Stenciled "Zine" Challenge: Reiki Daily Prayer

I always love Tina Walker's art challenges, and I joined her "Zine" challenge without knowing what a Zine was. It turns out that it is a special way of folding a sheet of paper into 8 parts, cutting the paper partially in the middle, and then folding it so you have 4 back to back pages.

I took some lightweight paper (mine was 14" x 20" but you can use any size) and stenciled all over with an assortment of my own stencils in pastel colors. Here's my process:

I started with my Tossed Poppies stencil and light aqua paint

I added stencils from my Wyatt ATC Mix Up stencil in a variety of pastel shades.

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Once I had the background done and the book folded and glued, I had a 5" x 7" book with 8 pages. 

I was ready for the next stage. I decided to stencil images that would illustrate the Reiki Daily Prayer. I used a Versamark stamp pad with gold embossing powder on tissue paper, then cut the excess blank paper from the images, and glued them to the pages.

I chose the Crown Chakra stencil by Kathryn Costa for my cover. You can find all the other stencils I used on the StencilGirl website.

After all the tissue paper images with gold embossing were glued, I printed the Reiki Daily Prayer on thin tracing paper from my laser printer, carefully cut the words, and glued them in place.

Here's how the finished pages look next to each other:

Front cover (right) and back cover (left)

And here's how the book looks when you open it up:

Reiki is an energy healing method, and is not associated with any religion.

Here is the Reiki Daily Prayer I used in my book:

Just for today, I will let go of anger.

Just for today, I will let go of worry.

Today, I will count my many blessings.

Today, I will do my work honestly.

Today, I will be kind to every living creature.

Marbled Notebook Transformation

It's back to school time in my city, and that means school supplies are everywhere, especially the classic marbled notebook. Being a super frugal bargain hunter, I picked up a few from an off-season sale rack a couple months ago and tucked them on a shelf. When I got a recent shipment of goodies recently from Gwen Lafleuer's website, I knew what I wanted to do with a couple of my favorite papers.

Here's a selection of some of Gwen's papers that came in my goodie box.

The Florentine paper is a great weight to cover a marble notebook, but there are many others to choose from on the website.

I carefully measured my notebooks and paper, then laid out the paper and cut it with my knife using a metal ruler on my well-worn green cutting mat. Next, I laid out my Teflon art mat, then placed some parchment paper inside the notebook to protect the inside papers. 

Using some DecoArt Decou-Page, I covered the front with the glue, and super carefully laid the paper on. I smoothed it out with my fingers as I was adhering the paper to the notebook, then took my round baren tool and gave it a little more pressure and smoothing. I put the notebooks under a heavy weight for a few hours to dry, but since it was really humid, I used a blowdryer to finish the job, and used my baren to smooth the paper as I applied heat.

I debated whether to keep the existing black tape from the binding of the marbled notebook, but since the papers were both light in color, I decided it was too much contrast, and cut an extra strip to cover the binding.

They looked so pretty that I was tempted to stop then and there. But I kept hearing one of my old textile surface design teachers saying "More is more is more!" 

So, the next step was to poke a hole in the spine with my awl, and thread some fiber through the hole to create a built-in page marker. I decided I wanted a tassel with beads on a long string as the marker. First, I started the tassel by winding embroidery floss around my fingers. Next, I threaded some jewelry wire through the top loop and twisted it shut. I cut and trimmed the bottom of the tassel. 

To embellish, I added some gorgeous African Trade beads from Gwen's Boho Bazaar and smaller beads from my own stash to the wire, then and created a loop at the top. (I took an Ornaments and Amulets online workshop a few years ago where Gwen taught us how to make beautiful dangly pieces.) 

I wired the cord to the beaded piece, making sure that the cord would lie flat inside the book and the beads and tassel would hang out the bottom.

I did have some gorgeous scraps left over after making the books, so, if you know my work and how my mind works, it should be no surprise that I cut paper doll parts using my new Paper Doll stencil available from StencilGirl. I added a whimsical ArtTeaLife face and put it all together with mini brads from Eyelet Outlet.

Using my Paper Doll stencil, I cut body shapes, arms, and legs from the leftover paper that had been glued to 140 lb. watercolor paper for extra strength.

Since "more is more" she needed wings and a crown. Using a VersaMark embossing stamp pad, I inked up the stamps and stencils, printed them on black cardstock, and sprinkled the images with Ranger superfine gold embossing powder. When I heated the powder, the dull gold powder turned a magical shiny gold.

Here's some photos of the combinations of faces, body parts, and accessories that I considered.

 Above are some gold on black possibilities that I considered.

Using the crown from Gwen's new EGL34 set was a natural, but I wasn't sure about the wings. Sometimes I like giant wings, but the tiny butterfly wings from set EGL23 was just right.

The notebooks are a quick and easy gift to make, and certainly dress up the basic marbled composition notebooks! A doll made from the leftovers can be a gift on its own, incorporated as part of a greeting card, or perched on a wrapped package as an extra treat. 

PLEASE NOTE: ***The paper inventory on Gwen's website gets updated regularly, so keep checking to see what new and gorgeous designs are available!***