Tina`s Twenty one step Tutorial.

 I dedicate this tutorial to my Swedish friend Tina.

 1. A ordinary sketch pad.

 2. Cover the glossy front with Gesso.

 3. I had some angles laying about...this one gave me the colour scheme for the journal.

 4. LYRA aquacolor´s, tan/brown/red, on top of Gesso.

 5. Water to blend. It crackled, must be due to glossy page. I like!

 6. Angle glued down with Gel medium.

 7. My favourite template, circles.

8. I sprayed with Glimmer Mist, dabbed with some color concentrate and Stencil paint.

 9. Glued ribbon on, gifts from Letizia, all pink.

 10.Napkin, ribbed and glued on. LOVE this effect, take the napkin apart, only use the top thin layer.

 11. More Glimmer Mist and more circles.

 12. Another image, and more pink ribbon.

 13. Choose butterfly stamp, as in the napkin, black ink.

 14. I love tissue paper as much as napkins, needed to tone the pink down a bit, used pale blue.

 15. Stamped the word DREAM. The colours I guess?

 16. Now for the finishing touch: sewing. I sew the ribbons, zig-zag the edges, and where ever I think it would look good!

 17. Voila! Sorry about the flash back! Its SO DARK here now, that natural daylight is a faint memory!

 18. The inside cover.The seams give them selves away to lots of choices...

 19. Stamps and an old envelope, gives way for notes and secrets!

 20. I use 20 pieces of paper from the original pad, and make signatures. See my earlier tutorial on how to.

21. And here we are. Very angelic!

Ribbons from Italy and roses from the States.

 This journal was inspired by ribbons I was given by my friend Letizia in Italy, and the fat baby angle! Don´t usually go for this color scheme, but the motive asked for it...

 Before I changed the green ribbon to the pink. Made a tutorial of this, but my labtop is soooo slow these days, that it keept chrashing. So that will have to wait, until I win the lottery and get a new one!

 The inside covers.

The romantic envelope was a letter from USA, in a ATC swap way back.......

From scrap to good use.

Two more sketch books made from leftovers, napkins, ink stamps and birds flewn in from my good friend Mary in the U.K. The covers are backs of sketch pads, so very sturdy. Hmmm -the pile is again growing, after the first lot was send to Anna and her x-mas stall in Edinburgh.

Long time no see!

 HOME for now, my mothers spare room. My house is now empty, all packed and put into storage. Sad to have to move, but as you all know, one more winter out there would be insane! So, here I am for now, all my art supplies unpacked, and a new journal, for a european swap, is made and ready to fly for 8 months. Its not yet, Im just ahead of time :-)

 I promised my friend Mary to keep her with me on my journey, by photographing my new scenery, so here we go: A very misty day, but this is minutes from my mothers house, all beautiful wild nature, the sea and old houses. A very nice town, Nysted.

 The tellow/orange colour on the houses, is very carasteristic for this part of Denmark.

Very christmas like! But hope you have noticed...? NO SNOW! Strange....

Hotmail - trinep@hotmail.com - Windows Live

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Journals, journals, journals....

 This Journal arrived today, from Elvira in Australia. This is on of the 17 journals in the RR that Im in. And the first one to come. Very exciting. Now I need to get on and do a nice spread on "The Hands of an Artist".

This journal is from Italy, and my friend Letizia. It was also a birthday card, so thank you soo much Letizia and everybody who remembered me on the 1st of november. Hopefully next year, I will be fit for fight, and throw a huge party! Love to you all.

Autumn in a purse.

All the way from Australia, this hand made purse, filled to the brim with signs of autumn came in the post this morning. Isnt it great? And look inside! Two wonderful ATC´s. ´! Wow Stacey, not only have you arranged, hosted and organized the 17 Artist´s Round Robin, you also have had time and energy to create this. Thank you so much, you and D. are in my thoughts. xx

My hero!

 This bird came flying to my house today, all the way from My Hero Mary in the UK. You might have noticed, that in most of my mixed media art, I use cut outs, paper birds and leaves. These are cut and send by Mary, she is the lucky owner of "A Big Shot". Isnt she a wonderful friend?

Amazing! I think Ill be okay over the long dark winter, don`t you?`I shall enjoy this gift, Thank You Mary xx

October

Were asked to make an invitation, as a card, here it is. Hope the recipient likes :-)

ATC Mother Nature

5 beautiful ATC´s arrived yesterday, Mother Nature -  Two from The UK  - two from Australia and one from Canada. They are all lovely, one of the better swaps :-) Thanks to all.

3 Journals flying off!

Italy, The Nederlands and Brooklyn USA. Three journals on their merry way.
My contribution for The Journal Project 2012 is off to Brooklyn Art Library, and then on a year tour around the world. The journal to Holland is my 17 Artists-17 months Round Robin, that is finally leaving the nest. And last but not least, my swap with Letizia in Italy, my november page is done. One journal Ill never see again, it will be living in The States in a Library! One wont come back home for the next 17 months! But the third is traveling back and forward every month for a year :-)

Let the games begin...

 My "Blue is the Colour of..." Round Robin Journal, is now finally in the post. Thought it fitting wraped in blue tissue paper for it first leg on the 17 month long jurrney. Happy traveling.

Tutorial - Sketch Book

 I made a whole bunch of Sketch books for my shop on http://www.selfmade.dk/, and the demand for a tutorial made me want to show how I made my books. I originally bought a toturial on an American blog, on how to bind. Thanks to greenislesart.

 I used two sheets of normal A4 copy paper, for the cover,  and 10 sheets of paper from a Sketch Pad, good quality, for the pages.

 The cover is made up as a "normal" journal-page. The way I do mine, is shown on a earlier tutorial "House on the hill". You do yours as you like :-)

 The cover and the inside ( the 2 A4 copy papers)  - glued together.

 I then sew as well, on my good old trusted sewing machine. I zig-zag the edges, and depending on pattern and mood, I "applique" the page.

 The 10 sheets of drawing paper is trimmed to size A4.

 And then folded in half. Make sure the bend is even and sharp. Use any plastic object ex.: handle of siccors!

 Fit all pages, signatures, together, like a regular book, and make sure they are even. And fit the cover on.

Make three holes, -as the dots show, one in the middle and one at each end, using a dowel.

 For this I use a big old second hand book, as a support. (It will get damaged...) -open it up standing on its back and holding it, -fit sketch book into it, make sure all is fit and straight, and  make the holes with the dowel. -Make sure you push all the way through all pages and the cover.

 Bring back out onto your work surface. (I leave the dowel in the last hole, just for support...)

 Now, measure your thread, I use cotton knitting wool, twise as long as the book, and thread your needle.

 Lets call our three holes "middle -right - and left"! From the inside, go out through the MIDDLE and back in through RIGHT. Pull and leave a few inches hanging.

 Back out through LEFT, pull tight.

 And back in through the MIDDLE. Make sure that the start and the end thread is on either side of the long middle, as you now want to tie, to lock the long straight bit in the middle....

 Like this! Pull tight, tie and cut.

 From the other side. As you now have guessed, the colour of string is up to you :-) I know that you can get real bookbinding thread, waxed cotton etc. But I like the cotton wool, as I have it in my cubboard and it is strong enough for a sketch book.

Paper, paint, glue, wool and imagination, and you have books! But watch out - it becomes addictive!