Lisa's Wonderful Summer Journal

I have finished working in Lisa's beautiful journal.  What a wonderful job she has done.  Beautifully made, wonderful art and little personalised parts as well.

A few years ago, very early in my arting adventure I did a post card swap and I used a beach theme so I tried to re-create that.

I did the background in sections and tried to include a textural component as well.  The water is a technique with glad wrap over wet paint, the sand is glass bead medium mixed with paint and the sky is done by dabbing a sea sponge.  WIP

After I worked out where I wanted the collaged pieces I stuck them down and added some details and journalling.

Some close ups of the details.

I really enjoyed this journal and I hope Lisa likes my spread.

Rose worked in Ros' "Maps" journal

Hi Ros and everyone. I'm so sorry about the delay in my completing my "Map" for Ros' wonderful journal. I have had some health issues to contend with, but all is well now, thankfully.
I was intrigued to see the format of this journal: lots of lovely materials, pages and ideas contained within a small folder/pouch. What a wonderful idea!
My first thought was of how I enjoy bird watching and camping beneath the stars at night, so that is what my 'page' is about. I hope you like it.

Deb's input into Gail's "Life as I see it" Journal.

As per usual, the picture of what I wanted to do for this journal in my head was very different from what ended up on paper. In life we all struggle and face challenges. I've had to keep telling myself lately that I am only responsible for my actions, I cant control everyone else's, so that is why I added this quote. I used a mixture of media from inks, crayons, pencils, markers, acrylic paints, beach sand in impasto paste for the bricks and even pressed flowers that I had been given at Christmas last year along with twigs from my garden. 

start of background, Distress Inks, sprays and acrylics

Swallowtail Stamp with copper embossing powder, filled in with water colour pencils and Pit pens.

Pressed, dried flowers added onto paper with Gel Medium.




stamp stuck on with foam tape.

finished off with more distress acrylics, crackle medium and the quote typed out on an old fashioned labeling machine.

I hope you enjoy this Gail.

Wendy's layout in Tattered, Torn and Treasured

Every time I picked up Roz's journal looking for some kind of inspiration, I kept thinking of my father and our "tattered and torn apart' family. So I went with that thought and used a family saying as the focal point of the layout. I put modelling paste, mixed with gold acrylic down and wanted to build up the layers on the page. My grandson had ripped the back page out of an old dictionary (made nanny a little angry) but I decided to use the ripped page on the page. Then to add another layer, I photocopied some of my fathers handwritten letters he had sent me about 20 years ago. Scrunched them up, ran the vintage ink over it with a teal coloured acrylic, trying to get an aged look about it.

I found some cotton netting gauze material and ran the vintage ink over it to get rid of the white starkness. I added a calico border to the page with gold paint on it. 

I found some vintage type photos from an old magazine, put gold paint around the edges and glued them on top of the letters.

I had remnants of an old table cloth my mum used when we were growing up, so I cut a flower from it with a bow attached, glued it down and then glued a teal coloured flower over the top of it. I used my ink pen to write the saying, a little bigger than I normally would as I wanted the saying to be the focal point of the layout and the pictures as fill ins. Sort of worked...lol. I added some of the teal to the edges of the page. Everything I tried to make look tattered and I tore all the paper used and my fathers letters and the piece of mums table cloth are my treasured. A pretty emotional layout for me but I think it turned out alright. Thank you.

Lisa J - Working in Lisa GG's Enchanted Journal

When I received Lisa's "Enchanted" journal from Joan, I discovered just how much Lisa loves Alice in Wonderland.  As I had been wondering what to do in this journal, I asked Lisa if it was okay if I did an Alice page too.  She said yes!

I had seen a fantastic journal page on The Mad Hatter years ago, and had always wanted to draw and paint him too, so this was the perfect opportunity.  My page is nowhere near the standard of the original (coincidentally, by another Lisa!) but I'm really happy with it.  I have to stress that I didn't copy Lisa's page; I used a Google pic.  Here's a link to Lisa Cheney's Flickr account, where you can find her Mad Hatter page.  If you haven't seen her work, please check it out - it's all gorgeous! 

I glued two pages together so that the watercolour wouldn't bleed through - this journal has heaps of pages, and the coil binding makes sticking pages together easy!

I thought that this quote went really well with the picture of the Hatter that I was doing.  These letter stamps were a bargain find from Target a while ago!

And here's the Hatter!  I drew him and then outlined him with a Pitt pen, then used watercolour.  I love how he's quite crazy looking but also quite cute (I mean Johnny Depp, yes please!).

When I'm sure that he's totally dry, I'll seal the pages using clear shoe polish.  I tried this on some ATC's last week and was pleased with the result - and also pleased that the smell dissipated after a few days!

Hope you like this entry Lisa, it was really enjoyable to do and I think I shall do some more Alice work in the future too!

Natalie's page in Gail's "Days Gone By' Journal

I chose Holly Hobbie and swapcards as the main ideas to my page. My mum was right into Hobbytex and everything she did was Holly Hobbie based. I had hankies mum had decorated. She even went as far as dressing my baby sister in a Holly Hobbie dress...but she did look cute. Swapcards were pretty big in the 1970's...and I had the hugest collection (mum gave me all hers too). I've still got them. I was also a massive collector of stamps. These stamps were given by one of our Australian Art Swap members.

I played with acrylic paints and water colour in the background. I do hope you like my take on Days Gone By xx

Natalie's page in Robyn's Journal "Travel the World"

I chose Africa as my country I would most like to travel to.  I have never been out of Australia as I believe you could spend a lifetime just travelling around our beautiful country...but if I was to travel, this is where I would want to be.

The lion is the most iconic animal of Africa, and in my opinion, the giraffe is the cutest animal of Africa. I used acrylic and water color paints for the background, and printed my favourite animals. One of our family favourite songs was "Africa" by Toto so it made sense to add my favourite line. I hope you like this page Robyn xx