Danielle's Corner

Owl Date Book March 10, 2016

I want to share a date book I made.  It is inspired by the creating a file folder journal, and the YouTube video I watched that was my original inspiration can be found here.  My date book really doesn’t look much like the original project, but I was looking to create a useful gift, and this is what I came up with.

The base of the entire book are file folders, cut down and scored as in the video.  The only difference is the last page, which is created separately because after I decided to do a year-long book, I needed one more pocket for December.  The owl is a Spellbinders die cut, the eyes are a scalloped circle punch and two flower Sixxix die cuts.  The little googly eyes are from Hobby Lobby (too bad I didn’t have the larger sized eyes, but I made due with what I had on hand), and the letters are foam ones from a scrapbooking kit I had bought years ago.  All paper is from my stash of scraps, and the inks are a combination of Distress Inks, Memento inks, and VersaMagic inks.

For January, I wasn’t sure exactly how I would decorate the book.  I chose a floral pattern, which is from a Recollections paper pad, and some Washi tape.  The owl stamps are all foam stamps from Oriental Trading Company, and the branch that most of the owls sit on is from the Hero Arts Owl Christmas clear stamp set.  The months and many of the mini decorating stamps are from a calendar clear stamp set.

For February, I used a Spellbinders Card Creator die in conjunction with a Pink Paislee clear stamp set and a variety of inks.   The heart paper used to decorate this particular set of pages comes from the K&Company Sleep Tree designer paper pad.  You can see one of the cards (also created from file folders) to write the dates on.  The book is meant to hold dates that don’t change throughout the year, so things like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. so the front and back of the cards is stamped with an area to write (MFT Journal It – Head of the Class stamp set).

As an educator, March is Reading Month, so I used the reading owl stamp, and although I’m not Irish by blood, I’m Irish by family so I chose to use some St. Patrick’s Day paper from the Sleepy Tree paper pad combined with some plaid from DCWV’s The Countdown Stack.  The mixed media type more grungy stamps you will see throughout the journal are from Stampendous’s Mish Mesh set, as is the stencil used to create the small green dots on the page.

April’s page consists of some “showers of love.”  The gingham checked paper is another scrap from DCWV’s Baby Boy Stack.  The adorable stamp is one that I got in the January 2016 Unity grab bag.  It is colored with some Crayola colored pencils.

Since April showers bring May flowers, I chose to use a flowered background paper here.  These papers were both cut using some Sizzix Framelits dies, and the embellishment is a small flourish die (My Favorite Things) that I cut using fun foam backed with Sookwang tape.  I had to cut it using my Big Shot and the Precision Base Plate since it was such a thin, intricate die cut.  I also curled part of the flourish a different way so that it would fit on the smaller paper in its entirety.  The stamps on May’s journaling card are from SEI’s Moravia set, which as some beautiful flowers and leaves in it.

For June, I used some scrapbook paper I had picked up at Dollar Tree many years ago. It reminds me of Father’s Day barbeques, and I cut it out using the Spellbinders set Diagonal Chevron.

For July, I used some scraps of patriotic papers.  The stars and polka dots on the white cardstock are Washi tape, and the three chevrons are leftovers from the previous month’s page.

I had a hard time figuring out what to do with August.  In Michigan, school doesn’t start in August, it starts in September.  There are no major (or minor) holidays in August, and it’s just plain hot and humid most of the time.  I wound up going with some under the sea type scrapbooking paper, which I left just by itself until the last minute.  It was too plain and needed something else.  I wound up using the circle stamp from the Stampendous set as well as tearing some scrapbook paper from my stash to look like water along the bottom, and adding some Washi tape along the top.

For September, I used the owl holding the apple, and I made a conscious decision to use green ink (I think it was bundled sage) for this particular owl so that the apple was green instead of some other color.  I thought red was a little too bright for this page.  The glasses are Washi tape, and the script is a stamp from the same MFT stamp set that the journaling cards is from.

The colored papers for this page are from my stash (I think they came from a solid Recollections cardstock pack), and the spider paper is some that I had purchased at Big Lots years ago.  I want to say it is from the Heidi Grace line, but I’m not sure.

For this page, the paper is again from the Sleepy Tree pack.  The colored papers, I think, are from a solid Recollections cardstock pack.

For December, I again used scraps from the Sleepy Tree pack, but since they were Christmas trees and the orientation was different, I made them go horizontally.  The background wonky stripe patterned paper is from the same paper pack.