Journal Page Swap

In January, I took part in a journal page swap hosted by Mandy from Australia. There were 20 of us in the swap in the end and we had till the end of May to post our pages to all the participants.

The rules were these:

  - to create 20 journal pages, all the same size 5x8

  - pages did not have to be identical

  - whatever media or style

As Mandy put it: "...the whole idea of this swap is to have a piece of that person's ART. Their style, their colours, their way." When Mandy first came up with this swap, I signed up for it immediately. I didn't care (that) much about spreading my art, but it was a wonderful opportunity to get art from people I follow on YouTube, U-Stream or on Twitter.

I decided on one layout in three different colour combinations. And this is what I created:

I thought I had an easy page...  I like to work in steps, so I worked on all the pages at once, one step after another. Here are the steps:

1) Ink a sheet of deli paper with distress inks, spray with water, let it dry and then stamp on it with stamps of your choice.

2) Tear the deli paper to pieces and glue the pieces down on a piece of cardstock.

3) Paint the cardstock with acrylics.

4) No background is complete without drippage...

5) Prepare a sheet of paper to use for your focal word - spray it, stamp it, just create a random background. 

6) Cut letters out of the paper.

7) Print the quote and cut it into strips.

8) Edge the strips of paper and the letters with distress ink.

9) Glue the quote and the letters down.

10) Add shading with PITT pens (if you must).

11) Then you will probably find out that the page needs something more and decide to cut out an arrow.

12) Repeat each step 19 times.  

And then the ordeal of addressing all the envelopes and taking them all to the post office...

It was so exciting when the envelopes from all around the world started to arrive. These are the pages I received:

Eileen - Dana - Myrta

Susan - Brenda - Annette

Mandy - Jenny - Lorri

Fiona - Marie - Tanya

Myrta - Charley - Fran - Joyce

Binding:

There was a huge discussion on how each person is going to bind their pages. I created mine with a vision of how I wanted them to be bound. I wanted to use my Bind-it-All – I first considered punching holes into the pages, but then I cut strips of paper to use as hinges which I glued to the back of each page.  Then I could punch holes into the hinges without having to worry about destroying the pages.

the cover

the "hinges"

RIP Kimber

Sadly, Kimber, one of our friends from the swap passed away.  She didn't post her pages but some of us decided to do a page in her honour, to have something to show that she was in the swap

This is my page for Kimber: