Altered Tags

I have been doing a lot of sketching in my altered journal lately, which means of course I've been doing my altering elsewhere.

Altered Tags -Dream, Live, Love- KaoticKrafter

Altered Tag -Be Yourself- KaoticKrafter

What have you created lately?

August 2012 Altered Journal - Pt. 2

In case you missed part 1, you can find it here.

We ended the last post on August 16th, so here we go with August 17th!

August 17th

Not a really great scan, or page for that matter. I had a cool idea that I sketched out on a post-it note and stuck that into my journal. 

August 18th

Random bits of paper added to the journal. 

August 19th

I wasn't sure what to do, so I grabbed one of my sets of markers and made a sample sheet of what they would look like. Practical and pretty.

This was one of the pictures from the actual book. I kept it because I thought it was pretty cool. The picture on the right is a photo of "the worlds largest photo- the Kodak Colorama, 18 feet high by 60 feet wide- as shown in the Grand Central Terminal, New York City, New York." This is from 1950.

August 20th

A fun, simple page that I did while in a hotel room. The photo of the flowers was taken by Emma.

August 21st

I started not feeling well on our trip back home. I was in bed by 7:30pm and never even thought about working in my journal until the next day. 

August 22nd

This was another class night, but I only had one person attend. I demonstrated how to stitch around the edges of the page, and I made a fun little tag. 

August 22nd

Once home from my class, I played around with Crayola Studio on the computer and made the heart. 

August 23rd

The "Awesome" was some leftovers from a wood block I made. The block had a paper boy on it with the quote, "Don't forget to be awesome."

August 24th

I had sort of been commissioned to make an altered journal, which I was struggling with. I glued in a few bits that I had made for the journal that I ended up not liking. A reminder that creativity isn't always there when I want it. Best to use it while I can!

August 25th

I don't remember why, but I decided to make Emma a dress from a t-shirt that was a bit to snug for me. In order to guarantee that she would wear it, I sewed a horse on it. I know, pretty sneaky. This journal entry is some of the left over fabric I used to make the dress. 

Oh, Emma LOVES the dress :0)

August 26th

Jared and I decided last minute (with some encouragement from Gramma) to go on a little trip, just the two of us. So we did. This journal entry is some receipts from some of the places we stopped on our trip up, as well as a little snippet of the page I created in the journal I am working on for Emma. 

August 27th

I spent the entire day being creative at the beautiful Whiteley Creek B&B while Jared was out mountain biking. Here are a few of the leftovers as well as some notes and receipts from the day. 

August 28th

Our last day on our mini vacation. More receipts and lots of writing!

August 29th

Just some random doodles and whatnot's. I love drawing trees. 

August 30th

I jazzed up an old composition book for Emma and put some of the stray bits into my journal. Probably should actually write more stories in the composition journal for her to illustrate...

August 31st

More random bits. The "LOVE" is a piece of graph paper stamped a while ago that was just living in my stash. A random paper key, also from my stash, and a little watercolor sticker. The post-it note was written just before bed one night and included into my journal because I actually remember to do what I had written down. 

Well, that is the end of the book. I had a few pages left in my journal, so I just wrote what my overall impression of the past month was as well as a few things that happened throughout the month that I wanted to remember (like Emma finally realizing that she can read-and reading everything in site). 

I am currently working on Septembers altered journal, which has been a little tougher for some reason. I will start scanning pages and start posting them soon. 

Well, I hope that you enjoyed seeing my daily journal entries, and I hope that this inspires you to give it a try.

Have a creative day!

August 2012 Altered Journal - Pt. 1

I had planned to take photos of my August Altered Journal on a bright sunny day, but our camera decided to die.

It really sucks not having a camera.

So, I finally decided to just scan each page, which works, but most of the pages are fuzzy. Better then nothing.

So, here they are! There are 44 pictures so I have decided to make this a two part post. Here are the pictures from the cover to August 16th.

Cover 

The beads say August, and just some other fun beads. There are other fun random bits sticking up from the edge. 

Monthly Spread

I made a calendar of inchies. The hearts are paper clip hearts made by Emma. 

August 1st

This was the first day that I taught an altered journal class. The fish print and the face on the left side are from one of the ladies in my class. 

August 1st

Clearance tags from some markers that I had bought. 

August 2nd

Collage house

August 3rd

Art is Everywhere- this was a spread that I had made in one of my larger journals. These were bits of leftovers. 

August 4th

This was a great day- we had finally gotten some rain. 

August 5th

Working on a sewing project, so I glued some bits of the fabric to this spread.

August 6th

The sewing project didn't work out exactly how I wanted, so I made some different plans.

August 6th

Emma made me some fun finger print art.

August 7th

We headed down to Iowa City so the hubby could ride one of the mountain bike trails. He wasn't sure the best route to take, so I used some tracing paper over his make to plan our a route for him while he drove. I thought the image looked cool, so I added it to my journal.

August 8th

My second Altered Journal Class. I was showing them that anything can be used as a stamp. The blue "dots" were made using the foam shelf liners glued to a piece of wood. 

August 9th

The farm that I work at a few days a week had been vandalized. Someone tried to set fire to the barn that housed the chickens. Crafting is my therapy.

August 10th

I didn't remember my journal until I was already snuggled into bed. I was too lazy to get up and make an entry.

August 11th

The tiny little picture is a reproduction of a watercolor I did of Emma. 

August 12th

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." Mahatma Gandhi

A reproduction of the paper person I made for the woman I work for. 

Emma likes the dress design game on Barbie.com. I like the dresses she makes. So, I plopped one into my journal and drew a person into the dress. 

August 14th

A bunch of randomness. 

August 15th

Packaging from some stationary inspire me to make a house scene with some trees in front.

August 15th

The houses.

August 16th

This page was made while I was in a hotel in Minneapolis, MN. The cloud picture is from a trip to the park and the picture of me and Emma taken on the 13th. 

August 16th

The paper person is a reproduction of a wood block I made. She is saying, "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you are right." All the photos are framed with electrical tape. 

Well, I think that is plenty now. If you can't wait till the next post to see the rest, you can see them on my flicker site.

I hope that you have a fun and creative day!

p.s. Here is a link to Part 2.

My Favorites

I am still loving altered journals a year from when I made my first one. For me that is sort of a record (hence the kaotickrafter).

Anyway, I have decided do a post with links to some of my favorite altered journal posts/sites/supplies, etc.

These are in no specific order, mostly just pulled from my Pintrest Altered Journal Board as well as other places.

Blazer Designs-This website is full of lots of creative fun stuff, but specifically the Art Journal Every Day series. 

This page was done by a 15yo. 

PhizzyChick- I first fell in love with altered journals when I saw one made by PhizzyChick over on Craftsters. Lots of fantastic inspiration from this lady!

Made by PhizzyChick

Simply Me- This is a site that I pinned one of her posts and forgot about it. Looking through the site now, I really want to hurry up and finish this post so I can go make a crafty mess!

Simply Me

Ponderings- More than just journals, but all great inspiration!

Ponderings

I have just been invited to a tea party so I must run. I hope that this list provides you with a wonderful starting point for your altered/art journal adventures!

Edited to add more sites to check out:
Traci Bunkers

A Plethora of Watercolors and An Altered Puzzle

Ever since Emma and I watched Kira's watercolor video tutorial, Emma was been really enjoying painting with watercolors.  She asks every morning if we can do more watercolors, and who am I to say no?

At first Emma insisted that I send the watercolor paper through the printer so should could paint a printed image (mainly horses from Horseland). 

Eventually I refused (using the excuse that the paper was getting too small and wouldn't go through the printer) so she started drawing her own pictures.

So much better!

And that isn't the end of it. She was working on some smaller -maybe 2"x2"- pictures almost the entire day, but I don't have pictures of those yet. I will add that to tomorrows to-do list.

On my side of the craft table, I also played around with watercolors today but my main goal today was to make some items to sell at The Exchange (blank altered journals mostly). Art, apparently, had other plans. Instead of gluing and painting pages in some altered journals, I made this:

My first altered puzzle. Technically, I don't think it's an altered puzzle because it started out as a blank puzzle to be crafted on anyway (a gift a while ago from Gramma). This particular puzzle was one that I had attempted to do something on, but it didn't work out and the puzzle got pushed aside. I discovered the puzzle while I was cleaning and organizing the creative zone yesterday. Last night, I put a coat of paint on it.

So today, instead of being responsible and knocking out a few altered journals, I spent ALL DAY making this puzzle. Totally blows my mind how quickly the day can go by when Emma and I are sitting at the craft table working away while listening to an audio book.

Oh well. Here are some close ups of the puzzle.

Little paper butterfly colored with my one copic marker. 

"Art is the background of life"

Small wire thing that kinda looks like a person

Itty Bitty long neck all glittered up. 

I really had no intentions of making this today, and even less idea of what I was going to do with it. The pieces just created themselves and I was along for the journey.

What did you create today?