Junk Journal workshop

   This weekend was all about using up fun and 'junky' paper in the Junk Journal workshop. No paper is over looked when making this little gem of a book. I scour the house for interesting paper and often students bring some of their own. There was graph paper, ledger paper, maps, copies of personal art, scrapbooking paper, envelopes, magazines, old book text, recipes...... You get the idea.

   Other than a break for lunch this group of creative ladies had a busy day making their books. They all turned out so unique and amazing. It just makes me want to keep making more.

Deb

Debbie

Janice

Kathy

Linda

Vivian

Do you have an excess of paper? What do you do with it?

Happy Creating!
Wendy

Altering a set of drawers

This set of drawers has been sitting in my studio for years waiting for something interesting to happen to it. Actually I have two more similar ones waiting also. I've had a few ideas over the year but never got around to doing it. One of them even has part of it painted but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be going in that direction any more. Well when it was time to move things up into the new studio I knew these guys would need to finally get their make over to fit into my amazing new space. So I finally got started on them this weekend.

 After a lot of leafing through piles of scrapbooking paper I finally decided on these. Everything went pretty fast after that. The process was very similar to last weeks book shelves except I didn't put a layer of gel medium on top this time. Here the paper has been cut and glued to each drawer. I turned the drawers around so the notch is at the back.

 I sanded all the edges of the cabinet and each drawer. The sides look a little boring when I see them now but where it's going it's not really going to be seen much.

Once sanded I got out my favourite Distress ink, Vintage Photo and antiqued all the edges. Now I just need to find some handles for it. I'm thinking of using Tim Holtz label Pulls but I'll have to see if I can get my hand on some more. Or I may try to figure out how to make my own interesting drawer knobs. Any suggestions, have you ever made draw knobs, maybe out of buttons?!!

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Books from scraps

 I have a small book about 6" square that I carry with me most places. It's for my daily to do list, ideas that pop into my head, reminders of things, etc. I've had some kind of book like this for years. I tried daily journals but always found them too confining. Some days were too short and some too long and never enough free space for what ever else needed to get out of my head.
   So when I started to use a blank sketch book it slowly found it's own rhyme, rhythm  and organization, although most people seeing it won't think it's has anything to do with organization what so ever. I use the right hand pages for my daily use. I can add the date when I need it and use as much space as that day needs. The left side pages are used for to do list, ideas and anything else that needs to be on paper that I won't loose. Sometimes when I have information that I don't want to clutter up the book I put it in the back and work my way forward with it. I know it doesn't seem too organized but it works and I like it. I usually get the books from my local art store and it's relatively inexpensive. 
   For a lot of year I used a sketch book that was 5.5" by 8.5". It was great because it had a lot of space for everything I wanted in it but I found myself bring it with me when I went places and need to carry an extra bag for it because my purse just wasn't that big, so last time I need a new book I found one that was 6" by 6" with a fun orange cover. I was surprised to find that this smaller book worked just as good as the larger one and it fit into my larger purse I was using at the time.
   Well now my little orange book is almost full and it's time for another book. I was looking forward to doing a little shopping to see what to try this time but then last week as I was trying to do some cleaning in the studio I had the idea to make my own. I have so much scrap paper that I challenged myself to use only paper from my scrap pile. This wasn't much of a challenge since the pile is so big. I also decided to try to make the book a little smaller to see how that works. So I started with covers that are 5" by 5". The inside pages are various sized with most of them being just short of the 5x5" cover to fit in nicely. The Tin man was looking at me funny when he noticed that it had all kinds of sizes of pages but he kept his comments to himself!
   Once I had the first one done and the mess was on the table I couldn't stop and made 2 more books. I bound them together with the Bind-it-all and even used small pieces of the wire binding that I had from other projects. You can't tell that it's not one continuous wire once it's all together.
  The only down side is it really didn't make much of a dent in my scrap paper pile. I guess I really do have to do some purging!

 This was my first book. It's my usual colours and patterns that's all me.

 My second and third books I tried to use colours and patterns that I wouldn't usually use, but I tried to keep the pages flowing with a bit of a colour theme.

Once I get going with something like this I think wow, I can sell these and keep going and then I look at the clock and realize how long these take to put together. You just can never get your money out of some thing can you! Oh well I enjoyed doing them and will probably have fun using them too.

Do you keep a daily to do book or organizer to keep you going? If you do let me know about it. What do you use how do you use it?

Happy Creating!

Wendy