When you're a child and there was a Bank Holiday - which means a day off school - it always seemed to pour with rain, so you were stuck indoors and bored. I've been largely indoors today, but haven't succumbed to boredom. Instead I've been sewing a cover for my Ann Wood inspired stitchbook. The 100 day challenge Ann hosts is nearing an end. I finished the 19th page this morning, and in five days time that'll be the final page completed. Then it's simply a matter of assembling the book.
I've already decided the 20th page will feature insects. Bugs! Not always my favourite creatures, but I bought a fun die cut with various beetle shapes on it, and made printing stamps of them.
This was something I only learnt how to do the other day, YouTube yet again teaching me a new technique. Hobbycraft sells A4 sized pieces of craft foam with adhesive backing. You use your Sissix machine, a die cut and a piece of this foam to create a printing stamp. Just lay your die cut on top of the foam, feed it through the machine then peel off the adhesive backing and stick the foam shape on a bit of thick cardboard. It makes a sturdy stamp to use on paper, or print on fabric and embroider over the inked area. Clever, huh?
I'm sure these beetles will also feature in junk journals that I'm making and decorating. That's another new area of interest sparked by YouTube. I've been making lots of gell prints and painty papers lately - here's another pile - oh, and another -
I made them, thinking I'd turn them into the actual pages of journals, when I began watching videos where the covers and pages of journals were being made from ... well, from junk! Rubbish. Trash. Plastic food packaging, luridly coloured takeaway flyers, all kinds of very unpromising looking tat that would previously have been lobbed into the recycling bin. Honestly, it's made me look at the contents of my kitchen cupboards with entirely new eyes. I've already made one junk journal and have been amassing the contents for a second. I'm enjoying the challenge of finding a second use for what otherwise would have been thrown out, and to me it makes sense to do this. After all, when you buy something - a box of cereal bars for instance - you're not only paying for the cereal bars, but for the box too, though we always overlook the packaging, as if the manufacturers are providing that for free. They're not! It's cost you money. So make the most of the box and give it a second life as a handmade book cover or a tag or the base for an ATC.
I'll post photos of my junk journals another time, and get back to my reading now. I'm over halfway through S.J. Parris' 'Sacrilege' and it's a gripping story. There's absolutely nothing worth watching on TV tonight, so I might even finish it today.
Hope you had a great Easter, whether your days involved church going or simply chocolate egg eating. Have fun, and bye for now.
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