A Soul's Heartbeat: G-45's Nature's Sketchbook revamping my Mixed Media Book

a Country Craft Creations Design Team Project

When Tammy Merrill, owner of Country Craft Creations, recently sent me Graphic 45's Nature's Sketchbook collection it was like falling into a sea of wonderful color. Colors that just spoke to me and made me happy, you've had that feeling haven't you? It's amazing how different color schemes affect our moods. Well my mood turned instantly happy.

I scoured my craft room to see what just popped off the shelf and screamed, play with me, play with me! And you know what, it was another Graphic 45 product, the Mixed Media book. I'd had it on the shelf for several months, had picked it up and put it down just not sure what I was going to do with it but so glad I had it. I didn't want to alter all the pages in it at this time, it has a selection of Mixed Media Art sheets in Ivory and Kraft and some vellum pages. I'm leaving those to play with as the mood strikes throughout the coming year. Tammy has talked about offering this in the store so if you're interested in altering it, as I'm showing today, message her and see if it's going to be available anytime soon.

Because this is a book I plan on using (or if I decide to offer it for sale it will be one that you use often) so I kept the front as close to one level as possible. How beautiful is this paper! The book measures just a tad over 8.25" x 8.75" with a 2" spine and two rings, so a great size to work with. Having a two ring system inside I can take out or add pages as I see fit.

To give the book life and interest I fussy cut the dragonfly from a second sheet of 12x12 paper and enhanced the wings with some glitter and Glossy Accents. By popping the pieces above the printed ones I achieved a great dimensional look.

There are four pre-made black dividers in the book and I altered each of them with paper, mats and tuck in's. To give a little added interest I cut around the butterflies on the pocket allowing them to float above the pocket edge. If you decide to do this you may want to back them with cardstock (I used black like the divider page), this will give strength and also the illusion of them just rising off in flight. I popped a little booklet in the pocket.

On the back of the first divider I used the greens. The bottom pocket uses stickers. These are two piece stickers so I mounted the inner one with the sentiment on a couple of layers of cardstock so it will pop slightly above the frame. The frame work is also fussy cut from the 12x12 I used for the front cover. It's a great border accent to use here or there so don't overlook the littlest things when you're snipping away with your scissors. I just toss the pieces in a box as I go along and then pull them out and see what looks good where. It's so nice to have pieces cut and ready to use than to have to stop and cut each time you want to add a new element.

Isn't it interesting that when the color scheme changes so does the life of the page. Don't you just love the shades of blue here? The butterfly on the right is attached to the divider tab and again floats. I tucked two tags into the bottom pocket using seam binding (from the store) as the pulls. Again I've tucked a little booklet into the large pocket. By distressing the edges you get a nice rustic look. I use the Tim Holtz distressing tool but any pair of scissors will do the trick as well. I also matted the page elements with black which helps them pop against the blue and carries through the scheme of the original book.

Here's the back of the blue divider above. I used several elements I'd fussy cut from the paper to create the pocket below and slipped in a little sentiment leaving the back available for a photo or journaling. To give you a little perspective the large mat is just shy of 5" x 8", a fantastic size for a large photo. When you use elements like this you don't need to glue completely across the bottom. Leaving just a little open here and there will allow the mat to peek out between the bits and sit better behind the cluster.

Now we've moved to the soft oranges that compliment the honey bee paper fantastically. I ran a seam binding ribbon through the top of the slip in allowing extra inside papers to be added at any time. You can see the extra pocket created by adding a word banner across the bottom and of course the page wouldn't be complete without a fussy cut butterfly.

This is one of my favorites. I think it's the symmetry of the three mats and the seam binding pulls, don't you love that green seam binding. Tammy does a fantastic job of offering colors to match the papers. You can extend the size of any tag by matting it and leaving a larger cardstock border, like you see with the black here. I glued the focal point from the papers to the black cardstock, but allowed an inch extra to trim with my 'angle' Corner Chomper adding the ribbon pull.

The last divider shares a large booklet with a chipboard hinge to hold it in place. This is easy to do by placing a decorative brad in the hole and allowing the chipboard to swing up or down and in turn holding the little booklet closed.

When the booklet is open it shares the embossed area that I stamped with the Nature's Sketchbook stamp set 3. I love this journaling spot and used it in a couple of areas. I again created the little band across the bottom to hold a mini little booklet. Tuck ins, tags and mats are so fun and add so much to pages.

This was extremely fun to do, I hope you'll check out the video below. I won't show the step process for the pages but I will share my thought process for putting together the front and spine. Supplies linked to the store will be directly below the video as well as links to Country Craft Creations and my other social media sites. Thanks so much everyone for stopping by and sharing your time with me!