"My Island Home" - Nat's Bird and Botany Journal

 

Hello everyone, hope you are all well 😊

This month's theme of "My Island Home" made me ponder what I love about this beautiful country I live in.  I came to the conclusion that my favourite thing about Australia is the nature - specifically the birds and botany. The gorgeous Couture Creations "Sweeping Plains" collection has captured some of this perfectly within the papers for this month, therefore I decided to make a journal using birds and botany of Australia as the theme.

Previously, I have shown how I put together journals using old book covers, so this time I wanted to show some journal embellishing.  I assembled a pile of goodies which included scraps of the Sweeping Plains papers that were off-cuts from journal pages, second-hand book images of Australian plants and birds, the embellishments I coloured in my last blog post and video, and the Sweeping Plains die cut pieces.

I used Sweeping plains papers to begin each of the three signatures in my journal as they have beautiful bird images.  When I folded the pages, the kookaburra image ended up on the back page of the signature.  I wanted one for the front so I cut out this great picture from the #12 (CO727979) paper, backed it with some calico and added some gum leaves and nuts from the Sweeping Plains Die Cut Ephemera.

My favourite die cuts from the collection would have to be the big, brightly coloured birds.  I decided to make these into paperclips simply by using some cardstock and glue to hold the clip on.  These are great additions to journals as embellishments and functional as they can also hold other pieces.

I found some small coloured index cards, which make great journal cards, and embellished these with the Couture Creations - Sunburnt Country "Protea" Stamp and the Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains "Eucalyptus" Mini Stamp.  These had been coloured with brush markers.  I fussy cut a small picture of a kingfisher for the third card.

I found a craft coloured envelope and piece of cardstock to slip into it and wanted to embellish these a little. I stamped the envelope with a text stamp then used a postage stamp die to cut a beautiful Waratah picture from a book page.  I adhered this to the envelope and added one of my colored Native Breeze Wooden Flourishes. For the journal card insert, I tore a piece of the paper I had sprayed with the Distress Oxides "Bundled Sage" and "Gathered Twigs" and added tot his a wattle die cut and the Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains Kookaburra Mini Stamp, both cut from the Oxide sprayed paper.  I added the words "Be still" to finish it off.

This next journal card was cut from the Sweeping Plains #11 paper (CO727978) and it goes so nicely with the inside front cover of my journal as they both have the wattle. I backed it with some paper for a writing spot, then cut a border piece from the other side of the Sweeping Plains paper to make a little tuck spot at the bottom of the page to slip the card into.

Next job was to embellish the cover of the journal.  I wanted to cover the words on the spine of the old book cover and used another border piece to do this with. 

 

For the front I used a gorgeous, colourful picture of parrots cut from the #12 paper (CO727979).  The colours in these birds helped to inspire the colours used within the pages of the journal.  I layered this picture onto some dark greenish/brown hessian that I had frayed the edges of.  I used some of the yellow border piece from the #11 paper to back the journal title onto, and made the title with some alphabet stickers and scrap paper. These were all stuck onto the cover, then three of the coloured Native Breeze Wooden Embellishments were added.

Here is a video of these processes. 

I have added much more to embellish this gorgeous book so make sure to check out the flip-through video below to see all the pages:

This month's collection of papers and other crafty goodies were so inspiring.  I love this colourful journal filled with birds and botany found within "My Island Home".  I cannot wait to get started on my next project - so stay tuned............

Happy crafting and stay safe,
Love Nat xxx  

Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft products on sale that I am using for the month of September are:

Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains Collection papers:

  - 01 (CO727968)

  - 02 (CO727969) 

  - 03 (CO727970)

  - 04 (CO727971)

  - 05 (CO727972) 

  - 06 (CO727973)

  - 07 (CO727974)

  - 08 (CO727975)

  - 09 (CO727976)

  - 10 (CO727977)

  - 11 (CO727978)

  - 12 (CO727979)

Couture Creations - Sweeping Plains Collection:

  - Die-cut Ephemera Set

  - Stamp and Die Set - Eucalyptus

  - Stamp and Die Set - Kookaburra

Couture Creations - Sunburnt Country Collection:

  - Acrylic Stamp - Protea

  - Acrylic Stamp - Waratah Postage Stamp

Ranger Distress Oxide Sprays:

  - Gathered Twigs

  - Bundled Sage

Kaisercraft Wooden Flourish Pack 

  - Native Breeze