My Other Creations: Pastel Notebook

This week's challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog is to embrace pastels!  Love the shabby-chic look you get with them and this is the perfect time of year to think of the soft colors of Easter.  I created a notebook for my project with a subtly-colored cover:

I started out with a Journal Kit from We R Memory Keepers that comes with pages, spiral wire for binding, and a cover.  You need a Cinch tool to assemble it, but I love how all it leaves for you to do is to spiff it up.  So I went with some paper from Prima's Free Spirit collection as my cover base.  I used a Layered Bead stencil and Distress Ink in Spun Sugar, Shabby Shutters and Cracked Pistachio to make some faded circles in the background.

Next I added some die strips that I cut with the Moroccan Tiles die and smudged with Spun Sugar and Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.

You know I'm a fabric-a-holic, so I grabbed the Tattered Florals die and cut out some fabric flowers to layer onto my cover.  The trick to getting dies to cut through fabric is to add a piece of cardstock to the die "sandwich" so that there's enough pressure to cut through fabric.  My die sandwich went as follows: bottom plate, die, fabric, cardstock, top plate.  Worked great!  You'll notice, too, that I used not just the flower shapes, but also the square "frames" that I cut the flowers out of.

I whipped out some white acylic paint and stamped on some reverse polka dots using Dina Wakley's Textures stamp, then smudged more white paint here and there.  Love the look of using paint with stamps, but I always have to clean my stamps pronto so the paint isn't stuck there for life (kind of obsessive about keeping my stamps as "mint" as possible).

I'm really loving the Scribbles die, so I cut out a few circular scribbles using Prima's Lifetime paper and added them to the side.

The Serendipity paper stack has a piece of patterned paper consisting of a bunch of words, so I cut some of the words out and used them on the cover and on the tabs of my journal.  I also smeared more Distress Ink here and there with a sponge.

I glued my creation onto my journal chipboard cover, then bound the whole thing together with the Cinch.  The kit includes four pocket/divider pages, which I always attach tabs to.  I made the tabs using We R's tab punch and paper from both Shimelle and Serendipity.

You can never have too many notebooks (says the former English teacher) and I thoroughly enjoyed this week's pastel theme.

Here are the materials I used, which you can find at Simon Says Stamp:

Prima Free Spirit Paper- A4 Size	The Crafter′s Workshop MINI LAYERED BEADS 6 x 6 Template	Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad CRACKED PISTACHIO	Shabby Shutters - Distress Ink	Tim Holtz Distress Spun Sugar Ink Pad	Mixed Media Sponges Bars	Sizzix Bigz Die - Tattered Florals
Sizzix Big Shot Machine	My Favorite Things Moroccan Tile Border Die Trio	My Favorite Things Scribbles Die	Prima Lifetime Paper	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE Media Heavy Body Acrylic Paints	Dina Wakley Textures Cling Stamps	Fiskars Acrylic Blocks
Cinch - We R Memory Keepers	File Tab Punch-We R Memory Keepers	American Crafts Dear Lizzie Serendipity 6x6 Paper	American Crafts Shimelle 6x6 Paper	Distress Ink Tumbled Glass	Squeezed Lemonade - Distress Ink

 
I know  you're feelin' the pastel vibes this week, so show us your creations!  Upload your pastel pieces to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog so that we can see the clever things you've been up to and so that you'll be automatically entered into the Simon Says Stamp drawing for a $50 store voucher!