Four Seasons Fairy Journal

Hey, everyone! Stephanie Manuel of Smiling Sunlight, one of our amazing Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous ‘Four Seasons Fairy Journal’ for us this week. As you know, we feature one new Junk Journal project each week created by one of our creative team of artists. Our Design Team Members select from the 100’s of Vintage Image Bundles on our Premium Membership Site, for their creations, in order to show you beautiful ways to use those images. We hope you will be totally inspired by this series!

Therefore, please make sure you check out the video tour at the bottom of the page…please scroll all the way down to see it. Are you ready to be inspired? I will step out of the way and let Stephanie tell you all about her incredible project…

Hi everyone, my name is Stephanie Manuel from Smiling Sunlight. Have you ever wondered what’s the magic behind the changing seasons? This very special journal reveals it all, so make sure to watch the flip through video linked at the bottom of this page. Inspired by nature, I created this journal that I called “A Fairy’s Journal in 4 Seasons” as my design team project for the
Graphics Fairy Premium Membership website.

I up-cycled a file folder to create the cover and a piece of Indian silk fabric as a soft spine. There are four signatures sewn directly into the spine for each seasons. The cover of the journal is a printed image onto which I applied an embossed golden effect to make it look and feel as a real book cover. I wanted the fairy on the cover to stand out so I followed a dimensional collage tutorial
on The Graphics Fairy Premium site to learn how best to do this, after digitally putting together her wings and flower hat. I really enjoyed digitally designing and fussy cutting images to create this journal.

This is a fantastic story about a little fairy who is learning what fairies do every season. I love storytelling and interactive illustrated children’s books so I created a card like a stage to represent Fairyland where each of the four seasons fairies can stand up.

So as to make the first page of each signatures unique, I created digital collage of several images found in different bundles. The journal starts with Spring and during that season fairies paint flowers and nature with soft colours. I cut out several artist’s accessories images for the Spring Fairies, digitally designing a leaf palette, a blooming pink paint tube and an extendable leaf envelope. The Artist Bundle images were very helpful. There’s even a card with a flower springing out of it.

The Summer Fairies are wise herbalists, knowing the benefits of all the plants. I had a lot of fun creating fairy tea bags, a two sided flip tea cup attached to a page and even used a tea bag pocket printable as a page.

During Autumn, the fairies are busy turning flowers into fruits and vegetables, harvesting, preparing seeds and helping animals to hibernate. I created a colour wheel that the fairy would check to know when flowers are ready to become fruits and digitally designed a blooming Spring plant starting to bear fruits. An origami apple card shows how flowers transform into apples.

When Winter comes, fairies swap their butterfly wings for warmer feathered wings and they are called Angels. During that season they create light and snowflakes harnessed from the stars and crystals. They also teach animals how to navigate by observing the moon, planets and constellations. The Angel wheel card was created using a new mechanism that I learned instead of the usual round head fastener. To make the Crystal Fairy tag I used layers of recycled and embossed handmade paper.

Thank you very much for exploring the magic of the four seasons with me and the Fairies. All of the bundles that I used in this journal are listed below as well as the link to the flip through video. Next time you’ll enjoy a delicious infusion or eat a fruit, remember the magic of the Fairies behind the gifts of nature.

FOUR SEASONS FAIRY JOURNAL SHOW & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium site bundles used:

Ballerina Fairies
Legends from Fairyland
Realm Blue Fairy
Vintage Album Frames
Wildflower Field Guide
Cream & Green Ephemera
The Artist
Nouveau Flowers
Pastel Wallpapers
Posies & Porcelain
Tattered Paper Treasures
Botanical Fruit
A Forest Stroll
The Artist
Autumn Botanicals
Seed Catalogue
Spring Embroidery
In Garden Ephemera
Blue Jay’s Winter
Victorian Christmas
Christmas Scraps
Victorian Christmas Scraps
Crystals
Angelic Symphony
Celestial Images
Luna the Magical Queen

Stephanie’s YouTube
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Stephanie’s Facebook

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!

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