Planner for Chiro-Sis

"Puffins!"  my sister exclaimed. When she saw this bird watching notebook, I knew I would be making it her new planner! Loyal readers of this blog may remember the planner I made out of a potato chip bag for her for 2017. This was a bit easier!

Here's the front cover:

I put a blank label thingie over the title, so she can write whatever she wants.

Spine:

You'll notice I do the Travelers Notebook elastics.

Inside:

Loyal readers of this blog will remember the post I did on the Waterlogue app that transforms photographs into watercolour pictures. Now you can see all the finished puffin pictures incorporated.

First insert is an 8" X 11.5" picture with Tyvek backing, painted brown:

A coupla quotes from Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton:

Weekly spread on 2 pages:

Puffin pix from Pixabay:

I put a surprise Rowan pocket in her notebook:

I made a Gratitude journal for her with another photo from Pixabay, Waterlogued:

Mum loved penguins, so I thought she'd appreciate this wintery picture in lieu of  the usual Xmas graphics.
Scroll down to the end of this post for a free graphic to make your own December Daily Gratitude Journal.

One of my (many) favourite quotes from John Morgan:

"GRATITUDE IS A DECISION OF THE HEAD AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART."
This came to me in a meditation . . . on gratitude.  :-)

Monthly calendar from the Dollar Tree:

Another Waterlogued Pixabay puffin, turned into a pocket:

Back pocket, which I reinforced with Tyvek:

Back of book:

Here's the card I included:

Tea (of course)!

Here's a video flip-thru:

Here's the December Daily Gratitude graphic:

Just right-click to save.  :-)

New Digi-Kits for DIY Gratitude Journals

I will have a video and accompanying blogpost later, but I wanted to do a quick post about my new digi-kits. I have been keeping a daily Gratitude Journal for over 2 years and I really think that it is the key to happiness. What we appreciate, appreciates with interest and grows and expands our hearts.

NOTE: I have links to each of these kits to my Etsy shop. HOWEVER, the link will first take you to some sort of asinine landing page of other stuff. You have to click the "skip these deals and continue to Etsy.com." 

Here:

I really hate that Blogger has done this. You can opt out,
but you have to do it manually on every device. UGH. 

OK, on to the good stuff!

The first one is Thanksgiving/Harvest/Autumn inspired:

More Autumn Harvest, but I HAD to use that feather!

This is very junk journal-y with the cross-stitch & grungy-ness!

For those who want the florals without the junk journal vibe, this is actually the first one I designed of watercolour flowers in a heart shape:

I didn't want to leave out anyone who wasn't into the lace doilies and florals. I recently scored on some old books of Italian marbled paper, so these are the dudes (and dudettes) who want a more classic look to a journal: 

And one more Italian marbled book in red and blue:

New Travelers Notebook for Chiro-Sis

Ruth gave me a Tyrell's potato chip bag and asked me to make a 2017 planner for her. I did a travelers notebook. The materials I used:

• Kraft-Tex
• acrylic paints
• stamp (sorry, no link) It's an old, round, damasky-sort of pattern.
• Silver metallic paint pen

(These links benefit AARF dog rescue at no extra charge to you).

No photos, but here's a quick flip-thru video:

Distressed Chic Sparrow

I got this London Fog Chic Sparrow from a Facebook Chic Sparrow Buy, Sell, Trade group.  I was a bit too fast in buying it because I've always wanted a Chic Sparrow, and it was "London Fog" and-and-and!  It's beautiful and the craftsmanship is impeccable. But . . . it's grey and I'm not such a fan.

Then I saw a video where someone distressed their notebook. Then I saw another one by Elena Bedner who gave a bit more of the How To. That was the inspiration to take the plunge and distress my Chic Sparrow.

I got the Tim Holtz stencil & then I used some of my Noodler's black ink on a Q-Tip. And here it is:

That bottom ink splat is very special:

I printed out the Goulet Pens logo and then traced over it with a
Sharpie pen onto freezer paper. Then I cut it out & voila: a stencil.

Here's the whole thing:

If you look carefully on the lower right corner, you can see the name of the gal I bought it from:

Inside, I didn't do too much. I did an initial ink test on the pen loop & I stamped a tea cup on the secretary pocket:

And there you have it.  I'm still not glued to it and I've offered to sell it to another Jessica in the FB group who was interested, so I'm giving her first refusal. If she doesn't buy it, I'll post it on the group for $65. If you see it here and are interested, you can leave a comment below. You'll need PayPal, tho. 

DIY Photo Canvas

Today is Bruce Lipton's birthday. I wanted to do something special for him, as well as to honor his friendship with the recently departed Wayne Dyer. I took this photo:

And turned it into this:

Here's how I did it:

1. Print out photo.
2. Cut out the background, so it's just Bruce and Wayne.
3. Print out really cool photo of stars that the Space Hubble telescope took.
4. Secure figures onto spacey background and get a color copy at the office supply store.
5. Apply matte gel medium to a canvas, let dry over night. 
6. Wet the paper surface with water; I took a very wet washcloth and soaked the paper. It looked like this:

 7. Rubbed paper off:

Until you get this:

But then it dried to reveal more paper!

 So I wet it again and used my finger to remove the last bits of paper:

8. Painted the rest of the canvas:

I will say that my first attempt at this was with skipping the color copying and just using my jet printer. It was okay, but I rubbed most of Wayne's hat off, and the whole thing lacked definition. So I'm keeping this one!

The second try (not pictured) was a color copy, but I tried to wrap it around the whole canvas. It just turned into a gooey mess and the paper tore because of the staples and folds of the canvas. So the third time was the charm!

I chose the Cosmos-galaxy background because in Bruce's first talk with Wayne, he made a Carl Sagan reference. Also, I thought it was fitting, since now Wayne is in the heavens. :-) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRUCE!!!  :-)

Paper-doris

This past weekend, Mum made her Cursillo. So I made a paper-dori (scrapbook paper) traveler's notebook for her and two others from our church who were attending. Here they are:

These were passport size.

 This was Mum's:

Inside: I thought it fitting to use crown graphics!

The music thing on the right is a folder.

 I put three little lined notebooks in:

Butterflies are a theme for Cursillo:

I calligraphed some quotes for her.

Back of notebook:

Here's the other passport size one I made:

The inside matches Mum's.

This was a larger one that I made:

Gold metallic, textured paper that I put thru the laminator
to sturdy it up. It was 8 1/2" X 11" that I folded over.

Inside without the notebooks:

 

Inside:

Folder made with scrapbook paper & washi tape.

 She likes graph paper, so I made notebooks with graph paper, cut down & then made scrapbook paper covers for the booklets:

As we say as Cursillistas, DeColores!