A home for tags

I have been on lots of courses run by Anneliese.  To the extent that the running joke was that she was thinking of installing a hammock as I seemed to be there so often I may as well sleep there!

Anyway, this has meant that I have part-finished altered books, completely finished altered books, an altered scrapbook book and lots of tags.  You can find out about Anneliese's workshops at Creative Journey Workshops.

One of her upcoming workshops is her Altered Technique Book which is a mix of making tags and journaling about the technique in an altered book.   And so, inspired by the photo on Anneliese's website, I set about altering a book.

But rather than recycling/upcycling an old printed book I used a sketchbook that I've had lying about for ages.   I removed some of the pages ready to start.

When I start projects, especially when I'm at workshops, the fear factor jumps in or the perfectionism streak!  I get really stuck with the colours, the theme, the everything about what the finished project will look like and find many ways to procrastinate!   So I decided that I would just not think about it, and stick things down and paint and stamp without thought for the end result.

Last year I had taken part in an international swap of collage ephemera all of which I was keeping in the envelopes they came in, inside a box.  So not likely to ever make it to a page!! 

 I spread out all the ephemera on the table and sorted into piles of similar papers or bits.

Then I randomly stuck the ephemera down on the blank pages.   I chose 3 colours of Dylusions acrylic paint - Vanilla, Turquoise and Orange.   I painted every page all over with the Vanilla and added highlights of the orange and turquoise and used some sequin waste to stencil with.

 
Then I chose 2 sets of Dylusions stamps and limited myself to those and stamped randomly over the pages.

I took each set of tags which had the instructions on how to make them written on the back and copied the information onto the page and then stuck the tag in.  I used a Tippex Mouse to make the white lines to write on.

The tag content so far covers Distress Inks, Alcohol Inks, Using Metal and 10 of the 12 tags of Christmas.  And there's still room for 16 more tags.   Good thing I'm off to another workshop very soon!

One Little Word ~ January

I am using the prompts from Ali Edwards in the BPC class One Little Word 2012.  I did the class last year but felt at the end of the year that I had completed the tasks for the class but that my word: RESTORE had not made as much impact on my life as I would have liked.

I am determined this year to move forward, to do less procrastinating and to achieve my goals.  And to that end, as you know, I have written them down.

Although I have to be honest and admit that I do love this poster.  A brilliant excuse for procrastination.

I am using the same binder as I used in 2011 so needed a page (on the left) to cover the blank page behind the last entry for 2011.   I used Wordle  to make a graphic of the relevant words and then listed my goals for 2012.

The small page on the left should have a photo of me on it but I haven't found one I like yet!

Ali provides the prompts and the graphics to print out.  Instead of putting the 9 cards into individual pockets I have stuck mine onto Kraft card and put it into one large pocket.

Scrapbook Life Journal 2012 update

I've been working on and off over the past 2 weeks on my Life Journal.  Each week Stephanie provides resources and prompts.

The back cover of my binder

The front cover

 The January divider

Stephanie provided this doodle for us to colour.

The theme for January is Honesty

 My One Little Word for 2012 is FOCUS and to help me focus I listed my goals for the year

On UKScrappers there's a thread where people encourage each other to walk each week.  My goal this year is to take one long walk each week and here are the layouts I've done in my Life Journal to remind me of the walks.