A Journal for an Artiste

Hello everyone!  I am so excited about this project - for two reasons - it's a first time I've ever made a journal and secondly, I'm guest blogging today (Wednesday at A Place To Be Happy featuring this project.  I am so grateful to Leslie for letting me having a moment at her busy busy blog.  She makes some really fabulous projects and I can only hope her regular viewers are impressed!


With no further adieu, here it is!  This project for a dear friend whose daughter is turning nineteen in a few weeks.  I put together a journal for Iesha.  She's a pretty talented young woman who likes to write poetry and she also has a fantastic voice.  This girl can sing! 


I used Cinch book boards to make this journal.  It's a 8 1/2 x 11 book.  I covered it with pink paper and then Announce paper by 7gypsies using gloss Modge Podge for paper.   Iesha's name is spelled out using chipboard letters that I've had in my stash.  I used hot glue to adhere the letters because I imagine this journal is going to get a bit of wear and tear and I wanted to make sure they would stay on the cover.  The girl is cut from the Cricut Forever Young cartridge and the flowers and white flourish are also from my stash.  

The inside of the front panel are the lyrics from the song "Dance with my Father" by Luther Vandross.  This is Iesha's favorite song so I wanted to include it.    

The next page is made up of card stock covered by a clear cardstock with a flourish design.  I stitched them together with my Sew Easy and then added a frame at the top of the page for her father to include a small picture of her, again stitched to adhere it to the page.  I found the frame in the Make the Cut gallery and was able to find some scraps that were big enough to use to cut it out.  I printed the sentiment "Portrait of the Artist as as a Young Woman" on my computer and just cut it out in rectangles. 

The next side of the frame page is something my friend wrote for his daughter.  He also dabbles in poetry, and I thought it was important that he include something of himself in this gift to her.  I added a few peace sign stickers that I picked up at Michael's recently.

I wanted to include dividers for the journal and I wanted them to be useful so I decided to include pockets for Iesha to stash notes in.  I created the pocket by welding a wave and a rectangle image from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge with a treble clef I found on the Quarter Note cartridge.  I used the treble clef's shadow image for welding, and cut out the regular image and in pink and placed it on top.  I then stitched the pocket to the page and included three paper clips with cute sentiments on them.  They are made by 7Gypsies and I love them.  

The other side of the pocket divider is simple - just the word Create cut from the Home Decor cartridge, and another Jolee flower from my stash.

The next pocket page divider uses the same wave and rectangle but this one is welded to the shadow of a music note, also found on the Quarter Note cartridge.   I placed a popsicle stick in the page so you could actually see the pocket.  The paper clips are again made by 7gypsies.

Serendipity was cut from the Graphically Speaking cartridge.  This is one of my all time favorite cartridges.  I almost always find something on that cartridge to use on a project this big.

This is the last pocket page divider.   The microphone is also from Quarter Note.  I welded the shadow to the pocket and cut the microphone out of white paper and then applied adhesive and Martha Stewart glitter.  I think it looks pretty cute.  One thing I forgot to mention is that I did include tabs on the side of the dividers - that way she can easily flip to the different section of the journal.   There is more stitching around the pocket, and of course, more 7gypsies paper clips.

The other side of the pocket page is again something simple - "Explore" is cut from the Home Decor cartridge and accented by several different flowers from my stash.

This is the inside of the back panel.  I used the same 7gypsies paper, but the other side has some color to it.  I  added one of my favorite stamps from the Stampin' Up Word Play set.  It says, "Go Confidently In The Direction of your Dreams".  Not bad inspiration for an aspiring artiste, don't you think?  I added a piece of ribbon covered with a button from my stash to cover up the adhesive.  This ribbon wraps around the button on the front panel to keep the journal closed.

The back of the journal uses the same paper from the first side, again with gloss Modge Podge.  I cut the "journey" sentiment from Graphically Speaking out of chipboard three times, adhered them together with Modge Podge, and then adhered the same word cut in pink.  I blinged it up a bit with some black gems.  The mats are cut from Storybook and the flourish is from Recollections.  This one was several weeks in the making and I really hope she likes it.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this project.  It was several weeks in the making and I am thrilled with the way it turned out.