A Journal Cover to Give Away

But not here...

I was inspired by one of the prompts in the books I'm reviewing tomorrow on the "...Fire" blog.  I made a little circle template by tracing around the bottom of the bottle and getting out the deColourant spray that I haven't had a chance to play with.  I sprayed a half dozen circles down the length of a half yard of Kona black.

Then I wet the fabric, scrunched it up,  poured diluted copper fabric paint over it and let it dry for a couple of days.

I love the texture -- the little circles looked like moons over mountains to me, so I went with that.

I layered it with a piece of cotton batting and quilted it using cotton threads in several colors.  Then I traced around the journal and cut out the part I wanted.

Because old books often had marbling on the inside covers, I dug through my stash of hand-marbled fabrics and chose this one.

Here is the inside of the cover -- I used a plain piece of Kona black to line the inside of the journal cover.

This is a shot of the backside of the covered journal.

There are detailed instructions for making a journal cover here.

I'm linking up with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Fridays -- even though it's really Saturday.

And here is a shot of the front.  I will be giving this away in our December giveaway and book review on ...And Then We Set It on Fire.  Check out tomorrow's post.  

Sunday Update: click here to go to the ...Fire blog and leave a comment to win this book!

The Mail Has Been Very Very Good to Me

Last week, my mailbox goodness reached epic proportions.  It started with this:

 As they say, "You had me at hello."  Who doesn't like chocolate?  But wait!  Even better -- I know, what could be better than chocolate? -- there was a whole bunch of stuff inside.  Stuff that doesn't mess with my diet.

Handmade tags, note cards, ATCs, envelopes, a little round box filled with beads, and some pens and buttons!  Who is responsible for this bounty?  My friend Jan, who blogs here, and her friends who have a group blog here.  They are mixed media artists who do lots of intricate, fun stuff.  I highly recommend checking them out.  I won this in a giveaway on http://foxontherunarts.blogspot.com/ .  So cool.

And wait!  There's more!  I swap blocks with my Sparkly Chicken friends (not all of them have blogs, but those who do are listed on the side under "Sparkly Chickens Blogs").  Anne Marie, who blogs here, sent me this colorful moose.


Just look at the wonderful embroidery (French knots are my favorite embroidery stitch).

And she included these goodies.  Cards with more stuff on them and some very sparkly yarn.



But wait!  That's not all!



In advance of my birthday, the mail got this package to me in record time!  It wasn't supposed to arrive until next month, but it's here!


Beth blogs here about her adventures in Africa.  She sent me these little bottles and the charms -- an elephant for Africa and a shoe because, well, I'm kind of a shoe lover.  The tall bottle is a vanilla sugar grinder from South Africa -- it's full of big crystals of sugar and chunks of real vanilla pods.  It's delicious ground onto ricotta cheese and over coffee.  This weekend, I'm going to try it on French toast, fruit and maybe some pancakes or waffles.There was some floral fabric.




And these wonderful batiks from Africa.  I love these giraffes -- maybe I should make a bag out of this?













 I love this one -- I can see this fussy cut up into a kaleidoscopic design.  I've included a pic of the selvage.

And these chickens are the best!  They're quite large and I love they way they're walking all over the fabric!

Thank you all for making this such a fun week for me!