Altered Journal Project

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I've just finished altering eight journals from my stash - totally from my stash.  Sometimes the amount of stuff I have even astonishes me !    These are in the "less is more" category.   I opted for a simpler style that might appeal more to folks who aren't excessives.  Don't you love that term, "excessives" - I first saw it used by the talented Tish at  A Femme d'un Certain  Age.    I abandoned my no-success-like-excess approach for this project.

To start - this unusual journal is from my friend, Shiela - and yes, auto-correct, that's how she spells it.  The journal was made by Heather Carter,  a Texas artist who now specializes in wonderful wooden sculptures, but in the late 90s made handmade journals.  I found one on eBay - a parallelogram shaped journal, same paper as mine,  for $60.00!   This triangle shaped journal was fun to work with and a bit of a challenge.

The pages are a slightly rough ecru colored paper - lovely.

This Tim Holtz stamp is perfect for the quote stamped on scrapbook paper.

The journals are a not-so-subtle ploy to encourage people to start keeping a journal.  I added interest to some pages to help avoid the dreaded blank page stress.   I purposely left plenty of room for writing and gluing in stuff.   

I made the label stickers by making a master board on a sheet of labels.  A bit of paint, some stamping and some doodling .  The magic happens when you lift off the label and get a slice of artsy goodness. I used a circle punch on some.  

These circles were so much fun to make!

Stamps from one of Shiela's famous packages.

A couple of sea-inspired  pages with white embossing.

Love this wide Cavallini washi tape.

I added a small pocket at the back with  extra strips of washi tape on freezer paper to encourage people to stick things in the journal.

Making these journals was so much fun.  (I'll share some of the others later).   It was fun to rummage through my stuff and make discoveries about things I forgot I had.     This kind of minimalist embellishing is a stress-free way to let the creative mojo rip.  And thanks to my friend for this lovely journal.