Everyday Moments

Hello all!  July?  July!?!  I'm frankly bewildered.  I don't know where time is going at the moment.  But July 1st is what the calendar says, so it must be time for a fresh challenge over at Mini Album Makers.  As most of you will know by now, I haven't got very many everyday moments to myself at present.  I'm in another busy work patch along with (unusually for me) weekends full of social arrangements (I try to avoid them when I've got a lot on, but weddings and 40th birthdays are pretty immoveable!), but I did manage to squeeze in an altered art journal cover for this month's inspiration piece.

We welcome all handmade books and albums over at Mini Album Makers, as well as altered books and book covers.  Do check out the amazing inspiration from my team-mates - you'll be glad you did! - but before you go, let me quickly share a couple of the details of this 7.5 x 7.5 inch journal.

It started as pretty uninspiring plain greyboard.  It's good and sturdy, though (from Paperchase), so I knew it would hold up well to some paint layers.












I decided to use the DecoArt Chalky Finish Paint and Crackle Medium.  The undercoat is done in Relic, a cool, dark grey.

Over that I applied a good coat of the Crackle Medium with a plastic palette knife.  Here it is still wet on the back cover...











... and having dried over on the front cover.  You can use a heat tool for this layer - a good thing when you're under time pressure, as I seem to be constantly these days!













Next, I grabbed the Everlasting - plain white - to do my top coat, applied with a brush and left it to crackle.  This really does have to be left alone to do its thing for the best results.












I used my much-loved Memory Box Windswept stamp with Olive Archival ink to do some background stamping.  And I also blended some of the Olive onto the lower part of the cover.











It's better to use Archival, as the book will be handled quite often.  This journal is not full yet, so it will still be in use regularly.

That also means I need to keep things fairly two-dimensional on the cover, so that I can still open the book out flat to work in.

I grabbed four coffee stirrers, snipped off the curved ends...










... and dyed them with Vintage Photo Distress Stain, before starting to play with them as trellis, with some Tim Holtz Garden Greens Thinlits in the role of the vines clambering over them.













I cut the leafy branches from some distressed green cardstock from one of Tim's stashes.  It gives it just a little extra twist of interest - as does the spatter which, of course, got added later.














The addition of the little girl was a no-brainer once that trellis was there.

I love how she's just perched on the coffee-stirrer frame, in a little secret garden of her own.  She has been lightly tinted with a wash of paint to match what's to come.













The words are from Tim Holtz's Friendship Script Thinlits set.  I painted the cardstock with PaperArtsy Fresco paint in Cheesecake before cutting them.













And to match that soft, pale, creamy yellow, I added some paper flowers with just a drybrush load of the same paint highlighting them...














... and the Philosophy Tag with some more of the Cheesecake filling in the debossed letters, and a touch of fine twine tucked in the top.















I didn't pay much attention to the ring binding - it just got what it happened to get.















So in some places, it's creamily Cheesecakey, and in others, it received a hit of the Olive Archival.













I'm pretty happy with my coffee-stirrer trellis and my clambering vines, both 2D and 3D.

And the Cheesecake splatters over the crackle which finish the whole thing off make me happy too.













Over on the back cover is the best place to see those, where the garden is just allowed to grow wild.








Thanks so much for stopping by today, and taking a little rest in my little country garden... it's the everyday moments which count!

There's lots more inspiration from my amazing team-mates over at Mini Album Makers, and we always love seeing your handmade books, journals and albums.



Our sponsors this month are Lindy's Stamp Gang, so do come and play along to be in with a chance to win the $25 gift voucher.  We hope to see you there some time this month.  And in the meantime, have a lovely July!

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(and craft supplies, Marcus, craft supplies...)