Travel journal – Basement Studio

Christmas in a Tin

Hello again, here’s another post from me. This time a very cute (can I say that about my own project?) little Christmas project using some fabulous metal embellishments from Mitform Castings.

Mitform were generous enough to send the Craft Stamper office some of their castings to try out and we had a brilliant time creating with them. My little sardine tin scene is a project I’ve had in my head for ages now, ever since I brought the tin back from a holiday in Portugal. As soon as I recieved the castings I knew this would be the opportunity I was waiting for to create my diarama. With everything given a little wipe of gesso and texture paste snow, I sprinkled on some WOW! glitter to give it some sparkle.

The street is actually created from my own house stamps which I shrunk down using shrink plastic! I was absolutely amazed at how well they fitted in the tin. The tree or pine cone was found and the little car comes from a Monopoly set (an old one from the recycling centre). It all sticks so well using E6000 glue. That stuff is good!

As Mitform were so generous, we’ve decided to have a giveaway on the Craft Stamper Facebook page which you can find here. Or the blog post is on the Craft Stamper blog here. You can find my house stamps here.

Have a lovely day,

Jaine xx

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Summer Travelers

I totally forgot this post which has been in draft for a while now. Intending to post while I was away so I thought I’d better get it out there!

I cannot get enough of the Vintage Botanicals collection by Simple Stories. I think it’s my favourite collection to date.

It was just the right choice to cover a couple of inserts for my Carpe Diem Travelers Notebook and take to France on holiday with me. I love the vintage feel, it’s not too vintage and is packed with colour and layers, and has a real Summer vibe to it.

I used it too to decorate my monthly planner pages for July using both the papers and sticker elements. You can find lots of Simple Stories supplies at Paper Pen and Plan on Etsy.

Jaine xx

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Does Size Really Matter?

It seems in notebook and planner terms it really does, especially when travelling with art and craft supplies, when you need to justify every inch!

I’ll admit it takes me a long time to warm up to something and I’m quite sceptical about most things in the craft industry, putting them down to fads and phases. Micro and tiny sized travelers notebooks are nothing new but have been something I’ve wanted to explore for a while now and a recent flood of pictures on social media recently of cute mini tn’s had me longing to make one of my own!

Yesterday the weather was so awful, gardening was off the menu, so I was forced to spend the day in the basement studio making scrapbooks for my up coming KUKI stand. The materials were all out on the table and a little pile of discarded leather pieces sat looking at me so I decided to cut a micro sized piece just to see how it looked. Of course one thing led to another and I had to make inserts too otherwise how else would I be able to test it out? An hour later I had my micro and four inserts made from scrap papers and sketch paper.

I have a book of sketch paper, one made from mop up and scrap papers, one in watercolour paper and a fourth, the blue backgrounds all from a large piece of pre ink sprayed paper. So plenty of choice of backgrounds depending on my mood and where I am and this little chunky will travel with me when I’m away this Summer.

Using scrap papers and my ready made background papers makes it already feel familiar to me so I won’t have any trouble filling it.

Here you can clearly see the progression in sizes, from my Carpe Diem by Simple Stories at the bottom which is my every day planner, Prima Jet Setter for journaling in, Prima Misty Rose for my hand bag planner and now the micro for on the go journaling. Simple Stories and Prima are found at Paperpenandplan on Etsy as well as the planner accessories.

Have a good weekend

Jaine x

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The Town Houses Are Back In Stock

It’s always an anxious time launching something which has been in my head for ages, then sketched out and thought about for ever before seeing it realised into an actual product and hoping that someone somewhere will like it as much as you….. and breath! That was my feeling when I launched my own stamp designs just over a year ago. Since then they’ve been very popular and given me a huge confidence boost.

I’ve recently had to have a restock and this time they’re better than ever. They come this time with cling mount on the back which they didn’t have before giving them a much better stamped image plus much easier to mount on a stamping block.