A Valentine Mini Book

I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently sorting out some of the hand bound books from market and art fairs so I can add them to the shop. This meant photographing and numbering each one before uploading to the site. It’s been a while since I made a mini book and this process made me curious to try out something new.

Square

Meet the Square album. It’s a dinky little size at 10.5cm and the inside pages (all 14 of them) are made using Vintage Botanicals double sided patterned papers, originally bought from Paper Pen and Plan on Etsy. If you check them out they’ve lots of paper packs on sale and with my code JAINE10 you’ll get 10% off too! The cover has been covered and decorated with paper and embellishments from the February Sweet Treat box also from Paper Pen and Plan.

It would be perfect for a few Instagram photos and some journaling, personally I wouldn’t want too much to cover up those gorgeous pages.

This is a new binding method for me but I’m now inspired to create something on a bigger scale perhaps.

It sits on a shelf perfectly out on display rather than being tucked away between other books so in that respect it’s more of a decor piece than a simple album.

I haven’t decided yet if I want to keep it or add it to the shop but what ever I decide I’ll be adding to the family.

Happy Valentine’s day,

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

Mini Album To Make You Smile

July is here and the weather is just glorious for the moment. I’m working outside as much as possible on our little shady terrace which has a wonderful view of the garden and endless inspiration for sketching, painting and planning.

I must have had a summer vibe going on when I made up this mini album. I’ll be taking part in a small hand craft market coming up in September so I need to build up some stock for my table. I’ll be selling photo albums and felt creations for starters. I’ve lots of other ideas in my head but it remains to be seen if I actually get around to making them a reality.

It’s also my piece for the WOW Facebook Challenge this month where the new theme is Embossing Glitter.

Continue reading Mini Album To Make You Smile

New Projects – Friday In The Studio

Hello there and welcome to the first Friday in the studio of 2018.

Outside its stormy, wet and fairly miserable so I’m happy to be here in the basement with paints and glue.

This has to be my motto for the year  “you can do it”.  I just need reminding from time to time so here it is on the first monthly spread in my planner.

I think this year I really want to take up more mixed media and journaling again. I didn’t do so much last year instead focussing most of my attentions to making books and planners. I need to add more mixed media into my planners to bring the two worlds together and my sketchbook has been neglected a bit since the beginning of the year when I was adding to it almost daily. I’m really happy that Paper Pen and Plan are running a challenge this month to doodle every day so I’m taking this as an excuse to go a bit further and challenge myself to a small sketch each day. If you want to join in they’re running the challenge via their facebook group. You can find them here https://www.facebook.com/groups/paperpenandplan/ to join the group and join in the challenge.

It’s funny though but since participating in the open atelier just before Christmas and hearing what other people had to say about my work made me think about what it was I was doing and where I was going. I think I’d stopped believing in myself and had given up trying to produce anything in my art journal. For the atelier I’d made lots of mini books for scrapbookers and right at the very end – literally a couple of days before, I decided to make a few blank sketchbook/journal type albums with mixed media covers just to see how they went. Blow me if they weren’t the first books to sell and the response I got was amazing. So just from those few little books I’m now all fired up again to get out the paints and mediums.

Tomorrow is my first blog post for WOW and here’s a little sneaky peek at what’s coming up. I loved playing with texture and adding layers to this project. I’ll show you the full project tomorrow.

Happy Friday everyone, have a good one.

Jaine xx