handmade tags | Julie Dawn Designs

April 17, 2023

My First Art Doll

I recently purchased an online class called Southern Sass by Kecia Deveney. She is an amazing artist and her art dolls are incredible so I couldn’t wait to start this class.

I have to admit that I am the worst at buying classes and either never taking them at all, never finishing them or finishing them and never applying anything that I learned in class. I shudder to think of the amount of money I’ve spent on online art classes over the years, but I wouldn’t have learned any of what I know now without some of them, so some of the money was well spent.

Anyway, back to that art dolls. I watched some of the videos and then procrastinated and finally got started last week. It is so fun learning something new and getting out of my comfort zone, not to mention it’s a great way to use the fabric paint I bought years ago and put a dent in my stash of fabric as well.

Here are a few pictures of my progress so far:

After I made a pattern I liked and transferred it onto muslin, I started creating the eyes, ears, mouth and nose. This was harder than I expected and took a while, especially when it came to the hand stitching part. I spent quite a while getting those pieces the way I wanted them, but I’m really pleased how they turned out.

I then painted the face with colors that coordinated with some of the fabrics I had picked out for the body beforehand. I have pinned the facial features in place, but haven’t sewn them down yet.

Here I have laid out all of the fabric pieces I plan on using over the pattern. You can’t seen the shape of the body yet because this is how you do it at first. I haven’t gotten far enough to know what happens next, but I’m excited to see what she looks like after all the fabric is sewed in place and trimmed down. I also chose the saying I wanted to have and stamped the words out and then sewed them onto felt. I don’t like the stamps I have so I ordered some different ones that hopefully work better with paint than these did. I think these would be great with ink, but they weren’t the best with paint.

Well I’m going to get back to it and hope this all turns out how I hope it will.

Till next time.

December 27, 2017December 27, 2017

Mermaid Themed Junk Journal

After making my first junk journal, I knew I was hooked, so I decided to alter a book and create another one. I found this amazing mermaid book at Half Price Books, so I decided that would be my theme. I bought another mermaid book and found some vintage mermaid images and from that, I created my first Mermaid Junk Journal.

junk journal — Mermaid Junk Journal Side view

December 27, 2017December 27, 2017

Halloween on Christmas

My 11 year old daughter asked me to make a junk journal for her as a Christmas gift. I asked what theme she wanted it to have and she replied “monsters, vampires, ghosts, witches and wizards.

I immediately thought how appropriate this was, since we love Halloween and all things scary. It also reminded me of lines from one of my favorite Blink 182 songs titled I Miss You:

“Hello there
The angel from my nightmare
The shadow in the background of the morgue
The unsuspecting victim
Of darkness in the valley
We can live like Jack and Sally if we want
Where you can always find me
And we’ll have Halloween on Christmas
And in the night we’ll wish this never ends
We’ll wish this never ends”

halloween junk journal — Front cover made from an altered book

halloween journal — Embellishments from vampire book

November 19, 2017November 19, 2017

My First Junk Journal

coffee and tea dyed papers — Coffee and Tea Dyed Papers

My obsession with dyeing papers has not waned. This is a stack of various papers that I dyed in coffee and tea to use in a new journal I created. This time, I used all sorts of papers, including drawings, book pages, scrapbook paper, etc. instead of just plain paper. I did not dry these outside, but baked them in the oven instead. I love the texture that the heat gives the paper. It’s a more labor intensive process, but it works great if it isn’t hot and sunny outside.

eco dyed papers — First Batch of Eco Dyed Papers

Next, I tried eco dyeing for the first time and I quickly fell in love. This is something I’ve wanted to try for ages, but it just sounded too complicated. I finally discovered a method that was simple enough for me to give it a shot and I’m so glad I did. The first time I did it, I didn’t use watercolor paper, but mixed media paper and the paper did not hold up as well. I also didn’t have a large enough cover, so there is a lot of dark space on the pages.

I learned from my mistakes the second time around and I love the way it turned out!

Below are pictures of the journal I made using my dyed papers.

tea dyed junk journal page — Tea Dyed Book Page with Fabric Tab

junk journal pages — Pocket Made From Scrapbook Paper

junk journal pocket — Pocket Made From a Security Envelope

fabric book tags — Beginning to Add Fabric Tabs and Ruffles

This entire process was new for me. The journal construction itself was a completely different method than I have used before.

Full disclosure – I originally created this journal with the intention that it would be donated to a silent auction at our church, but I became too attached to it and had to create another one to donate.

Until next time….