Circle Journal Blast off!

Hello!

A while ago I was invited to take part in a small Circle Journal group on FaceBook. This,bizarrely, is my first ever swap here in England,lol. We could choose our theme and size and any rules we wanted to encourage,and initially I chose Altered Birds for my theme,as I love these and it gives quite a wide margin on what can be done. Unfortunately the making of the journal took place exactly when I took over Make The Day Special,so I got off to a veeeeery slow start,plus at that time,my eldest daughter was having a tough time on chemo,so I had to put a halt on a few extra curricular activities. When I tried to make the covers,I was struggling so much to get inspiration that in the end I thought  'You know what,life's too short to be doing something you don't enjoy-I am doing this bad boy on something I really love and makes me happy! Something I am always inspired to craft on;Halloween. (and Autumn,if one of the ladies doesn't celebrate Halloween).' Thus,the new improved CJ was born! I lobbed 3 inches off the covers to make them 6x6" and gathered some bits and bobs together for my theme; 

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I made a flower using my favorite technique that I used for the Shabby Chic Swap,with a Halloween bottle top that I got in a Swap last year for the center,and I FINALLY tucked in to my stupidly hard to get over here Ravenhead Manor paper and embellishments that was so kindly sent to me in a RAK (You know who you are,and I still love you madly for that ;-) ) Slowly a front cover emerged. I got the sewing machine down and covered the covers in old black silk (there is a LOT of machine work on this journal! lol It is more fabric than paper )

The inside cover and next page:

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My double page effort: (I wanted a sort of creepy vintage childhood diary feel to these-pinned insects,moths in jars,old hairclips,precious personal ephemera.)

 I tried to replicate the hair clip from the photo,but with an old feel. Like it had been in there for a while-precious,documented,kept.

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And the sign in pages at the back:

 And the back cover:

It has now been sent off to catch up with the others :-) I cant wait to get it back in a year and see what everyone has done :-D

Aaaaaannd I'm back!

Whew! What a lot to happen over the last few months. Moving is never easy or straightforward but we have now reached a sort of equilibrium and routine around the remaining boxes.

What have you missed make wise? Quite a bit really! I can't seem to go a single day without skulking up to my craft room to have a tinker,swiftly followed by the children :-/ And I can't seem to pass up the challenge of a swap,so I usually sign up for far too many,and then I was chosen to be a part of a design team with a weekly blog post. It is a wonder we haven't all starved and the house lays dusty and forgotten while I remain a hive of activity up in my eerie! I feel a photo montage moment is called for,starting with the annoying glitch way back with the Halloween bits I had been feverishly working on. So,without further ado and blabbering on,here is what I have been up to over the last few months....

HALLOWEEN

Yup,its THOSE hands! These were for a stickpin swap...

The tags for the bags....

One of the stickpins (I should have used longer pins-these babies just kept on growing down the shaft!)

The whole package :-) I hope customs liked them,hehehe

A stamped tag swap

AUTUMN  MAIL-ART SWAP

Front....
using Autumn Nights Glimmer Mist,the leaves are from a PTI set,the moon is a print from Retro Art Cafe and the old lady on a goose stamp is a random from a grab bag-I would love to know what set she is from!

And backs...
Using TCW Birch mask,Tim H Falling Leaves and feathers from a Stampendous set.

CHRISTMAS TAGS

A couple of Christmas tags for various family members...

These tags are made using the cutest Molly Blooms stamp EVER!

POSTCARD SWAP...

MINI ALBUM SWAP
These are my pages for a chunky mini album page swap(we had to do 9 pages)....I do not want to cut another snowflake for at least 8 months! ;-)

I made my first ever junk journal for a swap too (woah,that thing took OVER!) I will do a separate post for that,as there are loads of pages!
And then I was chosen to be a part of a Design Team over at Make The Day Special
which was a dream come true! I had been shopping there for a loooong time,saw the DT call and entered. And in a strange twist of fate,Emily the owner,asked me to stay on until the shop moved ownership in March,which I gladly accepted,and now..... I am the new owner! Whoop whoop! :-D 
So thats me all up to date. Big changes,lots of happy dances and great new beginnings :-)