enjoy paper '08

have you seen this? it's elise blaha's new website: paper adventure '08, a year-long journaling project. she's posting a new prompt each tuesday and anyone who wants to can play along. oh yeah and did i mention it's totally free?!

seeing as how i have done so well with my little "three beautiful things" project... (which is coming up on six months; volume two will be full at the end of this month!) ...i thought i was ready to take on a slightly more ambitious commitment. and since i have been lurking on elise's cool blog for a while and loving the things she makes, this seemed like a really good fit.

this weekend i made a minibook to hold the pages i'll make throughout the year. there's a great tutorial on the website if you need one, or you could use a pre-made book, or even just your pages in a little box or fancy envelope or a file folder...or...well, anything you like. having made these a time or two, i just kind of winged it. i took an 8.5" x 11" sheet of really thick chipboard that came in some sort of paper packaging, sliced it in half, painted and sealed the edges and then went wild with paper and embellishments. because hey--it's not a paper routine...it's a paper adventure!!!

(patterned paper: stemma, mambi, doodlebug, vintage ledger paper & more of the infamous bengali newspaper (lol!); clipart: anahata katkin; flowers: petaloo; brads: marah johnson, making memories, doodlebug, sei; chipboard: basic grey; transparencies: my mind's eye, heidi swapp; ribbon: heidi swapp, sei, michaels & misc. scraps; other: colorbox inks, heidi swapp jewels, epoxy sticker from michael's dollar spot, sakura glitter glaze pen, american crafts glitter marker, acryllic paint, papier glass finish; bookrings from staples)

(detail of cover in which you can see one of my favorite bits: the wings of the butterfly transparency are bent up & only the center is attached to the layer beneath so he looks like he is just perching there. cool, no?!) :)

now i just need to make my first page! this week's topic was "balance" ...something i have never been particularly great at...so i guess i will be able to think of plenty to say, huh?! :) tomorrow another topic will be posted and i'll make page two. i haven't decided if i will post the pages as i make them or not. i guess i'll have to see how they turn out!

(back of said book in which you can better see the lovely stemma spot-laminated paper (the black flowers are shiny and have a raised lacquered finish on them--yuuuuuuum!) and the little "enjoy paper 08" charm i made with a heidi swapp ghost letter, plus a chipboard heart & some rub-on letters)