Working on my journal

DSC05197, originally uploaded by bluebirdsandteapots.

One of my goals this year, is to use all the wonderful craft supplies that I have collected over the years. Rather than take new classes to learn new mediums, I have decided to work at what I really love and try to improve my designs. I have always loved hand-painting pages in a journal.



I have so many beautiful stamps, and this year I am going to find new ways to use them.



Creating this journal as a give-away was a perfect opportunity to use some of my stamps with lovely images to include on the journal pages.



I also added some wonderful Vintage cards on some of the pages. Since this is a gift for you, I can use all kinds of things to create.



I started with choosing stamps that went with the theme of this lovely journal.



Then I stamped each page with a different image. A trick I learned from my friend Karen is to take an old telephone book and use these pages to place in-between each page until the ink is dry. She also recommends when you use a glue stick to do the same thing.



Just glue whatever you are gluing on top of a blank page in your old telephone book and then rip it out when you are done and throw away the sticky page.



Once I had all my pages stamped and the ink was dry,

I started to hand-paint the details and added a few elements of my own to the designs.



In the front of the book I created a pocket for a Vintage greeting card.



I thought it would be a nice touch if someone wanted to give this journal as a gift.



Here are some of the pages that are in the journal so far...





This journal is going to be a "one-of-a-kind" journal,



for the One World One Heart giveaway on January 19th.



I did find some really lovely new journals that I am also hand-painting for my Etsy shop.



Those will only hold my original designs because stamp images are copyrighted.



Well I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday filled with sunshine and creativity.

The song for this post is Wish I Could Forget.