Hello friends,

Happy Saturday to you! I’m excited to share a fun journal I created with the Tres Jolie  July Cards, Tags & More kit, which features the stunning “Imagine” collection by Stamperia…

The base of my project is a Tim Holtz canvas journal (included your kit!). I started by collaging a piece of vintage music sheet from the kit, with a torn piece of paper from the Stamperia collection.  I fussy cut this gorgeous female image from the collection for the cover,  as well as a few flowers from the Mixed Media kit. I love combining elements from all 3 kits in my projects; it’s easy to do because they all coordinate so well together.

This entire project is just a lot of collaging and layering. The first spread features book pages, ephemera, and flowers from the kit. I also used a few flowers from our June Scrapbooking kit and a butterfly I found in my stash.

The doily flips down to reveal two tags from the collection. I used Fabri-Tac and soft gel medium as adhesives. I also dry-brushed white gesso on each page.  

The second spread is my favorite and inspired the journal’s name. I love that image on the right – the woman’s eyes are closed as if she’s dreaming or in deep contemplation. I was taken with how calm and content she looks.

I adhered the Dream sentiment on the bottom because I think her expression is symbolic of the power we have when we close our eyes; We have within us the ability to intentionally pull ourselves away from any stressful situation by simply closing our eyes. We also have the ability to dream, contemplate, meditate, pray, and just “be”. We can escape or choose to stay focused. I think that’s an awesome power and why I titled the journal “Eyes Wide Shut”.

For the next spread, I adhered one of the beautiful lace pieces Kim provides in our kits on the left page and created a simple collage around it. The opposite page consists of collaged paper pieces and one of the fun dress images from the Stamperia collection.

The rest of the journal consists of collaged paper pieces adhered with Fabri-Tac and sealed with soft matte gel. I also randomly stamped in sepia ink throughout.

I used one of the 49& Market stitched frames from and florals from the Scrapbooking kit on the following spread.

This is the last spread the journal and a very special one because my design teammate Jeanne, who also helped create this kit,  provided the gorgeous decoupaged glassine bag on the left filled with lots of goodies for us to use on our projects. Thank you Jeanne!

Thank you for visiting today. I hope you enjoyed my project and will take a minute to check out the Tres Jolie website here.

Hugs,
xo
Cris