Canvas Corp Brands – Basement Studio

Fall CCB blog hop

If there’s one thing I love about living here in Luxembourg it’s the beautiful colours of Autumn when the forests turn from green to red, yellow and brown, and as long as the sun is shining it’s an absolute pleasure to drive through the leafy forest roads or walk with the dog first thing in the morning.

From today some of the Canvas Corp Crew are going to be blog hopping and showcasing projects inspired by Autumn.

It’s quite normal on my morning walks to pick up leaves, twigs or interesting things I find along the way and a lot of these end up in my inspiration jar for sketching at a later date.

I was inspired to create by the teasle seed heads outside my studio window which I leave standing throughout the winter to give a nice structure to the garden as well as feeding the birds.

I thought it was about time I added some sketches of my nature finds in a journal and of course I had to make one for the purpose. So here it is, an Autumn-inspired junk journal for sketching the things I’ve found on my morning forest walks with Cooper.

I’ve painted on a piece of Stretched Natural Canvas cotton and given a mixed media finish with paints, gesso and texture paste. I also added a pretty piece of Avocado Burlap along with some Grey Burlap die cut into hearts. The hand-stitched binding I’m thrilled with only because it’s tricky to make it look neat enough. Painting on canvas cotton is so satisfying and looks beautiful when it’s given a shabby chic treatment.

The inside has four signatures each with eight pages made from magazine paper, music score and plain old copy paper. I did use kraft paper for each outer page just so it would look neat from the outside, but I look forward to using these pages as much as the rest.

I hope this has inspired you to make yourself a junk journal or nature diary. Please visit the other Crew members to find out what they’ve created with Canvas Corp products. Please visit the next designer who is…

Christine Santos

So do have a “leaf” through each blog (that was truly terrible) to discover their Autumnal projects and don’t forget to leave them some love as you go. The next on the list is Christine Santos.

I’ll be back soon with another blog post but for now happy hopping.

Jaine x

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More Than A Card Not Quite A Whole Book

You know that thing when making a card seems a little bit mean to be saying “thank you for inviting us to stay for the weekend” or “we had a great time at your party” and it’s a bit late to be making a whole mini album which you know they’d love but you just don’t have the time? Well I think this might just hit the brief in terms of more than a card but not quite a whole album.

It’s my old favourite the one page mini book, the one where I start off with one big sheet of paper, in this case it was an A3, and coloured the background with a marbled effect using spray and folded it up into my mini album.

Here are a few photos which hopefully show the folding technique.

The resulting book has 8 A6 sized pages so enough for a few photos and some writing.

I wrote a little tutorial for the marbled background which you can see on the web site of Canvas Corp Brands here by clicking this link.

As you can see I created enough coloured paper to use for die cutting the stars.

I hope you try it for yourself. If you do I’d love to hear.

Jaine xx

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What’s On My Desk Wednesday – Multi Tasking With paints

Two projects, two different styles and two very different finishes are on my table today. I’m flitting about between the two here, while one dries I add something to the other one. It’s a bit mad to be honest but while the ideas are in my head I have to do it otherwise it’s gone.

This top one is in the Traveling Art Journal for Canvas Corp Brands and I’m truly happy with how it’s progressing. Some acrylic paints, some watercolour and a bit of collage is all I’ve done so far. I’m finding at the moment that my journal pages aren’t as dark as they used to be and I’m leaving alot more white space. Maybe it’s a phase.

On the other table and in complete contrast I’ve got my sketchbook open to finish off a sketch I started yesterday in the garden. If you were to look at the sketch and the garden side by side you’d see I’ve enhanced the flowers big style. The border isn’t looking quite as blooming as that! After a cold and wet couple of weeks it’s gone into Autumn mode with several of my plants going totally to seed.

It’s my sketchbook and I can do what I want in it, right?

We’re getting ready to go off to Ireland at the end of this week but I’ll be back with a quick post on Friday.

Happy Wednesday

Jaine xx

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A July Update And A Look In The Sketchbook

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here. I went into hospital for a small, quick operation by laparoscopy and came home feeling sore, more than a bit tired and as bloated as a whale but spending time in my pj’s with my feet up had some advantages. I had lots of time to sketch and catch up with my planners and journals.

As it’s July already I even made a start on my Christmas designs too. You can never be too early!!

Here’s one which needed finishing off.

Just as I arrived home my parcel from PaperPenandPlan was waiting for me. This months box is all about Quotes and the colours are beautiful and soft with mint greens and soft pinks. As the box contains a tube of paint and a brush I’ve ended up watercolouring everything which doesn’t move, including the pages of my Carpe Diem. The paint is very highly pigmented and to be honest it could have done with being watered down a bit more but once I’ve added more to my calendar I’m sure it won’t be so ‘in your face’ so to speak. I love the ephemera pack which contains some gorgeous die cut fairies.

The box always contains a small kit and this month it’s a tube of watercolour paint, brush and some tags for a bit of fun. I adore watercolours so couldn’t wait to get my brush wet. A full tutorial for this tag is on their web site at Paperpenandplan

I didn’t get to show you my pages for the June Traveling Art Journal with Canvas Corp Brands. I think this is my favourite to date.

Have a good weekend all and I’ll catch up again next week.

Jaine x

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