Bee-ing Happy Creating a Journal for a Friend

Bee-ing Happy Creating a Journal for a Friend

Recently I attended a workshop with Cheryl Boglioli Gel Press Ambassador where we used the Gel Plate and a Sizzix Travellers Journal Die to create a fun journal. I wanted to make another journal having purchased the die to share this method and idea with a friend who I know loves bees as I had just brought a magazine that included a Bee die. I thought this would be perfect to share for our Die Cut Theme this month.

I worked with honey tones of yellow and orange paint along with white and black to decorate the covers of my journal by layering paint on my gel plate and taking prints and starting with the darker tones working to the light tones, subtracting the paint of various layers from the plate using stencils etc. including a hexagonal pattern to represent honeycomb.  My first layer was black.

I kept layering on color with my Gel Press Plate and Stencils until I was happy with the look of my inside and outside covers.  Any excess paint I had on my brayer I painted over a page in my journal with.

Once I was happy with the look of my journal covers I constructed my journal gluing the two halves of my die cut journal together.

I created signatures using bee patterned paper in a PAPER COLLECTION and Watercolor Papers.

   

To finish my cover I die cut 3 bees out of glossy black card stock and stamped out the sentiment BEE Happy on a white piece of paper in black ink and then proceeded to cut this out before coloring it yellow with a Paint Pen.  Using the same Paint Pen I outlined some of my honeycomb/hexagonal stenciling.

Now it's just a matter of fastening the signatures in place inside my journal and adding a band to keep my journal held shut working with elasticized cord weaving it through the allocated holes.  This style of binding I love as it requires no stitching.

I will hopefully have the binding completed and some pages decorated to share with you next time.

Danie xx