King of the Jungle!!

Hello folks, I hope this finds you well?

I woke up this morning and knew that I would have to spend the day journaling, I just had no choice but to give in to temptation........  What a chore,  lol....

Last week I was lucky enough to win a vintage ledger on ebay.  I absolutely love it because it's small and chunky with a lovely original brass lock.  I hadn't used it until today, so I thought I would try it out.  
You never know what the paper is going to be like in old books, but I have found that generally, the older the paper, the better it is for spraying, ghosting, stamping etc.

 I wasn't entirely sure what i wanted this journal page to be, so I thought I'd start with the background and see where it takes me.
I selected three colours from Dylusions spray inks, which were; Squeezed Orange, Chocolate, and Sunshine Yellow.          
The paper seems to have some sort of coating on it, so when i applied the ink, It just sat on top of the page and didn't get absorbed, so unfortunately the colours weren't as vibrant as they should be. But it did give the page a more subtle and aged effect.      

Earlier in the day I spotted a quote that i really liked but hadn't used yet, on one of the Dylusions Quote plates.  The quote says "You are braver than you believe, Smarter than you think, Stronger than you seem And loved more than you know". As soon as I saw this quote, I had a stamp in mind.

What best describes 'brave, smart and strong' other than a lion?

This gorgeous and cute lion stamp is from The Octopode Factory.   I love  all of the stamps and the digital downloads from 'The Octopode Factory', they are a breath of fresh air. So different and unique - they are just fabulous.

I stamped the lion using a black memento ink pad onto good quality card stock.  I used a Memento ink pad because I will be colouring the lion in using Copics which means the stamped image wont 'bleed' when I colour it in.
I also stamped a 'crown' for the lion, which was a Tim Holtz stamp.

Before i could place the 'brave lion' on the page, I had to finish off the background because it looked too bare.
I decided it needed a border of some sort and i love the 'dragon tails' stamp from Dylusions 'Doodle Parts' stamp range (I'm not sure if they are really called that, but that's what they look like to me...!) lol..
I stamped them in opposite corners, and did some block lines in the other two corners to balance it up. 

The last few things to do were place the lion where I wanted him, add a few foliage stamps; again from the 'Doodle Parts' range and stuck the quote in place.
I really enjoyed doing this page, especially as it was the first page in my 'new' journal, I hope you enjoyed seeing this little brave lion too - he's so cute.

Thanks for looking and I hope you will be back to see me really soon....x