The FLOURISH and the ROSE GIFT BOOK

I know you probably are so tired of hearing me say this...

 

BUT...

 

 

I HAD SO VERY MUCH FUN.... making this book... 

 

I think I am a frustrated little kid that loves to cut paper

Glue it...

Paint paper,

Cut it up...

Glue it...

and cut pictures and clip art up...

and GLUE IT...

Make pretty ribbons,

and tie them into bows... 

but I LOVE IT ALL... 

 

Do YOU???? 

 

See...  there are some out there that are holding their hands up screaming...

I DO.... I DO... 

 

I knew it.... well I had fun doing this...

 

This week-end I had my basket classes for the Kudzu basket making... what fun we all had... baskets were made by all and some were very unique while others were out of sight with different colors, of light and darker vines... some with bark, others stripped off...  so very pretty... all were outstanding... I love teaching and being part of this type of thing... it was glorious... 

 

So today I had the opportunity to create this little book in the peace and quiet of my studio... 

it was very rewarding and I had lots of fun...

 

So here it is...

 

 

 

This is the finished book... 

I will show you each section and also all the details etc... 

I love the colors... and the designs of each section... 

Don't forget this is a GIFT BOOK.... 

 

 

To start off with, my sweet husband had received a couple of books in the mail... this is the piece of corrugated that came in the books!!! 

Waste not, want not...  a good thing to practice...

I peeled off  the outside paper... to show all the beauty...

and then folded it... unevenly, so that the front was shorter than the back... 

 

I made this piece of paper this morning...

It is sort of a new technique... spun off of Pamellia Johnsons tehcnique... 

 

I will tell you a combo of what the two are...

Pamellia took the textured paste and put it onto paper,

used embossing powder and a heat gun to finish it ....

 

I did the same with black paper, textured paste, and purple embossing powder..

 

BUT then... 

I took my Versa Mark pad and ran it lightly over the textured paste that had been embossed with the purple... and added some Steam....  

 

then I did it again... 

this time adding Lettuce...  

 

then I did it again...

adding milled lavender... 

 

WOW... what fun... what colors... 

 

 

it got a little thick.. what an exciting feature...  the colors slipped into the area that had no texture paste... it just turned into a wonderful piece of paper... I really didn't want to cut it up... but hey... new rule... 

 

USE IT...

or you might not find it again.. .
LOL... 

TRUTH... sorry to say..  

With all this stenciling... I am also putting this into the
Simon Says Monday Challenge
which is all about stenciling... 
 

 

  

 

Hels Sheridan's challenge today...

Sunday Stamper... is to use a ROSE... 

so here are two...

 

 

And I snuck in a few little ones too...  can you see the little purple one... 

I used ribbon to cut the flower out... and then some stamen in the center...  love it... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used Tim's Tattered floral strip and used the leaves here...

I used a sort of new method on these... 

I colored them with ink on the work sheet, but then I rolled them up until they dried...  then I sort of unrolled them... leaving a lot of the paper curly, etc.. 

 

Can you see the embossing... love it.. 

 

 

 

 

finished cover.... 

 

Below are a few more closeups...  just love this cover... couldn't stop taking shots at different angles...  LOL... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay... now this is a GIFT BOOK... so what is the gift...

Well at Crafting with Dragonflies, the challenge is to make a gift card...  oh... not me...  I dont' give gift cards...  a gift check... yes...

so that is why I created this .... 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a Sizzix Die...  oh so very elegant... all by it's self...

Lovely and ELEGANT.. needs nothing else.. but I did put a little bow around its neck... it wanted to be dressed for the occasion...

 

I also made it into a pocket... by putting double sided tape down the two sides and across the bottom... thus a nice envelope... 

 

 

 

Then I made this to slip inside... and there is a arrow at the top... it is a little hard to see... up by my name...

it is purple... 

it says PULL UP...

 

A little tangling... too...

When you pull it out.. a folded check is there as the gift...

YES... GREAT GIFT... 

 

 

You know that I don't stop with one thing in a book.... don't you???

 

So onward...

 

I made a piece of paper... 8.5 x 11... using tim's method of coloring paper... ink onto my worksheet and then dragging the paper thru it...  oh what fun.. .then I add some other color if I desire it... this time I cut the paper in half... 

 

and made two envelope... no flaps... they just fit into the booklet cover... perfectly... wow... I am getting good with this measuring thingy... 

 

I use to draw a lot of digital images and sell them.. this is the wreath...  I printed it, colored it, cut it out and glued it onto the pocket... a pretty K and Co butterfly... 

 

 

 

And on the other pocket front, I put a die cut/embossed paper by Cuttlebug and then put this cute little bird on there... it was stamped...

 but when???

by WHO???? 

BUT I did watercolor it... 

and then cut it out... 

 

When you look at the edges of the book... this is what you see...  so now I will show you all the goodies... 

 

 

The inside flap... 

A little doily and inside the doily... which is used at a pocket here... 

 

Is another little fold up paper... I have the sizzix die for that too... but it has no name on it...  ????  but it is a square and has rounded half circles on the four edges... love it... 

 

 

I put a flower on one of the half circles... 

 

This is it all open... and as you can see I have foil butterfly stickers all over it... 

 

This is how it looks when it is all folded up...  I am going to use my stickers up too... I have tons of them... and I really love some of them... like these...

 

Also this little folder is only about 2x2 inches... and it can also hold a bill... or a check also...  but I have a little butterfly inside for right now... 

 

 

 

In between the two pockets is this little paper, with the bird in it... just a little pretty... nothing more or less... just because...

 

The next pocket is this...

that I showed up above... 

 

 

Inside each pocket, I have a tag... of course... 

Each tag was also a lot of fun... naturally it was... 

 

this one I put a doily on the top and then some Pickled Raspberry inked paper... with a little bit of purples...  but love the PR...

 

A Swirl, and Textured paste queen Anne's lace flower... and some Chit chat... 

 

The SWIRL...  over at

A VINTAGE  JOURNEY

the challenge is a SWIRL... 

Tim style swirl... 

 

 

 

That is the first tag... 

 

Then the second tag... 

 

Okay...  this one is a little bit different... 

 

The same textured paste with the same stencil... a little bit different color background...  but then a Just rite stamp... and the word LOVE stamped and under it ... YOURSELF...

 

You can't love, truly love someone else, with out loving and knowing your self FIRST...

 

Love yourself...

Love others will full intent... 

How very BEAUTIFUL... 

 

 

 

 

 

FINISHED

 

 

Now all I have to do, is to find a box to mail it in... LOL.. that will be the hardest part of the whole project...

 

But then again... the Post office has these great free boxes... that this will most likely fit into with extra space...  LOVE IT... 

 

Okay...

 

So first project of the week... 

three Challenges... 

A Vintage Journey

Sunday Stampers...

Crafting with Dragonflies... 

Simon Says Monday challenge 

 

Have a great week.. .and please check back here tomorrow for more challenges...

and Please dont' forget...

 

On THURSDAY...

I will be the GUEST DESIGNER over at

FRILLY AND FUNKIE...

hope you will take a look at what I have created for this one...

 

WOW is all I am going to say... 

 

thanks for stopping by today for a look see and a visit...

Love, Light and Peace...Bonnie 

 

I wanted to share with you all what I have done with some of my JUICY   Zendalas.... they are all very special to me and I wanted to preserve the memories of each and every one of them... so what better way than a journal I was working on...  so here are the pages...  all 40 of them... ( I am on dial up... so this is a labor of love that I have uploaded all these pages...  it has taken me all week to do this... so I hope you enjoy them...  )  

 The Cover of this particular journal...  I took a tangle that I had done, and took it into Adobe Photo and distorted it... and made a couple of book marks out of it... and this one went on the front of the journal...  I really like the original the best... but it does give a meaning of things to come with tangles...  

All of the papers that made up this journal are made from white card stock... each page I have painted with all kinds of things... one of my very favorite things to do is to get out my Twinkling H20s and paint... I love it... so when you have a stack that you know you will NEVER be able to use all of these pretty papers... what do you do with them???? You cut them in half and create a journal... LOVE IT.... of course you have an unpainted page... and that is great... MORE PAINTING... more fun and allow your thoughts to roam to other things...  sprays, stencils, ink pads... oh there is no end to all that can be done with a piece of card stock...  so I have fun...  and I hope you enjoy this journey into one of my journals...  I always am adding more things to each page... as a journal is never really totally complete... but this one is almost...  well sort of, kind of, done...    LOL... 

 On the inside of cover...  
Some Tim Holtz tape... and more paper that I have painted...  and a tag... I love making tags, and I love using them in journals too... this one has some fun stamps... and also some of my digital flowers...  also in the background a lot of stenciling... and stamping with some white inks...  lots of glimmer to this tag, as it was sprayed with Perfect Pearls misters... 

 The pictures on the right are the right hand side of the book... and on the left... the left side of the book...  

That way you can see how I have blended some of the pages to match...  and others are contrasting ...  

Here is a fun zendala...  I know that some of you will remember that I had just started to tangle in June... so I am a little new to this particular type of doodling...  but I love it...  a skeleton leaf...  and some words... and a flower... 

 This page got a little wild... I had this really fun opening thingy... and wanted to savor the memory of it... and so into the journal it went...  

The side words...  
Embrace imperfection and the courage to laugh and live through it...  YES!!!!  Enjoy every day of the year... no matter what comes your way...  

 And then it opens...  wow... what fun is that...  a little French theme - ing... 

 Some of the pages the color just didn't come out right... this is one of them... this page is purple...  and some blues...  no red at all... oooops... better have the camera looked at...  

 

I love the way that these two pages look... (I wish I was able to show you the journal like this...  side by side... sometimes this works... and most of the time not... LOL... anyway...  a fun two pages...  )  Do you remember doing this zendala???  It was one of my first ones...  

I also love to do tea bag folding... so you will see medallions off and on and in my work...  The flower on the right page was done about two years ago... and I found it a couple of weeks ago when cleaning out some papers...  so in it went...  reminding me that I have been having doodling fun for years... 

I use to do a lot of 6x6  journals with a large group of friends... and we would swap the pages...  the theme for this was angles... and I wanted a WILD  angel that loved flowers...  so this was mine...  

Magical possibility that is genuine...  

 A page of fun flowers from some of my digital Pretties by Bonnie collections...  and also a very profound zendala for me...  

SERIOUS  SUPPORT for the earth mother... we need  to clean up our act ... and live cleaner.. . 

 Just BE YOURSELF...  

A tag with a fun stencil...  and then some flowers painted with white in the background...  

Somebody once asked me how I thought of all the things to do on a page... 

I let it happen...  that is all.. I do what I desire... and also where I want to... it is MY JOURNAL... a place to be free and allow things to happen any which way...  sometimes they don't turn out... but that is okay too... 

 On the page across for Just Be yourself... is  this...  

Life's a party... invite yourself...   

How true is that in your experience... ????  

Sometimes I forget to have fun... and have to remind myself to let down and enjoy... that is why I say it all the time... it is for me too...  

 I love this bright and pretty page...  yesterday I canned some okra...  our plants are still producing way more okra than we can eat or sell... so canning is one way that we love... I pickle them...  oh my... how delicious on a cold winters night to have a burger with a pickled okra pod... they are delicious...  

 CREATE....  with all your energy...    

The charm is from a class I taught last month... on alcohol inks... and the charm is a memory from that class...  

Daisies... my favorite flower... and I love to draw them, color them... and also cut they out...  this page is a glimmer page... the gold is so delicate... and the page is actually an olive green paint... it is a favorite page...  

Love this tangle anyway...  

 I think this was a zendala from a couple of weeks ago... anyway... when I finished the page, I posted it on my blog... later on I was showing my hubby the page.....and also the writing on the tag... and he put the tag into the pocket and was amazed that the daisy matched... so was I ...  I hadn't planned it that way at all... and it matches as if I had drawn it to match...  

Oh my goodness... what luck.. . 

 

 Two on a page...  both fun...  and some stamping and words...  

Can you tell I love to use words in my art... 

ARTFUL LIFE EVERYDAY  

so true... 

 This was truly the saying of the week for me...  oh wow.. it kept on having so very much meaning for me...  

 A couple more zen dalas...  and some paper I love... with some flowers attached...  

SPRINKLE SENTIMENTAL THOUGHTS...  


up at the top... Let your light shine!!!!  

 Choose your own adventure... who ever said everything had to be in one direction...  I love upside down things... gives you a chance to see other things upside down... (when you turn the book to read it... )  

 I loved this tall plant... and it had to go on and on...  a little more tangling around it...  

TRAVEL INSPIRATION...  

 A little of this and that... right down to a wooden flower... and also some Pretties by Bonnie digital daisies...  

I love the daisies and words in the zendala...  Live in LOVE...   

Do what you love ... 
Love what you do...  

 This pocket I had so very much fun with...  You know when you sharpen your watercolor pencils... what do you do with the shavings.... of course you throw them away... well on this day, I added a little water to the shavings and created this paper that the pocket is made out of...  I love the Monet look to it.. . so I added some little faeries to guard it... and put a few tags into the pocket...  

On the side... some baby wipe flowers...  Love making these...  

I use to save all my baby wipes that I would use to clean up with... but I have to confess... I threw out a lot of them... I was not using them as fast as I was making them... so I picker thru the pile... and saved about 100... and threw the rest away...  

I really am trying to do a deep cleaning in my studio... and it is working... it is looking better to me...  


EMBARK     ON     A     SOULFUL     
ADVENTURE      EVERYDAY     OF       LIVING ....  

 More little faeries on this page... but two little boys...  and a little girl...  

The metal work was left over from making some metal boxes... I never know what is going to be good or throw aways... so I keep it all.... 

 A fun pocket...  
Take a piece of paper... and find the middle...  (use a ruler from corner to corner... the center will be where the line cross each other... )  

Then punch the edges... I used a 5x5 piece of paper for this one...  

Fold all the corners into the center and then half way out... you have this pretty little semi pocket...  so very pretty and delicate...  

Another zendala... and I think Erin spoke of licorice candy her Grandmother had... here is it...  LOL.. I remember it... but I wouldn't ever eat it.. ??? Weird huh... and I loved licorice too... 

 What do you do when you get new stencils... you USE THEM...  

New dandelion ones... I did quite a few of them...  used pearl dabbers here...  

Along with  a stand up faerie girl... and a layered black eye susan... 

 Another fun zen dala...  love the colors of this page in real life...  it was a masked paper and this was the best part...can't really remember the other half???  not the same at all.  


Discover delight in yourself...  

 A page for my Dad as a cancer victim...  

Stay warm dad... he was always cold... so I made the pages warm for him... 

 The other half of the page for my Dad...  
Along with a baby wipe flower... he loved gladiolas.... 

Happiness if having people you love around you...  

I love the dragonfly on this page... I drew it and then tangled it...  love the colors too... all earth colors...  

It is to match the zen dala with the corn...  

 a yellow poppy, a couple of butterflies... and a fun zendala...  


Amazing friends... I really have some really amazing friends... and they are all over the world...  

 I really had fun with this zendala... and when finished it was added to this journal... and then I added the other flowers to keep the ones on the zendala company...  LOL... the butterfly had to join in too.. 

 This happens to be one of my favorite tags... as i love the colors... and I love the flowers... they are pretties by Bonnie digital flowers... and they are so much fun to add to journal pages...  DREAM....   
And down at the bottom...  

EXPRESS YOU !!! 

 A friend sent this to me...  and it was fun to play with...  I made it very tiny as you can see... only 3x3 and so I had to squeeze a lot of things into the spaces...  I took a silver pen and tangled some leaves.. and then a stencil to do more leaves...  

This page is purple...  

 a tag, some flowers and fun painting... more will get added to this page as time moves onward...  

Together forever... 

 These two pages are tangled pages... really had a lot of fun doing these pages...  not the best.. but a LOT OF FUN!!!  

I think that is more important than the way it looks... don't you??? 

 The other half... 

 Sometimes left over things get added to my journal pages, as I can't throw them out...  like these butterflies... they were for a challenge and I didn't like them... so they went into this magic bin... and sometimes they get used...  but the other day I cleaned it out... and they got added to this page.. . 

The wreath and flower are Pretties by Bonnie ...  

I ADORE LIVING...  

 Another zendala...  

and then some background tangling... and then another butterfly and an iris flower...  

Time to QUESTION  Secrets... 

 Oh the end of the journal... a little zendala that I made myself...  copada was the tangle in the challenge... and I went wild...  colors traveling inward... and leaves and pods going outward... 

Running Energy of LIFE...  

 The back cover of the journal...  DAISIES... my favorite flower...  












So this journal is being posted today so that it can be considered JUICY for the Just Add Water, Silly   challenge on Artist Play Room...as the theme is juicy... I think I have enough juicy pages and colors to enter this challenge... . 

I hope that each and everyone of you have a GREAT week-end... and that maybe this week I will be able to enter earlier...  LOL... I just wanted to share this journal with you all...  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit... and wish I could do the same...  someday maybe I will be able too...  Thanks again for all your love...  

Love, Light and Peace....Bonnie