With a Stamp and a Song: i {heart} papers design team challenge!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

i {heart} papers design team challenge!

It's i {heart} papers' design team challenge day, and this month we're playing with Studio Calico journal kits. I must admit that at first, I was intimidated by this little 4 x 8 journal and its embossed cover, but once I got started I had a blast with it, and it is gonna be one of those projects that just keeps evolving and turns out to be hard to put down!

First, I painted the cover with acrylic paint, then went over it with Memento Peanut Brittle ink and Tim Holtz tea dye distress ink to emphasize the embossing. Next, I tore the pages apart and divided them into "weeks" with a rainbow of card stock pages. The entire journal was punched and bound with the Bind-it-All, and then the ring was covered with kraft corrugated card stock.

I used an assortment of papers and stamps to embellish the divider pages, and included quotes or images on most of the opposing journal pages. The images were stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic markers or paper-pieced...to keep the ink vibrant and also to prevent bleed-through on the journaling pages, they were colored on Copic card stock, cut out and glued to the thinner paper. Most are encouraging messages that serve as a reminder to treat each day as something special, and that the things worth having are worth waiting for and working hard to obtain. Life has been a circus lately, so the sentiment on first page is definitely appropriate!

For now, I've not included any embellishments. Their bulk would make journaling a challenge, so as I finish a section, I'll go back and add some pretties to the pages along with ribbon or ric rac to cover the seams between papers.

This was a really fun project, and once the pages are filled with Real Life it will be a real treasure! Be sure to visit our design team to see what great ideas they've come up with for theirs!