Pocket Scrapbooking - Blank Journal Card pfffjazzled (new word - made that up!)

Pocket Scrapbooking with Blank Journal Cards

I know it kind of goes against the whole grain of the pocket scrapbooking ethos, to decorate your own journal cards. It kind of is putting the work back into something which is designed to take some of the work out of scrapbooking for those like myself who have zilch time. However I must confess to feeling excited when I saw that Blank Journal cards were available. In my last pocket project you saw I altered a ready-made card from the colours of it's theme to suit my spread. This time I have been able to totally make my own creation for a journal card and as a little mini project in itself just making the card was quite fun!

Blank Journal Cards from Becky Higgins Project Life.

Miss Crafter's journal and pencil case in the grass.

I started this journey in the grass outside my son's piano lesson where I have to wait for 45 mins and hence there is time to craft and no excuse not to. I bought along my pens and journal and some blank journal cards to decorate. This was my first experiement and imagine my dissapointment when I discovered my mini mister was missing from my pencil case! How was I going to wet the distress marker marks and get a lovely Tim Holtz effect? The school drinking fountain of course! The other mums may have thought I was nuts but who cares.

Wetting journal card distress ink with school fountain.

Using a Tim Holtz, Ranger stencil to add a layer of distress paint.

This stencil by Tim Holtz is called Schoolhouse and it's a good flexible one because it has alphabet and numbers.

Using the Scotties Pink heat gun to dry my stencilled paint.

Add ink to a Mini Mister using an eyedropper.

Couture Creations finger dauber adding distress ink.

Using another Tim Holtz stencil with the ink sprayed from a mister.

This stencil from Tim Holtz is called Dot Fade.

Finishing touches. Couture Creations stamps and Archival Ink.

Pocket Scrapbooking - One Mum's First Attempt by Paula

Hi Everyone!This is my first attempt at pocket scapbooking. As a mum with a baby and a newbie to scrapbooking I wanted to see how easy and fast the pocket scrapbooking could be...but I also wanted to try out some of my new goodies so I thought I'd keep it simple but add a few embellishments and details. See below for step by step instructions on how I did the few bits and pieces of embellishing that I did. 

Choosing photos

Laying out all patterned cards

Selecting from plain cards to balance 

The basic spread with no fancy stuff yet

First I will tell you about my basic process of getting started. I managed to get my baby asleep in the cot (a minor miracle I tell you!) Great a little bit of time to myself to scrap but I had to work fast because I knew she'd wake! No time for a lot of thought and organisation but that's what's great about pocket scrapbooking. I randomly selected one of the pockets then slotted in four photos along the top and bottom looking for a general theme of 'new baby' but also that the colours and moods of the photos related.

I laid out one of each kind of vertical journal card that would fit in to the remaining four smaller pockets through the centre of my layout then made sure I was left with four that toned together, matched the sentiment of the photos and had two patterned, two plainer cards. Once I had made the decision that was the hard part done the rest was gravy, getting to play with the Cuttlebug, Couture Creations dies and stamps and a few bits of flair.

Once I had the basic arrangement sorted I looked for ways to add something. You totally don't have  to but I  like ...totally couldn't resist. I used the Couture Creations Scallop Circle nesting dies to cut shapes from the journaling cards themselves as I realized this was the best way to get colour matches for the palette of colours I was using. Other card would be more tricky to 

tone in.

 In the next four steps I had some fun with stamping the diecut shapes using Couture Creations stamps, Doily Collection and Ranger Archival Ink in coffee. I felt the brown would tone in with the beige shades in the We R Memory Keepers journaling cards. (I was using the  set of cards called Captured. ) I stamped directly on the journal card then taped the cut out over top of the stamped image. 

Finally I added a few more embellishments in the form of heart shaped sugardots from Prima Anna Marie and Speech Bubble wood embellishments  from Studio Callico. And voila, not only my first pocket scrapbook page but my first scrapbook page with any kind of flair. Easy peasy pudding and pie! Pocket Scrapbooking you have a new devotee. (and if you're wondering...the baby only woke once! Yay!)