Dina Wakley tab book

I'm overwhelmed by all the demos available right now. Artists are sharing ideas and techniques to help everyone get through this Covid-19 insanity. Some are doing Facebook/Instagram live sessions. There is a lot of inspiration flying around right now. 

Dina Wakley has been doing demos since mid-March and here's the link that inspired this post:

Dina's Tab Book March 18

So after watching Dina's demo I decided I had to make the tab book. I told a group of artist friends and we decided to do a virtual session and make them together. It was really fun.

I took chip board, pieces that were 8 1/2 by 11" and cut them in half. I painted half of them with regular gesso on both sides, and the rest with Ranger black gesso. Then let them dry.

Dina suggested using sticky back canvas for the tabs to "bind" this book. I discovered a package from long ago and decided to save this because I'd love to make a book with colorful binding.  Since I had a black and white book in the works, I opted for white duct tape.

I find that the easiest way to manage pieces of duct tape is to use a cutting mat and line up and cut the pieces in advance. I made a stash of pieces that are 2" by 1.5" and these will be my tabs that will secure the pages of the book.

In her demo Dina used 2 tab pieces on one page and then 1 and alternate for all the pages. She suggests other options, and since my pages are larger, I opted to use 3 on one and 2 on the other, alternating them. This secured the journal nicely. We followed her instructions and voila, I have a journal.

  

The inner pages have either two corresponding tabs, or three. I am not bothered by the fact that I didn't line them up evenly, as you can see below. I'll be filling this book up with art and hopefully the tabs will melt away.

Last, but not least, I made sure I posted my book on Instagram. I really love this book and I know I'll be making more. 

Spring

Well I finally am coming back to life, creatively speaking. I dove down under the covers, trying to stay warm and taking a much needed rest. Now I have the urge to dust off the surfaces, clean things up and take a look around. Life tosses out all kinds of challenges and I guess I had been riding a lucky streak. This year has not been my favorite, and I have a lot of catching up to do. Now I want to come out and play!

I had taken a class with Dina Wakley last year and then I picked up her DVDs. They are great!  So I decided to try my hand using some of her techniques. Plus, I took another class with Marjie Kemper at The Great American Stamp Store a couple months ago, which was really fun. So I have many sources of inspiration going right now!

Marjie has a wonderful online class on Craftsy. It's worth every penny!!! She is such a generous teacher and a very nice person. The class inspired this piece, I used Distress Inks and the Ranger foam applicators. Then colored our girl with colored pencils. I adopted Dina's advice that "perfect is the enemy of done" so I just made it without anguishing over every detail.

So, I hope to show you loads more!  It feels good to be back.