Blessings Journal for Yvonne Blair Designs

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Hello mixed media crafty peeps how are you today?  With all the uncertainty in the world today, I decided to create a Blessings journal to help me focus on all the wonderful things that happen in my daily life.  It helps to center me, and serves as a daily reminder that God is in control of all things! 

Let me walk you through my process for creating this journal using these awesome stamps from Yvonne and Impression Obsessions!   As always I've linked them up to the Impression Obsessions' online store, but shop your local retailers if you have one!

Numbers

Swirly Vine

Sketch Dragon Fly

 

  French Script

Inspiring this entire project was Yvonne's stamp! Thank You God.  Have you ever been doing something in your life and just knew God had his hand in that moment in your life?   When I saw this stamp I knew I wanted to create this journal. 

Thank You God

I have a few of these dollar bin journals laying around my craft room that I keep on hand for note taking and decided to use these for my base.  They come in handy for these types of projects and are very inexpensive. NOTE: I usually pick them up at the end of the season when they clearance them out since I generally alter the covers anyway!   

To give the outside of my journal a nice rich color and feel, I used created a mono-print to create the background image, on a piece of bleached muslin fabric, once everything was dry I did some sewing on around the edge of journal. This keeps everything in place over time, but it also adds texture. Dropping gold Liquitex Acrylic Ink, and spraying the entire journal with Heidi Swapp's Gold Color Shine adds a richness to the final journal.  I encourage you to pull out your stamps, stencils, inks, and paints and enjoy a little creative play. This was so much! 

Watch On YouTube

 

 

This next step you can do after the book is filled with memories or before, or before.  I love how it inspires me!  I went into my little bucket of left overs and created a beautiful cluster.  Sprinkled a little seed beads and sequins to add sparkle, and topped my sentiment with a prima clay cherub piece.  Isn't this just a beautiful book. It would make a great Secret Sister gift or Prayer Partner book.  You could also switch out the sentiment and use the book for a number of other occasions as well.

 

Thanks for stopping in and hanging out with me today!  I hope I have inspired you to a create a Blessings Journal to remind yourself of the tiny little miracles that happen in your own daily life. 

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Santa's List Holiday Organizer by Tonya Gibbs

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Hi everyone, 

The Holiday season is quickly approaching, and I'm not sure about you, but my house hold is a whirl-wind of activities this time of year.  Each year I create an Organizer/Planner to keep track of the craziness. When I started this project several years ago, I was looking for a place to trap receipts menus, calendars, card lists, shopping lists, groceries lists, coupons, sales fliers etc...  It has evolved into a true keepsake throughout the years.  It is fun to look back at all the ciaos from year to year.

This year, I created my planner with Teresa Collins Designs' Santa's List.   I just love the red and whites they are so clean, and really get me into the Christmas mood.  

I altered an Avery 6x9 inch white 3 ring binder that you can find at any department store in the office supply section.

I added lace and trims along the edge to soften up binder's hard exterior.  I also used Gold paper to accent my papers. Since the book would be tossed in the car, and dragged in and out of stores, I decided to sew down all the stickers

The Dividers
I have 3 dividers in this notebook,   Planner,  Cards, and Gifts. The dividers were cut on my silhouette using 3 bracket file folders by Lori Whitlock. I cut the folders in half with the knife tool in the design studio software and only "cut" the half that had the tabs.  This allowed me to make the folders wider so they fit the proportions of my notebook. I used the alpha set on the sticker sheet to label my tabs, then sewed across the bottom of them to make sure that they don't fall off from over use.  

I included the sticky notes from the collection for extra labeling and note taking.

Inside Cover
I love having a little something to take notes in that can easily be added to my purse and then replaced in the planner later.  Teresa's Sewed Journals fit nicely in the pockets.  I love that the December Stamp in the Santa's List Stamp set starts on Sunday with day 1.  Since this year December 1st in on a Sunday it made it a great visual reference for the dates through out the book.

Here is a video with a complete walk through of the book.

I hope this organizer will help give you some ideas for your own holiday planning.   I'm so happy I've adopted this and it will be fun to go back and flip through it after the first of the year when it is a documented mess.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanks for stopping in today.  If you haven't subbed yet, please do so.

Tonya

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Altered Notebook - Marion Smith Designs Nirvana Collection

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Wow - It has already been a week since I was appointed on Marion's Design team, and I'm still pinching myself.  Our first challenge was to alter a notebook, book, or binder in honor of back to school.  I was so excited to use her New Nirvana printed lines that will be shipping to retailers in just a few weeks. 

 

For my project I decided to alter a three ring notebook.  I'm a total list maker, so I thought this would be a great tool to have around.  I really wanted my cover to stay kind of flat so that it didn't take up too much shelf space, but I wanted it to be PRETTY!  Nirvana certainly helped there! 

 

 

 

 

I started with one of these notebooks from Target.

 

I gessoed the edges of the notebook, and painted it gold.  Then lined the notebook inside and out with the Nirvana Bliss & Documented papers.   I love how easy the cover came together with the Nirvana ephemera pages. 

 

 

 

Visit the blog to see what the other ladies did for their challenge.  So much inspiration!

 

Want Nirvana? -  Click here to pre-order it!

 

Thanks for stopping in today,

 

Tonya A. Gibbs

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