Journal cover

Happy Sunday Bloglanders!!

I had a wonderful weekend. One son left for Canada, I'm "babysitting" his cat and the other one is moving to a nearby town. Busy, busy, busy.

And I've made sure that I have some crafting FUN as well. A cover for my journals!!

After seeing a video on YouTube, I decided to do my December Daily in a notebook format this year. BUT, I already have one in progress for my Thank-You-Journal on my desk. Getting a bit all over the show. So I decided to make a cover to keep everything together. I totally LOVE the Christmas Cat fabric!!

Wanna peek inside?

On the left is a pocket made with some more Christmassy fabric and on the right my DD. Not done yet but ready for action.

On the left is the back of my DD  waiting to be decorated and on the right my nearly finished gratitude journal. If you missed out on all that fun, just scroll down to my previous post and read all about it.

And last but by no way least I have a brand new one that will become my summer vacation notebook. Remember, down under it's SUMMER and HOT!!

You will see all of them right here on Play as U GO again. Just keep checking back and all will be revealed.

And a bit of detail:

I've added 2 colourful buttons to the front of my cover - my inspiration came from the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge - Trio-Tastic and I even added 3 bookmarks. The trim and buttons all came from my sewing stash. Totally love seeing and using them all the time.

Wanna make one yourself?

1. To get the size, I stacked 3 journals and folded a piece of copy paper to fit over it.

2. I added about 1 inch to the length of the copy paper and my pattern is made.

3. Zig-zag some stiffing onto the back of iron-on-batting. I made it about half an inch smaller all around and even made a "spine" for my cover as it will become bulky when  my journals fill up. For stiffing I've uses mosaic backing - I'm sure you will get something similar in your local fabric shop but this works very well and I use it in lots of sewing projects.

4. Fabric for my front cover ironed onto the batting.

5. Lining for my inside cover.

6. Pockets for the front and back flaps. I can add 2 more journals here should I need to. 

7. Elastic to keep my journals from falling out.

8. To the front cover I've added the buttons and some more elastic to keep my journals from falling out and my memorabilia safe.

OK ...................................... I forgot to take a pic!! Just sandwich the front and backs together and pipe all around.

DONE.

If you want  more detail ............................. leave me a comment below and I'll gladly answer / give more info.

I totally love it!! Think I'll do some more in different sizes and even a few for very, very special Christmas pressies.

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Have a happy week and please come back to play. Remember to hop over to SimonSaysStamp's Monday Challenge to see the rest of Bloglands Trio-Tastics.

Thanks = Dankie

Good Monday Bloglanders

I hope you are having a marvellous November!! Even though we don't do Thanksgiving down under in Sunny South Africa, I try to do a thank-you-journal every year. It's like my December Daily - a yearly routine. I just LOVE to look back at my stash of journals lined up on my shelve.

Have a look at this one!!! It's still next to my craft desk and one of my all time FAVE mini books.

Let me show you what I made this year:

I'm using this handmade Travellers Notebook and Collect pictures to reflect at my blessings. We are SUPER busy during November at home and at work and I wanted to speed things up a bit. Let's peek inside:

I decorated this page with Gesso, a stencil, die cuts and scraps of paper. I printed 4 Collect pictures on a 6x4 photo, cut them apart and DONE. My aim is to have at least 12 pictures and therefore pages in my journal. Throughout the years I have learned not to do a page a day as it's too overwhelming for me.

And a few more pics:

I'm still trying to use what I have in my stash in my quest to live cleaner and leaner. It's not working but I'm trying!! Except for my pics - I stayed true to my myself in this project and I love how it turned out. I will probably add another picture or two to this post as I still have a few pages to fill up and I also want to add "November 2016 / just "2016" to the front or back covers.

Now you have to excuse me - I'm off to prep my December Daily notebook!!

Thanks for looking at my blog today .................................. please come back to play.

PS. I'll be adding my notebooks to my Project Life album. I love them on a shelf  but I also want to store everything in one place.  Watch this space and I'll show you how.

AND

DANKIE = THANK YOU IN AFRIKAANS

Happy 1st of November!!

Hello Bloglanders

I'm BACK!!! Most probably I won't be blogging as often as I used to but I'll try to get at least one post up every week. It's not that I don't craft - NO!!! I do. I just got tired of taking pics, "talking" to you and not hearing anything back. It's sort of one dimensional!!

I do plan to go towards videos but first I'll have to figure all that out. If any of you know of "how to" videos, PLEASE leave me links in the comments.

Another thing - I'll be using real scraps in my future scrapping projects. No big deal if something from my stash slips in but I'll be focusing on what I've got - my punches, stamps, wrapping paper, brochures, printing and Silhouette. This all is because I want to have less worldly goodies around me.

OK, let me show you what I've done last week:

First up is my planner page:

I just love this "quote". I got it on Pinterest and then found out that it was done by one of my FAVE's Amy Tangerine. (you can get the link from my Pinterest board here) The whole page evolved around it. The stamped labels are from Kelly Purkey (another FAVE), the diecuts and washi from my stash. Underneath the quote is a bit of wrapping paper.

As I love this planner page so much, I'm submitting it to the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge - ANYTHING GOES. Hop over there to see what the rest of Blogland did.

And a close-up:

And my Project Life Page for week 40 and 41:

Since my son's accident I haven't had a lot of time to spend on my Project Life pages but I still want to capture what we did. So, I'm mostly using Collect cards to keep track. On the bottom right, I've used a picture of my Sweet peas as a filler card. I love pictures more than shop bought stuff so, if you have it, why not use it??

I'm still using my 6x12 alum and on this picture I have 2 weeks side by side. Love all the pictures and the info. On the picture next to the Sweat peas I'm waiting on my son trying on shirts in Woolworth's. He still can't fasten the small buttons so I had to go with to do that for him.  A year from now, he would be fully recovered but I'll still have this pic to remind me to be thankful that he survived the accident and has the opportunity to fully recover.

Next up - some sewing:

My mom died less than a year ago and while she was sick a carer looked after her. Mum made me promise to make something for Gerda's baby's christening. SO, "baby" Gerda got his little white christening suit.

I made it from white, raw silk. The blue tartan bow is just to add some "boyishness" to the outfit. While at it I want to wish them well for the christening this coming weekend.

Last but not lease, a 6x12 layout as well as a Project Life page. Both my boys are 28 years old. One of their classmates recently got married. Pieter was the bestman and Wernich the MC. It is very special as today it's 4 months since Wernich's accident. We never in our wildest dreams would have thought that he would be MC at a friend's wedding after spending a whole month in ICU. Here they are - both my boys:

I used Letter Glow to add the background picture (a photo of roses in my garden) and text.  Printed. Done. Here you can see the 6x12 Layout on the left and the PL page on the right.

More detail:

That's it!! I'm off to get that video sorted as I'm sure you would have loved to see how all this came together. Watch this space and all will be revealed.

Thanks for looking at my blog. Have a wonderful day and a thankful November.