I made these two journals recently. I wanted to do something for Halloween and I found this orange paper so I decided to make a pumpkin journal:





This one's a star shaped journal with green iridescent paper:





I've also made a snowflake journal and heart shaped journal. I think it's fun to play with different shapes for journals.

I thought I'd share this snowflake shaped journal I made. When you open it up, it has a shape of a snowflake. I made a heart shaped journal last year and I wanted to do another fun shape, but something different. I was cutting a paper snowflake and thought I would try using that shape to make a journal. Here's how it turned out:

I wanted to do something creative besides a traditional house so I built a gingerbread city.





It's (loosely) based on the Chicago skyline because I'm from Chicago, but it can be any city. The blue part is the lake. Everything is edible.



I started with gingerbread dough and cut it to different shapes that made up the sides of the building. I tried to make real buildings in Chicago, but it was hard to get them right. The building on the left is based on the Sears Tower/Willis Tower (even though in real life, it's taller than the other buildings). I dyed white frosting a yellow/orange color and used it to make dots that represent city lights.





I made white frosting and dyed it blue to make the lake.



I used coconut flakes to represent snow on the ground near the buildings.



It's not perfect, but it was fun to try something new this year.

I haven't been on this site in a while and I thought I'd post some of my recent projects.

I've seen all types of weirdly shaped journals before. I remember seeing one on craftster of little butterfly journals. I usually just make rectangular ones, but last Valentine's Day, I thought it'd  be cute if I tried making a heart shaped one.

It's a half heart when it's closed:


And opens up in to a whole heart stitched together.



I also thought I'd post my boxes. These are made with binder's board, the same stuff I use to make cover of journals and I basically cut measurements of each side of the box (and top) and glue it together. Then I cover it with fabric or decorative paper.

This Little Piggy Box:


Postcards from Italy:


Bingo:


I made this one for someone and really like how it turned out:


Mailing Package Box (this is my favorite):


Thanks for looking.

[Christmas]

I thought I'd share some of my greeting cards I've made. Tell me what you think and which ones are your favorite/s.

Also, this is kind of off topic, but I wanted to make a calendar for 2009. Does anybody have any good tutorials or know how to make the calendar format. I was thinking of using an old spiral notebook and just turning it on it's side (and changing the cover and pages), but I don't know if there's a better way to do it. Thanks for any help.

Christmas:






Travel:




Sympathy</b>:




Pets:






Quotes:




Misc:

[The Box]

Somehow, I picked up a set of blank playing cards while shopping for other items at a craft store. I think I just randomly threw it in, but it was perfect when I saw this challenge. I decided to make my own set of playing cards, using scrap paper I had for the design/backing (I make journals, so I gather a lot of scrap paper that's too small to use for my journals). I hand drew and used watercolor on all the cards.

The Box:
The box is handmade out of glossy photo paper and decorative paper. It's actually too small for all the cards though (holds about half of them).




Spades:
Ace-10:



Face:



Clubs:
Ace-10:



Face:



Diamonds:
Ace-10:



Face:



Hearts:
Ace-10:



Face:



Kings + Joker:


They're usable too. Playing Solitaire:



To see more pictures, you can look at my set on flickr.

Thanks for looking.

I started making journals. I'm still kind of new at making them and I'm learning a lot each time I make one. I still have to get better at the coptic stitch. Here's a few of mine:

This "Laundry List" Sticky Note Pad contains to-do list sheets on the inside (as a kind of joke on the term "laundry list", the fabric is of laundry).





I tried a coptic stitch for this one and used decorative paper instead of fabric. I actually kind of made up the stitch, but it worked fine. I ended up putting glue on the spine to hold it together more and the glue turned kind of blue because I used my blue hemp as string.





I love how I found matching paper laying around for this cow one. I used the stab stitch method.




A light pink rose one with matching paper.





My newest one. It's a little nicer than the others - I used mull to hold the pages together more and added more blank pages. The inside uses paper I painted with gold shimmer watercolor.








Tell me what you think.

I love this tutorial. The video was really helpful. I love how yours came out. I didn't use photos, but I made one with old scrapbook paper of roses. These aren't the best photos, but:



and the inside:



The inside says, "The rose speaks of love silently, in a language only known to the heart". It's sort of a romantic/wedding journal.

I'm really late posting this because my camera wasn't working, but I finally got my pictures uploaded. These are from StaciJane. I love everything.

Group shot:


Jewelry:


iPod case with a logo of one of my favorite bands. (and she used my two favorite colors)


The bag is my favorite probably. It started as a pouch:





That opens up..


in to a bag. Very cute. My old bag was falling apart so I'm already using this a lot.


She also included quotes when she wrapped the crafts. I put these up on my bulletin board.


Everyone did a great job. I had a lot of fun making and receiving. This was the first swap I've ever done and I'll def. be doing it again sometime.

Everybody's bags are so cute. I had some left over fabric and decided to use this tutorial. I had to hand sew it because I'm living in a dorm without a sewing machine. I also didn't have interfacing so I used black felt in place of it (and felt for the straps) and I think it worked out nicely. The felt straps are actually really comfortable. Here's a picture:



It's not perfect, but I like how it turned out considering I don't usually prefer handsewing. I did the straps completely wrong at first and broke the zipper right away (but managed to fix both, haha). I skipped the last step because I was confused about what the lining was (I'm still kind of new at sewing/making bags). It was fun to make though, I love the shape... thanks for the tutorial!