Started Oct. 30, 2017. Completed: Nov 7, 2017. Measures:13.5 x 14 cm.
I enjoyed making this journal just because the colors of it are relaxing to look at. Continuing practice with a fin binding technique, I found a way to use up certain specific elements that were still lying around in my island junk journal supply bag.
This book has to be my favorite as far as the cover is concerned. The internal pages on the other hand weren't planned, they were technically just leftovers from larger island themed journals I had been making. those leftovers somehow complimented each other rather well.
You can see the stages of my work on the cover above. Its spine is around 4.5 cm. wide. To make it I chose some thin board for my base, left a gap between the spine and covers on either side, then held it together using a pretty teal blue colored paper with little white flowers on it, along with a woven basket looking paper.
I chose the teal paper because it reminded me of the ocean with small traces of sea foam. The choice of using a paper that looked woven reminded me of a basket made from ocean grass that you carry seashells in. Both these papers were from a stack found at a yard sale, so I don't know what brand they are.
The decorative square base I adhered my shell pictures to was from a small dollar paper pack by Studio 112. Another element from that pack also made it into the book as a journal spot. The shell images and ocean wave boarders were dye cuts and vellum boarders from the K and Company-Tim Coffey travel collection.
I used my new Tim Holtz distress tool to add some interest to the spine cover and decorative square, then inked the edges with Tim Holtz vintage photo ink. I wanted to give it that rough seashell basket appearance.
I glued down most of my elements including the vellum boarders using fabri-tac, which works surprisingly well on transparent mediums with slick surfaces.
Other parts in making the cover were experimental. When creating my fins for adding pages to, I hid the white cardstock using strips of the same paper I decorated the inside with. This made it blend in, and I inked the creases a bit to further hide the white color.
Everything was sealed and protected using Liquitex varnish, all except the vellum pieces.Vellum resists thin varnish.
After the cover was finished, I simply added my assembled pages to the fins, and got a cute mini book made mostly from recycled materials.
I used white, glossy cardboard, ink, a Smash book rub on of an anchor, scrapbook paper, parts of a bubble patterned tissue box which has been in my stash for ages, a sand and sea tissue box top with window, paint sample sheets, washi tape, a hand sewn plastic bag with stamping done in Staz-on ink, and finally half a ginger ale box with a whale on it.
About the book's name: Two of the paint sample cards I added in the front of the book as inserts have little labels on them that inspired the name. One says dried mint, another is labeled Apothecary Jar. Among these are blue cards with names like Fountain Foam and Niagara Blue. This inspired me to name the book Seaside (or Sea Foam) Apothecary.
There was another reason I liked this name, and the name itself inspired me to add a couple of experimental mason jar shaker cards (shown left). Seaside Apothecary as a theme is based off of a setting from one of my stories (the MN- I role play). In the beach region with a sea town, there's an Apothecary owned by a character named Dorian. He's friends with the local medic and renowned chowder house owner, Irna, who visits his apothecary for herbs and spices relating to both her healing job and her restaurant.
The mason jar shakers were something I added specifically to represent these two characters. One jar has herbs in it, the other has chowder.
I viewed the jars as exchanged gifts between the two characters. Unfortunately my chowder (which isn't actually a shaker) ended up looking kind of like barf in a jar. I'm sure it tastes great....just looks odd. This was a result of making a collage with green pasta and shrimp, then painting on it with a cream colored acrylic, an attempt to make it look like chowder.
The herb collage in a jar is a partial shaker in the sense I used a small hole punch to create free floating peppercorns which can kind of move around. The jars were stamped on plastic, then glued to white card stock using fabri-tac glue.
