What's the Story?

I love staying at the New Sanno hotel in Tokyo. You can't beat the price anywhere in Tokyo and the service is always excellent. There are a number of dining choices inside the hotel, but the renovated Japanese restaurant is my favorite. Everything about it - from the decor, to the food - is stellar. And being a bit of a sloppy eater, being able to wear a bib is a dream come true for me. Hence the inspiration behind my layout. The journaling reads:

What’s the story, Morning Glory? What’s the tale, Nightingale? What’s the word, Mockingbird?
Kikuya’s beautiful entranceway is decorated with soaring cranes and the doors are etched in a bamboo motif. The inside is just as lovely and our teppanyaki chef cooked our meal to perfection. But my favorite thing about the place? The bibs! I’m always slopping food down my clothes and have long had the idea to make bibs fashionable in such a way that every restaurant would want to have their own design and every patron would clamor to wear one. It looks like Kikuya is paving the way for what I hope will someday be THE must-have fashion accessory.

Since I was using an analogous coor scheme (side-by-side colors on the color wheel), I needed to give the edges of my paper more definition by adding a bit of coordinating ink. The easiest way to do this is to take the ink pad and gently run it along the paper’s edge. A dye-based ink or Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink are ideal for this application. I usually take a bit of leftover paper and try a few colors until I find the one I like the best.
But if you have tiny bits that you want to highlight -- like letters or paper flowers, -- the direct ink-to-paper technique is bit more difficult. A small eye-makeup applicator is just the thing needed to get into small spaces. Rub the applicator on the ink pad, and then apply the applicator to your small letters. Easy-peasy!