Journal Class: Part Two

Alert readers may remember when I purchased this fun fabric back in August. I decided to use one of the "fruit ladies" fabrics for the cover of my second journal in Sue Bleiweiss's online class. This one is a sketchbook with watercolor and drawing paper. The velcro closure is covered by a piece of fabric with a giant pear bead from one of my old necklaces. After all, I do identify most with the "pear-shaped" lady!

The inside cover has a wild peach and orange fabric that almost looks like bookbinding paper, plus a colorful, juicy faux patchwork in red, pink, orange, yellow, peach, and purple. The pocket on this one goes all the way across the bottom of the journal from front to back. I was able to sew along the lines of the print to create some of the pockets for art supplies.

Instead of sewn-in signatures, this journal features hammered-in eyelets and removable hole-punched paper. I had no problem with the eyelets until the bottom two, when I was also going through the two layers of pocket fabric. Loose-leaf binder rings are used to hold the pages, and are decorated with strips of fabric and fiber along the spine.

The first page and several other divider pages feature painted watercolor paper.I used Setacolor sprayed or painted on, and then either used plastic wrap or paper towels to create mottling. I also added some metallic Lumiere paint to give it a gleam.

The cool text on the first page arrived at my house serendipitously when my husband picked up his annual box of wildlife calendars from the N. C. Wildlife Association. Included was a fabulous poster encouraging children to enter a wildlife art contest.

Here is the inside back cover, loaded with bookmarks, sketching pencils, and some colorful gel pens.

And here is my first page of doodled feathers, created while DH was trying out his new surround-sound speakers on the VERY loud movie Iron Man.

And a couple of doodled bookmarks, made from leftover pieces of the painted divider pages.

I have some coordinating Fruit Ladies fabric that might have to become a tote bag to carry additional art supplies like watercolor pencils and a water jar.

Journey into Journal-Making

It has been a few days since my last post. Instead of meeting my daughter-in-law halfway to return my grandchildren, I had to drive them all the way home. Her car's brakes went out on her on the way to work, but fortunately she did not have an accident. Anyway, I spent the night down there, and drove home on Thursday. It was a gorgeous day, finally, after all the rain and cold weather when the children were here.

So, on to my online class with Sue Bleiweiss, "Journal Making for the Fiber Artist." The first lesson was available October 31, but as you can imagine, I did not even begin until after I got back from South Carolina.

Here is the journal with a velcro closure under the pink flower.

The outside cover is a pretty water-color looking fabric with gold lines imprinted in curvy branch-like patterns. I fused it to a stiff interfacing, then couched on some fibers in gold and pastels.The inner lining is a coordinating solid fabric with tiny gold dots. I added a pocket of pretty fabric. Uh-oh, mistake number one. I stitched the velcro closure on to the front and right through the pocket.

For my journal pages, I used paper cut to size from a large sketchbook. I kept the edge where it was connected to the pad, because it looked kind of deckled. I may add some gold paint to the edges. Some of the pages have a pale wash of Lumiere paint and some accent squiggles. Here's another little boo-boo: a gap of about a quarter inch between the signatures, or sets of pages. I had the hardest time figuring out how to sew these in. Apparently no one else in the class had a problem, so I studied their pics and got the idea.

One of the suggestions for the lesson was to "wrap" each of the three signatures with an enclosure of colored card stock. All I had was manila- way boring. I decided to use an old quilting calendar page as my signature wraps. OOPS- what to do about the old calendar and writing on the other side? I could have used it as is, but decided to paint with Lumiere paints. That did not quite cover up the calendar blocks, so I started collaging some painted paper towels left over from another project, and some strips of the calendar quilt picture. I had to let these dry about two days because of all the clear gel I used to apply them.

So, then I decided I liked the collaged side better than the quilt pic side. This one was used to wrap one of my signatures.

But I do love that quilt with all the polka dot circles. Here it is with a pocket attached.

So, I proceeded to cut my calendar picture into three strips of various widths to make my signature wraps. Then, when I lined them up with the signature pages, I realized that two of them were too narrow to use, because the holes I poked in the paper were wider apart. So, I left two signatures unwrapped, and made the extra collaged pics into pockets and bookmarks. I guess these are supposed to be bookmarks? I still don't quite get the whole journaling thing. Probably these are supposed to be something else you write on.

This is a pocket made of one of the collaged pieces.

I made a couple other pockets out of gusseted paper with decorative scrapbook paper glued on it. (Yes, I have some scrapbook paper.)

I cut out the letters for LOVE and added them to this pretty scrapbook paper.

So, I am already behind on Lesson 2, but I am eager to get going on that one. It will be a sketchbook. Wish me luck!