hand made journal ~ from a cereal box

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

I recently returned from a retreat in New York. I took this hand made journal with me, and wrote and drew and added photos to it, during the retreat.

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

Yes, it's made from cereal box cardboard.

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

I did a spread  for each day, wrote in it during class, and painted in watercolors (my Daniel Smith watercolors, of course!)  in it in the evenings. It was a very rewarding exercise, having an 10 page journal, specifically for the retreat.

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail Cereal Box Journal ~ by Jane LaFazio

I'll be offering an online class in January, on how to make Cereal Box Journals. It will be filled with lots of ways to make the concept your own. I'll keep you posted!

I'm using my Jane LaFazio  FULL watercolor kit, from Daniel Smith Fine Artist Materials, to sketch and watercolor in my journal. (There is a basic kit and a travel kit too!)

From my sketchbook ~ the moon and the stars ~ and a tutorial!

Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

I was inspired by this month's Sketchbook Challenge theme of Moon & Stars, to create this page.

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

And here's how I created the page:

cut up squares of collage paper

collage them, mosaic style, on your page
(I glued two of my sketchbook pages together, to make it a heavier weight paper)

Use matte medium or Mixed Media Adhesive to glue them down

make sure they well adhered and flat

OOPS!!

cover the page and let it dry completely

draw your image in pencil first

Use a sharpie to create a heavy outline

outline the whole drawing and erase the pencil

Use diluted gesso and paint the areas you want to cover

Daniel Smith Gesso, of course.

I left the tree unpainted.

paint in the shapes

paint the moon shiny gold!

in progress

I diluted the paint with water, to make sure you could see the collage underneath

in progress

in progress

in progress

letter stamps

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

 detail of Moon and the Stars ~ from my sketchbook ~ by Jane LaFazio

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Grateful! tutorial

grateful tags ~ by Jane LaFazio

In America, Thanksgiving is coming up. I thought a meaningful activity for a Thanksgiving dinner would be to have each person write what they are grateful for on tags, and hang them in a tree outside or a branch inside. I made these as a gift for some friends of ours, who usually have 22 for Thanksgiving dinner! I can imagine them doing this activity, and then tying the tags on their tree in their front yard.

grateful ~ by Jane LaFazio

I'll show you how I created these tags, and feel free to be inspired and make your own, with whatever materials you have on hand. I'll give you the list of supplies at the end of this post.

remove the strings from standard shipping tags

In your garage, or well ventilated area, use spray paint and stencils

Use two or three colors of spray paint, spraying only part of the stencil. Layer the stencils and the colors.


Spray one side, then turn the tags over and do the other side
  
Use colorful yarn or ribbon and add to the tags.

 

You can stamp whatever you'd like on the tags. Or, if you don't have stamps, you could write with permanent pen.

I had a date stamp, so I added the date for Thanksgiving on the back

I've giving this as a gift, so I included 25 tags, and a couple of permanent pens so the guests could write on the tags. As I mentioned, it would be nice for each person to write what they are thankful for on the tags.

Gift wrapped, including a tag. I'll write the 'directions' on the back of the tag.

grateful tags ~ by Jane LaFazio

grateful tags ~ by Jane LaFazio

Supplies for this project:

• Stencils (designed by me) from StencilGirl Products. I used Acorns and Texas Red Oak stencils
• Liquitex spray paint 
• shipping tags by Avery
• letter stamps that I already had
• colorful yarn (a gift to me from a friend)