I like the easy fit of these into my purse.  By the way, if anyone has any ideas of some type of “sleeve” to preserve the flowers on the front please let me know.

I found the idea for using cereal boxes on YouTube and modified it.  You can find instructions for the the cut of the journal cover at Girls Express.  Instead of wrapping paper like my daughter did for the other blog, I tore out some music from the last church bulletin and mod-podged (do you think the manufacturers knew their product would turn into a verb?!) randomly,  gessoed front and back, inside and outside, then covered with a couple of acrylic paints using a credit card.  I found a picture that called to me along with some more sheet music, brads, stamps and flowers and threw it all together.  I blended in some oil pastels, added some distressed ink in a few places, used bubble wrap dipped in black ink and sprayed with sealant.  The back and inside folds have the same gessoed and painted layers with a stamp or two and some distressed ink.  For the inside pages, I soaked some card stock in coffee, cut to fit and used jewelry cord threaded through two holes punched in the spine.  Those are also randomly stamped.  (You could also use background pages for the inside like those that Shona Cole demonstrates at The Artistic Life.)

Anyone else starting early? 

{Shameless plug ~ Starting “Celebrate Your Journey” on-line 8/1/11 through Story Circle Network…would love to see you there!}

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