Gorgeous Mama - Baby Journal

I have a quick share today, of a baby journal I made for one of my best pals. She's due to give birth very soon and we had her baby shower yesterday. So I wanted to make something special and yet useful for her. I loved having my baby journal in the early baby days. I could never keep track of things the midwife said, or which side I'd fed from last etc. So I found mine invaluable. Though this is a much nicer journal than mine was! So I hope my pal enjoys using it.

I've used a stunning Saturated Canary image for this journal, and I inked the image up to look like my stunning pal with all her gorgeous dark locks. I've gone for a blue as the background colour rather than shades of grey, as I really love this contrast on black hair. I'm no artist, so I don't have a good grasp on light and shade, but was pleased with the outcome of this colouring adventure. I had done her skirt in brown first, but when I opted to use the green photo corner, rather than a pink one (it looked too wishy washy with the pink), I decided to balance this by making her skirt green too. So it's a little patchy because it had so much ink thrown at it!

I love the plain Kraft notebook, it's fab to work with as a base and it's fab that it has the little pen attached already. So I kept the edges of the notebook showing to tie in the colour and used Kraft embellishments again to draw in the base. I've used a Magnolia heart swirl on the edge of the image twice. I inked the edges first with a chalk ink Colorbox Cat's Eye in Chestnut Roan. I kept the embellishments to a minimum as you don't want things that stick out or can get tangled when you're using a journal. So flat embellishments are best.

I added a sentiment on the inside cover of the journal and the back cover of the journal just to finish and personalise the creation. It worked well to add them straight to the Kraft base of the journal. The Baby Shower sentiment is from Magnolia and the Smallest Wonders one is from a bargain bin at Ally Pally Craft Fair. You can see a close up of both above.

The papers are First Edition papers from a set called Desert Blooms. I love their embossed pages, with the sparkle and sheen they add to the creation. I used another paper from the same set to be the mat and central panel on the journal. I finished the diary with a cool La La Land die which I also inked the edges of with the Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink before adding to the base of the journal. I bought this recently in the La La Land sale and I LOVE it!

Well that's it from me today. I need to get the chook in the oven, so I'll finish here. Thanks for popping in on my blog today. I'll catch you again soon with another DT adventure. Hugs, Wends x

Challenge Entries:
Crafts & Me: #155 ~ Photo Inspiration
Scribble & Scrap: #42 ~ Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesdays: #197 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Catz: #274 ~ 2 or More Patterned Papers
Dream Valley: Let's Get Crafty (Hi Girls - wave x)
Crafty Calendar Challenge: April ~ Add A Sentiment
Papertake Weekly: Words, Words, Words (3 sets of sentiments in this creation)
Simon Says Monday Challenge: In The Middle (of her pregnancy!) I also snuck some LOTV baby sentiments into the middle of the diary as a sweet surprise. The one's I used can be found here & here.