Journal Treasury Launch

Hello all, and welcome to a very special post.  I'm delighted to be part of the launch of the Journal Treasury - an e-book containing more than 75 journal projects using Eileen Hull's brilliant journal die.  The book includes detailed, easy-to-understand instructions, tips and techniques for creating your own journal, and fabulous photos of design ideas for journals from artists and crafters around the world... including me!

If you would like to find out more and/or order the Journal Treasury, you can do so by clicking below.   Eventually, it will retail at $16.99 (around £13), but for the duration of August there's a special price offer of 30% off, making it only $11.87 (around £9). So now's the time to buy!

Buy the Eileen Hull Journal Treasury E-Book

It's an affiliate link, so it won't cost you anything extra, but it will give me a little cut of the profits!  You can also catch Eileen in action on Facebook Live today as part of the book launch, and with news of an exciting new Maker Challenge in association with Sizzix.  Check out Eileen's blog for all the details.

I'm very proud that the journal I created for the Journal Treasury is featured on the cover (there it is - right there in the middle!).

It's been a while since we announced that the e-book was on its way.  I promised you at the time that I would share some of what's been going on inside my Nature Journal when we got to the launch.

But I've also been getting busy with the die since I got home, so instead I thought I'd share a couple of quick pictures of my new projects. 

These two are not in the book, but I'll share them in a bit more detail in due course (I do like my close-up detail pictures, as you know!), but for now here are a couple of teaser-tasters...

It really is such a fantastic die - especially if you're someone who enjoys creating handmade books, journals and albums.  It gives you the basic structure, and then it's over to your imagination to travel as far as you want...

... to an autumn watercolour album, perhaps - with Oxide dawn colours and some of the new Tim Holtz dies...















... and plenty of watercolour pages inside ready to capture autumnal words and pictures.













Or perhaps you'd enjoy a journey into the lost and found fragments of a life...

... collected and preserved in a Calico Craft Parts printer's tray - a perfect fit inside the journal cover.








There are so many possibilities.  Even as I write this, I'm itching to get back in the craft room and cut another journal and carry on playing!

The Journal Treasury has oodles more inspiration for you - gathered from around the world of Craftyblogland.   And remember that bargain 30% off for August to celebrate the launch...

Buy the Eileen Hull Journal Treasury E-Book

If you decide to purchase the e-book, you will be sent an email with a link (if you don't get a link please check your Spam box).  It is a large book and it may take a few minutes to download.  Once you open the e-book you can scroll through the pages and if you want to find out more about a project, just click on the Designer's name.  There really are some amazing journals gathered here to enjoy.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I'll be back very soon with some more pictures and how-to details of the latest journals.

The ideas can come from anywhere and at any time. The problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly.
Rolf Smith

Do I dare...

Do I dare show my face at Show Your Face?  I've been watching for a while as some of my favourite crafters share faces of their own creation at Kim Dellow's community link-up, Art It Friday - Show Your Face - there's Kim herself, the wonderful Julie Ann of Magpieheaven is usually there, and Froebelsternchen Susi too, as well as many others.

The idea of Kim's link-up is to share portrait work, to learn, practice, inspire and be inspired. The faces can be of any style or in any medium, but they must be your own work, not created with a stamp or stencil - that's what makes it scary!  I don't know that I'll manage to be a regular, though I know it's regular practice which will help it become less of a scary thing to do, but I'm here to share a face this week.

Regulars will have noticed it's been slightly more colourful round here lately... well, this page started with a full-on blast of colour...  I've seen people having lots of fun with the Dylusions paints, so I was wondering whether I could get a similar blending effect with the Distress Paints.  While I was at it, I decided I should really reach for some of the brighter colours if I wanted to get a Dylusions-style effect.








I'm not exactly sure any more, but I think there's Picked Raspberry involved, Wild Honey, Scattered Straw, Worn Lipstick, some Ripe Persimmon and maybe some Spiced Marmalade.














I spritzed with water and used my fingers to blend and move the paint around.  I really rather liked what I ended up with, but then it sat there in the journal for some weeks not knowing what should happen next.











Finally I decided that, having already leapt quite a long way out of my comfort zone, I should leap a little further and have a play with my newly acquired oil pastels.

And then a little further again... let's try a face with them.  Some of you may remember my little pen and ink doodled faces, and I've doodled faces similar to this in pencil in the margins of scripts for years, but I've never done one on this scale before.  This is a large journal - the pages are 9 x 12 inches.











Once she was there, I added some more familiar touches to try to connect her with things I'm more comfortable with.

So there are some brown stencilled flowers, there's some text stamping...













... and of course some words - stamped in Sepia and clear-embossed...











... and some splatter, naturally.

Then she sat there again for a while, and I would look at her occasionally to see if she wanted anything more.  (You have to look closely, but I promise you the next photo is different from the big one above - an earlier version.)











As I looked, I noticed that the background paint and the white stamping had created a striped top, quite by chance - I hadn't put in any "shoulders" myself at all (just the downward line outlining her neck and one cross stroke to define a clothing neckline) - and that she definitely seemed to be turning her head away from the direction of those shoulders.











I wanted to accentuate the effect, so I got out the oil pastels again and added some more definite shading and lines to help the striped top have more presence, defining the neckline of it a bit.  I shaped her arm reaching out in the opposite direction to where she's looking, and I gave her neck a little more form and substance with some gentle shading.












I also added to the hair (my doodles always have quite a lot of it - wonder why!) to help give the impression of the turned head, a moment of the attention being drawn in another direction.  And (by chance) I think the underlying paint shading on her face helps with that impression of movement.








She does have a disconcerting habit of looking very different in different lights - suddenly she'll burst forth in all that vivid colour, and at other times she's much softer.

I remain unsure whether I don't like the pre-changes version better (check out the equivocal double-negatives in that phrase!!), and I'm still not convinced we're "finished" here... but I think it's time to show my face at Show Your Face and see what you think.

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
Lauren Bacall