Book review - Journal Revolution

More than a year ago I bought the book "Visual Chronicles" from Karen Dinino & Linda Woods. You can read my blogposts about this book here.

I now also bought their 2nd book "Journal Revolution". Apart from their great sense of humor, this book also has some great easy to do techniques and ideas to offer to try to get you to start your own art journal. Their message? RISE UP AND CREATE.... HAVE NO FEAR :-).

Although I haven't shown anything yet on my blog that was directly inspired by this book, don't think I don't like it.... It is just that at the moment I am sort of overinspired...having purchased more cool new books and magazines. I just don't know where to begin! Technique overdose :-).

If you would ask me which one of the 2 books you should buy, I would say both!
They share the same kind of humor, the same approach to get you over your fear of starting a journal; the 2nd one is just more of the same good thing! More ideas, more inspiration and more eye candy!

More info? Check out these links
http://visualchronicles.typepad.com/
http://www.visualchronicles.com/
http://flickr.com/groups/artarmy/
...lots and lots of eye candy here!

Remember.. you can be a part of this too!

MUST HAVE book

Since I started scrapping, I started ordering craft books of all sorts.
By now great part of my bookshelfs are filled with craft books, one better than the other. Of course it still isn't enough... my online wishlist is so big, that I allow myself to order one book every month, or 2 if I haven't got one the month before. (this rule goes only for craft books and doesn't apply to novels or any non-fiction book I would like to buy :-)..hehe.

This month I ordered 2 books, one of them being the one shown above.
What can I see about this book: I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT!
Every page contains the most gorgeous eye candy..but that is definitely not the best part for me. What makes this book so GREAT is that it is a technique book! YEEEE...
You aren't just looking at someone else's projects, which can be inspirational, but you actually can pick up this book time and time again when you are in need of a fantastic technique to spice up your layout, atc, canvas or whatever you are making.

I actually regret not having ordered it before... because in the meanwhile I have also ordered some books that were not really to my liking (being subtle here...).

My advice?
ORDER THIS BOOK NOW (If you don't already have it).
THE SOONER THE BETTER!!!

And are you curious about the other book I ordered? Well..me too... I didn't even took the time yet to look into it...as absorbed as I was by this one.
More books later

Visual Chronicles - Prompt Tags

A while ago I bought the book "Visual Chronicles" (you can see it in the sidebar).
Since I have the flu, I have installed myself in bed with my laptop and some books.
And I was flipping through Visual Chronicles..not really able to read because my head, ears and throat are hurting big time, until I came upon this chapter about prompt tags.
In this chapter the writers explain how to use tags with your own chosen prompts to help you with your journaling.

Not being able to sleep because somebody outside was cutting down all the trees in the neighbourhood (at least it sounded like this) I decided to bring into my bed some tags, walnut Ink and Distress Ink to create my own prompt tags.
First I inked them all, waited for them to dry and then I added some cool stamping to the back.
Will add the prompts later.

Also, because being sick at home makes me feel quite useless I worked on a new banner for Emine's blog. A few days ago I saw her cry for help on her blog; she needed help with a banner.
Today I made one for her and also installed it on her blog. Check it out HERE.
And while you are visiting her blog, don't forget to have a look at her wonderful Hambly album :)!

New Books!!

You might have noticed that I have posted new books in my sidebar.
Claudine Hellmuth had to make room for 2 wonderful books which I just received yesterday.
For Dutch readers: I ordered them at www.bol.com and they arrived within a week.

If you click on the books you can find more information about the content.
I did not have a lot of time yet to study them carefully. But I can already tell you tell you that I will enjoy them a lot.
Both of them contain a lot of detailed step by step instructions. I really love this in creativity books, because I am not really the workshop type kind of girl, and I love to learn from books and try things at home.

From Visual Chronicles I have only read the first chapter, which is about creating your "personal palette". This means that you make your own (tag)book with pictures of your family, yourself etcetera and put some corresponding colors next to the pictures. This way if you are making a layout or an art journal page you will instantly know which colors to use for this person.
You are also advised to do the same for feelings... and their corresponding colors; but all according to you. For instance, if the corresponding color for Love is green for you.. that's ok: you are making a PERSONAL PALETTE!
So I might give this a try... It is something what you can do in between doing other things.

I have not yet read in the Altered Books Workshop, but it looks very very promising :.