Small Hand-bound Shabby Chic Vintage Journal

Small Hand-bound Shabby Chic Vintage Journal

I probably should have put a bird on the cage....but it flew away!  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I am showing you a small Journal I made last summer but never got around to posting on my blog.  I was going mad (or more mad than usual!) not having anything to show.......previous post gives the reason for my distinct lack of crafting.  So, I was churning through my photos and came across this little journal I made. I think when I started my blog I decided to show only projects from my first blog day onwards and not really considered previous projects which is silly really.  Ok, my pre-blog projects wont be quite as good as my projects now as I only really started crafting in April of last year.  And as I haven't been proper crafting for even a year yet, technically I'm still a beginner......so go easy on me, lol.
Anywhoodles, I think I did enough waffling in my last post that it can carry over for this one so without further ado (and waffly waffles from me) here is the wee journal I hand.  It sort of reminds me of a Victorian Steel Conservatory for some reason!

So this is it.  The individual pages inside are just blank unlined pages which I find handier than lined as I like to doodle in my journals. They are A6 in size so its a lovely wee Journal that can slip easily into a bag or even your coat pocket if you fancy being arty farty and going to the park, sitting next to a water fountain and writing poetry in your little journal......all the while trying to look very deep in thought whilst really trying to fish out the money from the fountain without getting caught!!!!  I saw you!! lol  

I think this is the only project I have EVER made that hasnt got all my own handmade flowers on it.  There is only one of mine on here which is one of my very early ones....the scrunched one in the corner, lol

I used wee red and white flowers on green wire but kept them on the wires and wrapped it around the bars of the Tim Holtz Caged Bird die to make it look like the flowers and stems had enveloped the cage after years of growing.  I think this is what reminds me of an old Victorian conservatory.  The old pitted metal with vines wrapped around the metal structure.  I added little green vine leaves also.  I put a wide organza trim along the bottom and spine side of the book and then dyed some lace with a homemade glimmer mist I came up with just to make it extra shabby chic looking.  I didnt want it to be a crisp and clean cream coloured lace. I wanted it to appear old and discoloured and worn.

I embossed the die cut cage in Antique gold embossing powder but I wanted it to look aged and pitted almost.  So after adding 2 layers of the gold embossing powder, when it was still hot and melty I sprinkled in some lava black embossing powder just by pinching some between my fingers and sprinkling it here and there in the warm gold embossing liquid and heat set it also.  It gave it the effect of pitting and wear and tear in the metal gold coloured cage.  I love how it turned out.  I them added some wee charms off the cage.

I made a bookmark in the spine of the Journal with ribbon and added a ruby red Crystal to the end of it.

The book was covered in a K&Co paper which was originally cream coloured but I again sprayed it with my homemade glimmer mist and used distress ink also.  I heat set it and tried to pool the glimmer mist in sections to make it look a bit old and battered. I added 3 wee pearls to the top right of the book just to balance the cover out a bit more.  A small wee touch but I think it worked well.

And thats it folks.  Another wee journal I made from scratch.  They are extremely easy to make.  I promise I will redo my Bookbinding tutorial videos and get them up asap so you can make your own if you fancy a go.

Toodles Noodles.....Lee aka Crafty Loops xx

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