Making an album

Recently, I celebrated my two years anniversary with my boyfriend. We usually give each other a gift, and so this year since I starting making hand bound books, I decided to make a photo journal of sorts. I took an old book with a sturdy cover and painted it blue. After that, I used duck tape (fancy one!) on the spine inside and outside the journal to make it sturdier. I got my favorite pictures printed (on my "to do in the future" list: figure out if I can print on photo paper with my printer, and do it!) and got to work! 

I used watercolour paper in the journal, it is thicker than regular paper and has a nice texture. I glued all pictures before I added washi tape around some of them. All rectangle pictures were printed elsewhere but the ones with special frames like the round ones (thank you hipstamatic) I printed at home on regular paper, and I think it looks good!

We went on so many adventures this year, and I had a lot of great pictures! I can't wait for the next adventures!

This project took 2-3 days to complete. I hand bound the journal in an evening, but then painting and letting dry the cover took some time, and when everything was done I added a coat of medium gloss gel to give shine and varnish to the cover, and for added protection.

On agendas and painting

The end of the year is coming fast and soon we'll be in 2014 without realizing it! And I needed an agenda.

I like to buy myself nice ones (that cost at least 20$) because I intend to keep them forever (and when I'll be tired of that, I'll turn them into journals or collage books), except this year I am on a budget (a LOT of projects!) so I took an agenda I can get at my workplace for free. The cover was o.k. but nothing exciting, and I like to have a fun cover since I will carry this book around with me for 365 days! What I did is I printed a booklet Mary Ann (from dispatchfromla ) made for The Artstronauts Club (it is fantastic and you should subscribe!!) and took one the pages I liked and that would fit my cover perfectly. I cut it to size, glued it with a glue stick (the paper I use to print is a not too thin paper but I didn't want to get it all wavy because of medium acrylic...), decorated with washi tape, paint markers, glitter glue, and other things... It is drying as I type this, and I am looking forward to 2014 to use it and personnalise it even more!

My desk is always cluttered like this.

On another subject, did you know that I paint? Well, now you do! My main "subject" is portraits, because I love to draw and paint faces obviously, I think to look at a portrait of someone you know or a stranger, it is always entertaining to imagine what is going through their mind, what is going on in their lives when this portrait was made.

At least a year and a half ago, I made a deal with a creative friend. She would make me  a certain number of journals (that she made from A to Z, with the greatest paper in the world!)  and I would paint for her two portraits. The first I did was one of her best friend, and the other one I made of her. This is it.