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.

Junk Journal

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


A Creative Partnership

Sometimes you come across partnerships which just work so perfectly you know it’s right. Well, for a while now I’ve had just that very thought. 

I’m very lucky to be in a position where I work with some amazing companies and two of those companies are Canvas Corp Brands and WOW Embossing Powders.  To me, it makes perfect sense to put these two companies together and so that’s just what I did in a blog post on the Canvas Corp Brands blog today.

I had a load of fun creating this card using one of my favourite background techniques using both WOW and Canvas Corp Brands and if you want to see how I made it then go over to the CCB blog.

Have a good weekend

Jaine xxxx

Gypsie Travels From The Studio

Antiques market in the Hague

I’m still enjoying looking back on some of my holiday photos especially as here in Luxembourg the weather is still in the high 20’s, although we’re waiting for this to change any day. This particular collection  of pictures was featured on the Canvas Corp Brands Web site a week ago as part of their Gypsie Travels feature. They were taken while we were visiting The Hague as we came across this gorgeous little antique market tucked away from the main streets down this leafy avenue.

There were some typically iconic Dutch antiques, like these clogs. No doubt they’ve seen plenty of hard work. They don’t look very comfortable though!

I came across these ink pens and nibs and bitterly regret not buying any. They were so pretty and would have made my desk look far more important than it is. 

There are lots more photos and a write up on the CCB blog which you can find here.

Enjoy the weekend where you are and I’ll be back soon with a new post.

Jaine xx

Friday In The Studio And Big News

Morning everyone, well it’s been quite a week here in my little basement with a couple of projects on the table plus a bit of extra work which I’ve been keeping to myself for a few weeks now involving the Craft Stamper Magazine.

I’ve been contributing to this awesome magazine for quite a few years now as well as three of its sister magazines in the past. As well as designing for this amazing magazine I’ve now joined the team as Assistant editor. I’m absolutely thrilled and proud that Trish has such confidence in my abilities. I look forward to the exciting times ahead in this new role.

There’s nothing like a new start to make you have a jolly good tidy up and boy did my basement need one!  I went through my shelves of handmade journals and photo albums and picked out my favourites. Some of them had been completely taken over by …..stuff!!  This is what the tidied version looks like.

The Planner Shelf

I think the planner shelf looks a whole lot better too. At least I can get things in order now.

Have a good weekend

Jaine xx