Grunging it up for Sarah

I'm in a slow paced, relaxing and fun CJ swap which started last year at ScrapChat. We've each kept our own CJs and are sending the pages to each other so that our CJs don't get lost in the mail. We all completely understand that life sometimes gets in the way of scrapping and that sometimes when we're scrapping we just don't feel much like scrapping a CJ page or we're just not inspired by the theme (yet) or are simply completely lost. Whatever! There are 12 girls in the swap and I think if it takes us two years to finish, none of us will be particularly concerned. I'm loving it.

Anyways one of the themes I needed to scrap was "a day in my life" for Sarah (heh hon!!). At the time it was due I was miserable and was much preferring to bury my head in the sand and ignore my life, so the last thing I wanted to do was actually scrap about it LOL!!! Sarah was totally cool about me skipping hers for the time being and coming back to it when I was ready (see how relaxed we are?!). So I took some photos and then set them aside for when I was in the right head space. That was just a couple of days ago.

Then I discovered the size of Sarah's CJ ... the pages were A5 ... tiny!!!!! How was I going to fit all my photos and my journaling on a double A5?? I mulled it over for a long while and eventually came up with the idea of putting together some 'postcards from my life'. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun I had creating them from scratch. Plus I've fallen in love all over again with my Tim Holtz Distress Inks! I had almost as much fun creating the pages for the postcards to sit in. I just kind of went with the flow. I stitched the panels which hold the postcards into place and then, going with the flow, coloured in between the randomly stitched lines, something I'd ordinarily do when doodling. I don't know what it was about these pages for Sarah, but I really felt like I was having a zen moment when creating them! Anyways, without further ado I give you ...

Postcards from Alz

(note - size = A5 double)

products used:

cardstock - SU! Very Vanilla

patterned paper - Tim Holtz Idea-ology Lost and Found paper stack

stamps - SU! French Foliage, Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous - Postcards and Spills & Splatters

inks - Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Frayed Burlap, Tea Dye, Antique Linen; Archival Ink Jet Black

alphas - Quickutz Moonlight alpha die

other - Fiskars border punch, Pure Black Zig Writer, SU! Perfect Plum marker, vintage post stamps and sewing machine thread

a few samples of the postcards ...

postcard #3

postcard #5

postcard #8

I hope Sarah enjoys these postcards as much as I enjoyed creating them. If not I may just ask her to mail them back to me LOL. Although maybe I should just get on with re-creating them. Or maybe not!

Whatever you're doing I hope you're all having an awesome Sunday!   :)