Dreamer Mini Travel Journal with Deb Riddell

Hello, it’s Deb here today to share with you a little travel journal that I made with Southern Ridge Trading Company’s Film Strip Section Frame, Cedar Trees, Friends Of Nature and Get Muddy Buddy chipboard embellishments and some recycled manila file folders.

My hubby is retiring later this year and we are planning to hit the road and explore our wonderful country Canada so I thought I’d make some journals to record our adventures.  I’ve a few step out photos on how I made it, hope you will enjoy seeing them!

I started out with a couple of recycled manila file folders and the chipboard embellishments that I had chosen for the cover of my mini journal.

I based the construction of the file folder journal on a video I found on YouTube (click here to view the tutorial by The Paper Addiction), adjusting the measurements on mine to accommodate the size of the Film Strip Section Frame.  The edges of the all the pages were inked with Walnut Stain Distress ink.

The front of the journal was covered with a vintage map of British Columbia I found online and I reinforced the spine of the journal with a piece of Tim Holtz Voyage Design tape.

The tag from the Get Muddy Buddy chipboard set was painted with Brushed Pewter and Silver Metallic acrylic paints and the ‘Be a dreamer’ sentiment stamped onto tissue paper.  The tissue paper stamped sentiment was then adhered to the front of the painted tag with Distress Matte Collage medium.

The small and medium sized Cedar Trees were sealed with the same collage medium and then coloured with multiple colours of green and brown Distress Crayons, adding and subtracting the colours with my finger and a baby wipe until I was happy with them.

Apologies as I seem to have forgotten to take in progress pictures of my next steps!  I embossed the Film Strip Section Frame with Mercury Rising embossing powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies and painted the eagle from the Friends Of Nature set with black acrylic paint and then sealed it with DecoArt Gloss varnish.

The prepared chipboard embellishments were then arranged on the journal cover.  The embossed Film Strip Section Frame was centered on the front and the two Cedar Trees positioned inside the frame.  The medium sized cedar tree fits perfectly inside the film strip frame, love when things like that happen!  I popped the small cedar tree up on some fun foam for a bit of dimension.  The Get Muddy Buddy tag was adhered to the lower right corner of the frame and the eagle from the Friends of Nature set adhered to the top left.  A piece of jute was threaded through the back cover of the mini journal for a closure.

Love the tag tuck spots that are incorporated into this mini journal design, I made tags from some file folder off cuts, cut the pull tabs with my WeRMemoryKeepers envelope board punch and added words and phrases from Tim Holtz’s Occasions Small Talk Stickers.

I’ve just started to embellish the inside of the journal but here a few pictures of what I’ve done so far.  Most of the paper used to mat the inside are digital papers from Ephemera’s Vintage Garden.

I stamped Emerald Creek Craft Supplies Large Oak Tree stamp onto some coffee stained muslin to cover this page, think I will be doing that again!

I will go into more detail on the products and techniques that I used on the inside of the journal on my blog, so pop on over if you are interested in learning more.

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Film Strip Section Frame

- Cedar Trees

- Friends Of Nature

- Get Muddy Buddy

Other Supplies Used:

- Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink: Distress Ink, Distress Crayons, Distress Matte Collage Medium, and Distress Archival Ink

- Tim Holtz/Advantus: Voyage Design Tape, Quotations Metallic Stickers, and Occasions Small Talk Stickers

- Tim Holtz for Sizzix: Globe die and Tiny Tabs and Tags die

- We R Memory Keepers: Envelope Punch Board

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Mercury Rising Embossing Powder and Large Oak Tree stamp

- Simon Says Stamp: BE 3x4 Clear Stamp set

- Ephemeras Vintage Garden - Digital Papers

Thanks so much for stopping by today and hope that I’ve given you some ideas on how you can combine multiple chipboard pieces from different Southern Ridge Trading Company sets onto your projects, it’s fun to put them all together to see what you can create.  Have a great weekend everyone and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo

Life's An Adventure Canvas with Deb Riddell

Hello and thank you for stopping by, it’s Deb here with you today.  I’d like to share with you a canvas I made for Creativation 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona that was displayed in Southern Ridge’s trade show booth in January.

I wanted to share my love of nature and the outdoors so used Southern Ridge’s Spruce Tree Cluster, Plump Spruce Tree, Adventure Word, Small Bird Mix and Friends Of Nature chipboard.  I don’t have any step out photos I’m afraid as I was making several projects at the same time when I made it in December but can share some close up photos with you and describe my process.  Hope you will enjoy seeing them!

I started out with a 6” x 8” flat artists canvas and primed it with gesso.  Stenciling came next with Ranger texture paste through several of Tim Holtz’s layering stencils, you can catch a glimpse of Tracks, Chevrons, Linen and Dot Fade in the picture below.

The canvas was then coloured with multiple washes of Distress stains in various shades of blue and once it had dried more stenciling was added through the mini Industrial Layering stencil with Old Paper Distress paint and some second generation stamping was done here and there with Tim Holtz’s Tree Line stamp and Ground Espresso Distress Archival ink.

The edges of the canvas were coloured with Ground Espresso Distress crayon and blended with my finger.

The Spruce Tree Cluster and Plump Spruce Tree chipboard pieces were coloured with multiple shades of green Distress Spray stains plus a bit of Picket Fence Distress spray stain to tone down the colour a bit.  They were adhered to the canvas with wet adhesive.

Three birds from the Small Bird Mix were coloured with Pitch Black alcohol ink and adhered to the top of the canvas.

The Adventure Word was painted with black acrylic paint and then heat embossed with multiple layers of clear embossing powder.   The word was mounted onto small pieces of black fun foam and adhered along the bottom edge of the canvas.

And finally, the grizzly bear from the Friends Of Nature set was embossed with Weathered Wood embossing powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies that I tinted slightly with some Ginger alcohol ink to tone down the white accents in the powder.  The bear was also mounted onto black fun foam and positioned on top of the Adventure Word.

As a final step, the back of the canvas was covered with a piece of scrapbook paper from my stash and I die cut a Small Easel die for displaying the finished canvas.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my Life’s An Adventure canvas, I love how it turned out and was thrilled to bits to have it displayed in Southern Ridge’s booth at Creativation, thank you for the opportunity Karen!

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Spruce Tree Cluster

- Plump Spruce Tree

- Adventure Word

- Small Bird Mix

- Friends Of Nature

Other Supplies Used:

- Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink: Distress Ink, Distress spray stain, Distress crayons, Distress paint, Matte Texture paste and Alcohol ink

- Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous: Layering Stencils (Tracks, Chevron, Dot Fade, Linen, Mini Industrial) and Tree Line stamps

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Weathered Wood embossing powder

- DecoArt: Americana Acrylic paint

- Miscellaneous: black fun foam and wet adhesive

Thanks again for stopping by today and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo