DIY Ocean-Themed Notebooks

We had new floors installed in the upstairs rooms of our house.  This meant that I had to clear everything out of my studio and trust me ,  there was a whole lot of everything!  What a perfect time to get rid of things that really don't work with my style,  and all things I bought of the "everyone else is using this and thinks it's the best thing ever" variety,  but have never used.    I went through all the drawers, all the boxes, all the bottles of glue, mediums, and paint and guess what?  It turns out that I am :

One of my more startling discoveries was the drawer full  overflowing with journals and notebooks. Big ones, small ones, folding ones, fold-out ones -you name it, I most likely have it.   I may need a 12-step program: "Hello, my name is Deborah and I have a journal obsession.  It has been zero days since I added to my stash of 67 journals".   67?  67?  OK, so many are thrifted or yard sale finds but clearly this is out of hand.

I rediscovered these journals I bought from Pick Your Plum.  I'm in a kraft paper phase and the handles just sealed the deal.

(This is actually the back, since I again forgot to take a "before" shot!)

I knew what I wanted for these - something simple that wouldn't cover all that kraft paper goodness, with beachy-colors and stamping.

I swiped on gesso and then some paint - some with acrylics, some watercolors.  This sea star was one of those $1.00 stamps from Michael's, embossed with white powder to make the image sharper on the texture from the gesso.

Two colors of embossing powders and some scraps from my stash of paper scraps.

More of those inexpensive ocean stamps.

Couldn't resist at least one birdie.

The notebook came with kraft paper covered pens.  I painted them with Distress Inks to coordinate with the covers.

It's a bit of a pain to pry the cover off the bottle of stain, but not a big deal.  Then just dip and paint.  

The kraft paper takes up the stain unevenly, giving the pens a nice marbled look.

I've done a major clean-out of my supplies (one full 33 gallon trash bag to the Salvation Army, making the day for some lucky crafters) .  My goal is to  focus future purchases on things I really love and know I will use.  But then there is this: