back

Stateside Travel Journal

by Karen Hanson | 9 years ago

Good morning crafters!  It’s Social Media Design Team member Karen, and I have another project to share with you using a great new collection from DCWV called Stateside (available soon at Jo-Ann).   

Now, I have a bit of a confession to make.  Some of you might know that I am actually a Canadian crafter, so when the set of posters from this collection arrived at my door, my feelings were a little bit mixed.  I absolutely loved the versatility of the three different styles of posters – the colours are great, the finish on the posters is amazing and the size is perfect for a substantial, but not overpowering piece of wall art.  But the truth was that I just couldn’t see myself hanging up a poster of the U.S.A on my walls, no matter how fond I am of my neighbors to the south (and I am, indeed, very fond of you U.S.A)!

But then I realized that these posters, while great “as is”, are also essentially a fantastic large piece of patterned paper!  In fact, in a lot of ways, the nice glossy finish of these posters gave me a unique style and quality of paper to work with for a project. 

So, as hard as it was to take my scissors to the posters, I did just that.  With a trip to Florida planned for this summer, I thought it would be fun to put a little travel notebook together.  I simply painted the notebook black with acrylic paint, and then measure the size of the front cover, leaving about ¼” as a border all the way around.  I then laid out my poster and measured out the same size, making sure that the state we will be visiting was a focal point.  I love my ribbon (this one happens to be some silk from one of our partner sites- May Arts), so I wanted to balance the ribbon by keeping the state in the lower corner of my paper.  I also wanted to keep as many of the fun patterns and colours in the other states on this particular poster.  To draw a bit more attention to Florida, I simply cut out an arrow shape from the background woodgrain pattern, using the grain perpendicular to the map image for some contrast.  Then I simply grabbed some decoupage paste  (I love my Mod Podge!), and then embellished with some of the fun Stamp Stickers  I personalized the inside with the sentiment stack and one more sticker and my journal was all finished.

It’s simply in design, but the fun patterns and colours from the poster really make this a bold and playful piece! 

So, if this Canadian can use Stateside in practical and fun way, I can’t wait to see what you all come up with.  And given that there is much more to this collection than posters, I have no doubt that we are going to see some great projects with this collection.  In fact, given our upcoming trip, I may just have to see what other parts I can get my hands on too…I see some postcards, countdown posters and scrapbook pages in my crafty future! 

Thanks for stopping by!

comments powered by Disqus