Round One

It's been a few years since we did a round robin journal project in our Paper Traders group.  They are a lot of fun but it can be heartbreaking when a book goes missing half way around the world  =(

After much demand, and setting some very specific rules and guidelines, we finally decided to give it another go.  We have two rounds going, each with five artists participating.  My journal theme is "Trees"...

front cover

ideas page (written on leaves inside the envelope)

sign-in page

The following spread was made by creating a background using a method loosely based on Jill Geraghty-Groves' "decaying background" technique as shown in the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of Somerset Studio:

first spread - left side

first spread - right side

I made this second spread completely from scratch...  the background was painted by scraping acrylic paints over the paper with a credit card and then sponging inks and paints over that using various stencils and punchinella (sequin scrap).  The circles were added by dipping my bottle lids in leftover paint and stamping them on the page.  The leaves took me DAYS AND DAYS to cut out!  I used japanese washi paper and cut all the tiny sections of leaves out by hand then layered them onto my tree branches.  Then I dabbed glue around haphazardly and sprinkled with several colors of Martha Stewart's vintage leaf glitter (love this stuff!).  I think it turned out awesome and looks sooooo much better in person than in this scan (you'll just have to trust me on that  =)

second spread - left side

second spread - right side