Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Pocket Notebook Gratitude Journal with Eileen Hull

Join me today in making a Pocket Notebook, Gratitude Journal. As most of us head into an uncertain September, I thought that putting the focus on gratitude would be a good idea. With a student that is not looking forward to online school, this is the perfect project to help her find joy. I cajoled my teen into this project with an eye on her mental health. So grab a cuppa cause this is a photo heavy post!!

Gratitude Journal

The idea is to take a photo everyday of what she is grateful for. She can also use past photos. This is to encourage her to find the happiness, that for the moment might be on hold, but something that can be looked forward to returning in the future. I want my teen & myself to focus on doing what it takes to get through these insanely trying times. The Eileen Hull Inspiration team theme this month is the great outdoors so I designed my cover accordingly.

Collage with Napkins

If you follow my blog you know I love making fabric covers! They are so nummy & pliable, just feel great in your hands. Another thing I love is using napkins & tissue to collage. I do a lot of that in my art journals but haven't so much on the covers of my books. This is a technique I thought my daughter would be interested in too. I simply cut 2 covers from foam adhesive using the Pocket Notebook die cut. Grab a bunch of napkins, &/or decorative tissue paper.

This journal comes with the possibility of 5 signatures but I made mind just a bit smaller & went with 4. Cut your canvas piece about 3/4" to 1" larger then the size your covers will be. There will be some shrinking of the fabric. Decoupage the cover & dry it before adding the adhesive.

If you are using decorative napkins you need to peel off the excess layers. Most have 1 or 2 layers of white tissue. This helps make the napkin translucent and also prevents air bubbles. Hot Tip: put a piece of scotch tape on the back of the napkin & carefully pull up- the layers will pull apart. The white left over tissue is perfect for stamping on.

Decoupage Time

There are many ways to do this. You can use the whole napkin, blocks of different napkins, or tearing pieces & collaging them. Simply apply decoupage glue to the canvas & lay the napkin piece down, then add the glue on top. Be careful as the tissue is fragile.

Hot Tip: if you want to cut out an image you can use scissors or wet a small brush & brush around the image. Then gently tear the image out. This helps the edges of the image sort of melt into the background.

Tim Holtz also has quite a few tissues that have wonderful images. I used themby tearing pieces to separate the colored images. You can see the text, numbers & postmarks for example.

Eileen Hull Facebook Live

Eileen recently did a collage cover on her weekly Facebook Live. She also has it posted on YouTube. Be sure to join the Eileen Hull Fan Club on Facebook for all sorts of extra inspiration & fun!

Once your canvas is dry it is time to create the cover. Remove one side of paper off the foam adhesive Pocket Notebook pieces, line them up & press them onto the canvas. Use a cropodile to punch the holes through the canvas. Line them up & punch following the outline of the foam adhesive. I like using the bigger size so I can add the bigger size eyelets. It helps add strength to the book.

Measure & cut an inside fabric or piece of scrapbook paper. Remove the other side of paper from the adhesive including where the 2 pieces overlap. Adhere your inside piece. Re-punch the holes.

If you like sew around the edges of the book just outside the edge of the foam, leaving at least 1/4 of an inch. Here is a pic of the inside fabric by Tim.

Decorate the Cover

Let's make a bee embellishment! I pulled out my Tim Holtz Layered Bee die cut. This die comes with an embossing folder that matches. I cut the die with mat board & then ran it through the embossing folder. I cut out another bee, cut & colored the wings to use as a mask.

Next up some embossing powder! Put some embossing ink on a craft mat & dab a bit on a hard sponge or piece of foam. Swipe directly across so only the high points get inked. Emboss using Eileen's Black Magic powder. If you miss a spot repeat. To get the lines on the body, I used a Ranger embossing pen (you can see on the photo below the difference).

The wings were embossed with Etched Platinum. I also die cut another piece out of acetate & embossed it then cut out just the wings. These were covered with alcohol ink in a few different colors.

Also added a bit of Stickles to add a bit of glitter- sadly it is really hard to see in the photo.

Let's Make a Honeycomb Piece!

I wanted a legit looking honeycomb & Sizzix has the die for it! I cut out this piece with light cardboard. Painted it with gesso & once that was dry stamped on it with archival ink. Then it was embossed with Distress Glaze in Rusty Hinge.

The Rusty Hinge Stain is translucent so the stamping shows through. It is shiny luscious. The inside of the honeycomb was painted using Seth Apter's ICE. It is also translucent & gel like so it created the perfect honey look!

Here is a close up of how that ICE looks in the honeycomb. The flower was made from card stock using Eileen's Heart Petal die cut then run through an embossing folder & distressed.