Creative Craft Journal - Binder

Hi, today I want to share what I did to a binder I got from Simple Stories.  At first I had no idea what I would use this for, then it hit me, I already have an art journal for painting, so I thought I would make this binder into a craft journal.  It would be fun to print out photos of some of my favorite projects and keep the how to steps along with the photos and I just might add some blank papers for when I get an idea, which means I'm going to need a bigger purse so I can carry this binder with me.

I decided to color the front cover of the binder with my blue hawaii and claret StazOn ink pads as you can see in the photo below.

I needed to give the cover some dimension so I took a piece from an old dictionary and inked it with Tim Holtz distress mini ink pads in mowed lawn and vintage photo. I had some velum paper with hearts and decided to tear up a piece.  I used some AdTech permanent glue runner to glue the papers on the cover as shown below.

I had this chipboard tag that I had on hand, I was bending it over and over and well it peeled in half, now that it was thinner, I just crumbled it up and inked it up using the StazOn ink pads in blue hawaii and claret.                              .

 I took a canvas circle and decided to so some stamping on it, just had to find the right stamp. I had this small set of stamps that reads"Color Your World" and it came with a second stamp of flowers and hearts,  so I figured this was perfect for my binder.

 Here is the canvas circle, stamped and ready for more color to be added, before adding it to the colored chipboard.

 

 Here is the canvas circle - I used some of the Tattered Angels glimmer mists in Purple pansy, viva pink, and electric blue, then I used the Smooch in pool to color in the words, and used the pumpkin, green apple and taffy to color the  flowers and the stems, using Ranger's liquid pearls in peacock to add the centers of the flowers and the pink to color in the tiny hearts.  I used Prima's text stamp on the chipboard.

It needs something else, so I took another old dictionary page and stamped on a bird and a heart from Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Collection - Stampers Anonymous. I used the black soot and fired brick distress inks and glued it to the chipboard, then I used some frost white ink on the paper the chipboard and the canvas circle, added the clip and this part was done. now it was time to figure out what to do next.

Since this is supposed to be a binder where I would keep my craft projects and ideas I thought it would be a good idea to add some inspirational quotes, so I took a page from my art journal, cut it up to size, used the mist sprays to add some color to the white page, then I went over my stash of stamps and found some clear stamps and use a few that I found perfect for this project.

The velum page I used already had some hearts on it, but I took my heart stamp and added a few more, just to add a bit of contrast to the paper.

Now that I had all the pieces together it was time to add them all to the binder.  The chipboard will only be clipped to the binder, I don't think I want to glue this piece permanently right now, the clip might come in handy later on, to hold clippings or something to use in my binder. But the quotes I glued onto the binder.

After placing the chipboard and the quotes, I noticed that the right side of the binder needed something so I decided to take my letter stamps and add the words My Art to the velum paper, then I took a piece of the dictionary page and glued it on the cover, and finally I added another stamp image, I used a flower stamp from my Stampendous April shower flowers clear stamps.

Here is the binder's cover, I just had to add something else to the side of the velum paper

Binder's cover with the last stamping done, I added the word "smile" and "my art" along with a Flower stamp that reads Happy

I had so much fun creating this craft binder as I went along, I had an idea that it needed to inspire me to be creative, to smile and be happy doing what I Love to do.

Materials used:

Simple Stories binder

From Frog Dog Studio's April kit 

• Stampendous mini clipboard canvas (large size)
• iZink pigment ink bottle - gold
• Canvas mini's (1) from Canvas Corp
• StazOn Midi ink pads - claret and blue hawaii

Clear stamps from:

• Stampendous - april shower flowers
• Tim Holtz - visual artistry collection, stampers anonymous
• Prima - text 
• Ki - inspirational quotes
• Studio G - color your world 
• Inkadinkado - fun with dots and alphabet

Ranger

Liquid pearls - lavender lace, pink and peacock

Distress ink - fired brick 

Distress ink mini - mowed lawn, black soot, vintage photo

Memento - tuxedo black

Tattered Angels Glitter Mists - purple pansy, viva pink, electric blue

Color Box - frost white

The Paper Studio - velum heart paper

Smooch - sweet melon, pumpkin, pool, green apple, taffy

Studio G - clear stamping block