Handmade Journals

I have always loved journals, booklets, notebooks etc. - can't have enough of them and for a while now I have been making some myself. I am so glad I found out how to make them and I love mixing up different papers in the journals (the journal I am using myself at the moment has about 4 different ones) I am painting and drawing covers for them and I also put them in my Etsy shop. The one I put in there 2 days ago sold already and I had not even made a blogpost about it yet ! So I'll put some pics here of this gorgeous little journal -just for fun- with my promise that more handmade journals will find their way to my Etsy store soon. They are all OOAK's (one-of-a-kind's) of course :)
♥

Little Mermaid Paper doll

Having a little play with my Mermie Paper doll

Caught in the Abyss

Mixed Media on 8x15 inch woodpanel

Remember her ?

This is after her "facelift"

Gray scaled Mermie

On A4 sized paper, playing with different materials and styles

Murky Waters Nixie

On A5-Watercolour Paper

I don't know if she's completely done,

but I'll let her rest for a while, so far I have used

Aquarel paints and pencils~acrylic paints~stamps~inks~Crayons~Pastels~Glass bead gel

The Murky Waters Nixie

A digital play as preview to my "Murky Waters Nixie"

I will have to photograph her tomorrow with daylight.
I am not an aquarel expert by all means, but I did this one on watercolourpaper with watercolour paint and pencils and then I added inks, stamps, acrylics, glaze, more watercolouir paint and at last some Golden glass bead gel which I covered with some more diluted sparkly paints.
She is my "Halloween" project for this year,

since I am all submerged with the water sprites.....

Where do I belong ?

One of the journal entries...

While I was starting to draw something over the gesso layer that I had painted over my text,

I suddenly had to think about the little hermit crab with its house on its back, that little hermit crab belongs wherever it is, because it's got its house with him.

A comfy thought....

Mermaid Journal so far...

I am steadily adding more to the Mermaid journal/sketchbook

... thought I'll post a "so far"...

here are some excercises with paints and materials

some prompts I worked on

...there is more...

...which I'll show at a later stage...

Retro-ish

A cover I did for my Journal/Sketchbook

where I keep all about my mermaids

limited print now available on Etsy

Tangled Maids

These are Chunkies, the challenge was Black and White

I thought this was a nice opportunity to do some

Zentangle practice

for a swap at atcsforall.com

dowN wheRe iT's Better

Down where it's Better ~ Under the Sea ~ The Seabed

PiraTeS love MErmAidS Yo Ho !

"Yo Ho, Yo Ho , a pirates life for me

we pillage and plunder, we rifle and loot

Aye and we're loved by our Mermies to boot,

Drink up me 'earties YoHo !..."

(my own spin on the lyrics of "YoHo" by Xavier Antencio)

School of Mermaids

Step-by-step to the School of Mermaids

~and me trying to get the hang of editing~

Mermaid Amigurumi

Mermaids are everywhere !

I have been thinking about doing a little Amigurumi again lately,

I see so many nice ones around,

so I thought of looking for a mermaid pattern.

There are some free patterns available on-line

and some that are for sale for a small fee.
Here are a few pics with links to the proper owners/places.
When I have made one, I will post here of course.

and look ! I even found a (knitting) pattern for a mermaidtail for a Barbie Doll

for those of you that have little girls that want to play Mermaids too.

Needle felted Mermaid

Here's a needle felted mermaid I made a while ago

I found her again and I realized I have to do one like this again soon

Dry-needle-felting is great fun !

(stay focussed or you'll poke your fingers...believe me, I know...)

-I used New Zealand Merino wool-

Here' a youtube tutorial for sculptural needle felting

A Mermaid Booklet and her value studies

I am doing colour value studies

for La Sirena

(the back-to-school-feeling is creeping up on me, haha)

but of course I cannot resist the odd little portrait in between the excersises