More butterflies and journals

Over the last few months I've developed what was a one-off collage in a frame into a range of Artist journal/ sketchbooks... I knew getting the Cinch was going to cause problems!

Here are a few in the latest colours, I work each set in fours so they really are unique...

These are hearts and butterflies, I've also tried blinging a couple with little gems, what do you think?  I need to make some more now as I've just got a spot in a shop in Canterbury, which hopefully will be quite popular... watch this space!

Eac of these contain over 40 pages of mixed artist paper such as watercolour, pastel, cartridge, black and tracing paper. Perfect for mixed media artists who love using more than one medium. Each little section is separated with some gorgeous hand-made paper in coordinating colours. 

I'm also taking orders for these with a name added within the design, how special is that? Check them out on Etsy...

It's a cinch! really...

Having promised myself to scour high and low, internet and shop for a reasonably priced Cinch binder, I eventually found one a few pounds less than most, but with a bargain on coils to go with! So I did it... I ordered it, and it arrived Christmas eve so I didn't get to play with it until a few days ago... such frustration!

In the meantime my Big Bite had arrived, and being as compulsive as I am I had to play straight away...before friends arrived to stay... do you remember those really textural collage canvases I did  a while back? No? Here's a reminder...

I marked out the holes and spent an evening punching holes- what bliss compared to using a rotary leather punch! It is truly easy to use, I highly recommend it, and great for difficult places. My only issue is the depth of gap between the punch and base... by the time I put the canvas board in place I could not see my markings so some were slightly out of place... which, if you're a perfectionist like me, is completely horrible and unacceptable. (Still, I have the Cinch now, so not an issue for book cutting)

I had wanted to make some spiral bound artist journals with the set of canvases, and to make them truly unique I have filled them with a mix of papers, coloured hand-made papers to match the cover, water-colour, pastel, black, cartridge, card and charcoal papers- 4 or 5 of each in these 40 page journals.

Yellow- floral series, 40 mixed artist papers

Here's how they turned out- I'm really happy with them so I'll be putting them on Etsy and Creative Stores soon.

My Book, purple, 40 mixed artist papers journal

My Book, pink, 40 mixed artist papers journal

I still have to put papers in the green, red and blue books, but that won't take long at all. 

From then on I shall be using the Cinch to make the holes- and it also cuts through the canvas boards beautifully, making my life so much easier, hooray, more time to play!

PS. there's still a 15% discount on my Etsy stock if you type in NEWYEARSALE2013 at the checkout, but only until the 15th January, so grab a unique bargain now!