Friday In The Studio, Hello December

Here we are at the beginning of December and the madness of the season is upon us. I have been itching to start my December Daily and at last I get to play in its pages. Here is the first of my three books which are inside the altered book cover and it features my robin design which I love to bits and have plastered on anything and everything this year. I should make him into a stamp for next year.

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I’m also very happy to say that I’m helping out Clare Brown at Paper Pen And Plan with her December Daily photo challenge.  Basically there are 31 prompts to follow every day in December which are used as inspiration for a photo which is uploaded to Instagram or their Facebook group using the hashtag #PaperpenandplanDec2016 and there’s a prize on offer for someone who has followed all of the prompts with the hashtag linking them to the group.

Hubby came back from Hong Kong last week bringing this cute little red bag with him which I thought was perfect to keep my supplies in for my DD.

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Here’s day 1 complete,

dd-day-1

and day 2.

dd-day-2

Have a good weekend where ever you are and what ever you’re doing.

Jaine x

Friday In The Studio – Christmas Workshop

Ok so I’m not actually posting this on Friday but a day late on Saturday. I’ve a good reason but the day just whizzed by in a blur as I’ve been preparing for a Christmas workshop in a couple of weeks.

I’ll be teaching the group how to use Mega flakes by Indigoblu which I love love love using plus we’ll put together a few cards for Christmas. I’ll also show them some techniques with Distress Inks to create a few backgrounds which I know they’ll love.

workshop-dec

For the moment my table looks like this as I sort out the kits. There’s plenty of sparkle going on here.

Hopefully I can get to update my planners this weekend too and start preparations for next year.

Happy Saturday everyone.

Jaine

 

Friday In The Studio – My Sketchbook Is Almost Full

“Dear Father Christmas, please can you bring me a new sketchbook as I’ve almost filled mine up since I started it in January. Thank you”

I’ve only a couple of pages left in it and at the rate I’m going I’ll need to add a few tip-ins before Christmas. If anyone can recommend a good one preferably hard cover A4 please tell me as I’d be interested to know.

leaf-sketch

I know it’s a bit corny and I’ve said it so many times but I find the forest in Autumn so full of inspiration. When I get back from a walk my pockets are usually filled with treasures I’ve picked up along the way. I have to point out the mushroom below didn’t end up in my pocket, I took a photo instead. Just sayin’

mushroom-sketch

I really need to work on my Christmas card design for this year and I’ll be working in those last few pages.

Have a good weekend

Jaine x

Friday In The Studio – Getting Ready For December

Who documents December in a special journal? This random pile is a few of my journals from past years including an altered book, fabric, faux dori and a mini file folder for Instagram photos, I’ve tried them all.

dec-daily-stack

This year I’ve decided to go once again with an altered book but this time I’ve taken the pages out and used only the cover.

dd16

I thought I’d go with an elastic style binding to hold the pages in which will enable me to reuse the cover next year.

dd16inside

I used watercolour paper for the inside pages as I can paint, glue and do almost anything I feel like to them without them falling apart and just as a bit of an experiment I decided to tea dye the paper for a bit of a vintage feel.

Oh boy I had no idea that it would make me so happy once the pages were dry. To be honest, I really should have done it before I sewed the pages together as it was a bit of an afterthought but I was so happy with the colour, the staining and even how the pages curled and buckled once they’d dried. I was positively squealing with delight.

tea-dyed-pages

I’ve three books or signatures of five papers each sewn together on the sewing machine and these fit through the elastics in the cover.

tea-dyed-pages-inside

The cover has been decorated with firstly some Collage tissue paper from Canvas Corp along with some lace, tags, stickers and a few sequins.

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I am more than happy with it and can’t wait to dive in.

I’d love to know if you’re going to document December in any way? Let me know.

Have a good weekend.

Jaine x