Jill's Journal

Today's Ways to Use it Challenge on SCS was just the inspiration I needed to start and finish a project that's been on my mind for a while. My sister's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I had bought a simple journal at Target to decorate for her as part of her birthday gift. So, when I saw that the challenge was to alter a notebook or journal, I dug out the blank journal and sat down to work on it. My sister is a blog subscriber, but I don't think she actually reads any of my posts, so I don't think I have to worry about her seeing the gift in advance.

Here's the finished product. I used this amazing red velvet paper with black polka dots. You just have to touch it! The letters for her name are cut from the Cuttlebug Red Tag Sale alphabet, then covered with black craft-ish ink (from a Halloween stamp package from Target's dollar spot . . .) and dipped in Iridescent Ice embossing powder. The dot for the "i" is made from some velvet Prima flowers attached together with a rhinestone brad. On a totally unrelated to stamping aside, did you know that the little dot over the "i" is called a "tittle"? Just a little something I learned from the curriculum writing project I'm working on now. . . .

The other embellishment I used here is ribbon. There's a piece of ruched silver ribbon along the left side of the journal to hide the seam where the paper is adhered to the journal. I used lots of ribbons to accent the journal. I tied red and black velvet ribbon pieces around each individual spiral of the notebook's binding.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for another altered item for my weekly bloggers challenge group!

Materials Used:

Velvet paper (not sure who made it--no label on it); Cuttlebug Red Tag Sale alphabet; velvet flowers (Prima); rhinestone brad (Making Memories); velvet ribbon (Michaels); silver ruched ribbon (Michaels); SU! Iridescent Ice embossing powder