Round Robin Journal

I've joined a round robin journal which has kindly been organised by Astrid (thanks Astrid). My mum and dad have taken the boys out for the afternoon, so I've had some spare time and have finally finished my first page (I started it earlier in the week).

The theme I've chosen for my journal is "What Colour Are You?", based on the idea that each colour has different meanings, (although I will hasten to add that not all the words around the edges apply to me!) In case you are wondering, yes, the ugly mug on the left is me, although I've altered myself beyond all recognition, (I think I like my new hairdo better than the real one). Don't worry if you're one of the people doing a page for me - I don't expect everyone to use a piccy of themselves, although you can if you want!

I've started with a base of mountboard for this. (I thought it wise given that (a) I've subjected it to a lot of abuse and (b) it has to make several journeys through the post). I started by inking the background in various shades of blue and then spritzing it with water, quick-drying it with my heat gun (told you I couldn't live without it), then added some tissue paper to parts to add texture and painted over the tissue paper and around the edges using three different colours of acrylic paints. I then added some Radiant Rain Spray, masking off some parts so it wasn't over the whole thing, some blue metallic embossing powder over the tissue, and wrote the words around the edges which are all words associated with the colour blue. With the background done, I printed out a photo of me in shades of blue and stuck it on, then drew the outlines on it with a black gel pen. I stamped the images at the bottom on white card and coloured them using blue ink, then stuck those on to overlap the picture of me. I then added the silly hats, which are cut from book pages and inked, stamped the word blue on acetate in stazon ink and then outlined the word and the edges using a Sharpie pen. I attached the acetate wrod using brads. I also added the words "I am" on card with matching brads. Next, I gave myself the new hairdo with acrylic paints to match the colours on the background and a black gel pen and added the highlights to the eyes and mouth with a white gel pen. Finally, I added a Grungeboard flourish on the top right (it's inked and then gone over with a gold metallic rub-on but it doesn't show up well in the photo), a stamped and inked butterfly, gold metallic rub-on around the edges of the page and the eyelets down the side where the pages will be joined together.

The colours are a bit more intense than they look on the photo. My photography skills leave a lot to be desired!