A Gardener's Journal, a Reader's Journal and a Teacher's Gift

If you have 3 square feet or more of dirt in New Jersey you gotta plant a tomato bush. Really, it's like a law. There is nothing better than a home grown joisey tomatah. Right about now they are nearing the end of the season and that's just one small reason to grieve the end of summer. If you need any more reasons to sob over the end of summer I'll hook you up with my husband, the teacher. I'm feeling terribly sad for the end of his two and a half months of vacation. You probably feel my pain.

While my hubbie probably could journal about his summer vacation I had the gardener in mind when I altered this $1 notebook from Michael's. I got a pile of them so be prepared to be viewing a few more of them.

For $1 you've got a great base for a customized journal and they make great gifts. So I'm starting my Christmas presents early, but I expect to get distracted as usual and be frantic as the holiday nears.

For this journal as well as the other two I made today I used MFT sketches so that I could get a few more done on my way to the 100 Sketches. I've only got about seventy to go now. Hey, it could happen.

The stamp set is MFT "Can Ya Dig It?". This is a great stamp for paper piecing, one of my favorite techniques. The papers are from My Mind's Eye and are perfect for the Stampin' for the Weekend Challenge to use pink, orange and teal. To start I took a piece of Stampin' Up Kraft Card stock and punched one edge with the Stampin' Up spiral punch so that I could cover up the original cover page. Then I cut the pieces of the designer paper for the MFT layout and punched the diagonal edge of the bottom piece with the Martha Stewart floral lace border punch and added a piece of orange ribbon below the punched edge. I stamped the gardener image on white card stock with Memento Tuxedo Black, paper pieced the dress and hat and colored the rest of the image with copics and sponged the edges with Memento Angel Pink. The flower pot was stamped with Stampin' Up Only Orange and is mounted on dimensionals. The flowers on the hat are Sparkle Gems Small Blossoms. I added a variety of ribbons down the rings of the notebook.

For the next notebook I used MFT sketch #77 and the "I Heart Books" stamp set. This time the papers are from Basic Grey, June Bug. The colors for The Pink Elephant Challenge #31 are red, yellow, black and white which are all in the June Bug papers. Nowadays even the public schools make the kids wear uniforms. But when I was a kid only the private schools made you wear a uniform and guess who went to a private school. The uniforms were always a plaid and always made you look dorky, as if I needed any help in that department. You would think that being reminded of those horrid uniforms would make me want to burn this paper but for some reason I find it adorable. So I used it for the girl's pants, the rest of the image is colored with copics and the edges were sponged with Memento Dandelion. The card stock and red mat were cut with nestibilites. The scallops of the mat were pierced and the edges of the red mat on the cross bar were also pierced. I used the plaid for the squares on the side bar. The mats had the corners punched with a Stampin' Up corner punch. The bookworm was mounted on dimensionals and the edges of this oval were also sponged with the Dandelion ink. The initials are stickers that came with the Basic Grey paper pack. To finish it off ribbons in the challenge colors were tied on binder rings.

The last journal was made with the MFT "Back to School" stamp set using sketch #15. The paper is Basic Grey Two Scoops with a piece of DCWV green card stock. It was used to paper piece the jacket and skirt. The rest of the images were colored with copics. The flowers on the bottom left are the element stickers that were included with the paper package. The apples were covered with glaze. Ribbons that matched the paper were tied on the binder rings. This journal will make a great teacher's gift.

While I've still got your attention, I have to ask you to click on the pink ribbon.

Thanks for stopping and thanks for clicking.