International Art and Soul Challenge 73

Our last challenge of the year is to make anything other than a card. So, a perfect chance to showcase a hand-made gift, tag or piece of home decoration. (Or something else ... so long as its not a card.)

My son's partner loves to travel, so I decided to make her a travel journal.

 I made a box to keep all the bits in too. The front is decorated with Acrylic paper and acrylic paint applied and textured using a rubber tool. The compass was cut using a Tonic die, and both it and the edges of the paper were brightened up with some gilding wax.

And the journal in the box.The journal was cut using a Sizzix/Eileen Hull Wrapped Journal die. I put a layer of Kraftex over some grey board before cutting, then decorated using acrylic paint, my gelly plate, and various stamps and stencils. I added a little gilding was to complete the effect, and made a closure with gold elastic. When the messy bit was done, I covered the inside in some white paper.

I used papers I printed from a Crafter's Companion CDRom to create the pages, although I did make them less saturated, as I wanted a more subtle effect. I printed direct to Ryman Matte double-sided card.

You'll note that I didn't add any details to the pages. That's because I wanted her to be able to add things where she wanted, rather than where I'd stuck something. So, I provided some bits to do that.

 A box containing some tiny envelopes. The post mark stamps are from Marianne, and the envelope die is from Printable Heaven.

A box filled with pouches cut using a Tonic die set, and offcuts of the Crafter's Companion papers.

And finally, some pockets cut using a Sizzix/Tim Holtz die.

 This is my first time using Kraftex. I would have preferred to use some leather or even faux leather or the journal, but I've struggled to get supplies. I know I could buy faux leather by the metre, but then I would have loads of a single colour and I'd like variety. And each piece needs to be about 6 by 13 inches, so most offcuts wouldn't be big enough. I hope the Kraftex gives the journal a robust enough cover, but won't know that for a while!

I do hope you can join us.