A Little Imagination and a Pile of Junk

november's list

I didn't plan on being away from the blog so long. We went out of town for Thanksgiving week but I even brought the laptop thinking I'd keep in touch. Unfortunately, I kept getting lulled into another nap by too much Southern home cooking. But we're home now and it's back to the grindstone, or at least the To-Do List.

November and the ever-so-slightly cooler weather brought out the little elf in me and I've been busy-busy planning warm and filling Mexican suppers (pork green chili, homemade refried black beans, tinga de pollo), weaving love and yarn together, making things for friends, preparing for Advent. Oh, and watching the first season of Dexter--so good!

On my swiftly departing November To-Do List:

1. Crochet garlands: in progress. With new yarn come new dreams. Get the best cotton ever and my new favorite yarn here.

 

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2. Finishing Soren's scarf from last year: DONE. Before starting any other knit or crochet projects I had to finish a promised gift from a year ago. Both kids got to pick out yarn for their own hand knit by Momma scarves. Unfortunately, Soren's got interrupted by Spring's too warm and not in the mood for knitting weather.

 

3. Patchwork apron: DONE. One day's desire for playing with patchwork turned into a new apron for my bff. I need to get her to model it for you--super cute and perfect for cool weather baking--hint, hint!

 

   

4. More patchwork projects: in progress. The apron just opened up the door for all kinds of new sewing projects to come.

 

5. Maisey's winter wardrobe: DONE and in progress. My children, especially Maisey, are looking like street urchins lately. Poor Maisey has no Winter clothes that fit so I've been scouring the thrift stores to stock up. I found lots of cute shirts and thought I'd make a few simple skirts to go with them. 2 down and (at least) 3 more to go.

 

I now realize that I have way too many projects going at one time, but that's the fun part! There's no way they'll all fit in this post so be on the lookout for part two tomorrow. That is, unless I'm actually too busy working on my To-Do List to talk about it.
  

a tale of three journals: journal the third

 

I first introduced you to Journal the Third in this post. It was the first new journal that I'd bought in very long time--I can't even remember how long. Usually, I prefer to make them myself because 1.) I can, and 2.) I usually already have a specific idea in mind about the size, feel and page makeup for each new journal I start. Although there are some amazing journals out there that I often find myself drooling over, I rarely run into one, outside a plain spiral bound watercolor book, that I think will quite fit what I need in a journal. To be completely honest, Journal the Third is definitely slumming it coming into our little family of journals. She is way too good for the rest of us--me included--but has been a real trooper and adapted wonderfully to the back and forth between adoration and abuse that my journals all to often see around here.

 

When I first got her, she welcomed me right in, but I still tried to protect her by taking off her lovely linen cover every time we got messy with the paint. But by now, she's just one of the girls and prefers me not to get too fussy with her.

Besides the obvious, the beauty of Journal the Third is the way she's built. Sturdy and solid with a variety of pages to choose from different weights and sizes. It all makes for fabulous journal building. I've noticed that it comes more naturally for me to extend a page here or tuck in a little something there than in any of my other books. So many nooks and crannies. I imagine it could take me years to exhaust all the possibilities in this book.

 

Journal the Third opens up with something completely different for me. Who knows where this came from. Because it's the smallest of my journals--about 7x8.5x2"--I carry it around with me most often. The finished pages tend to be less polished (if anything I make can be said to be polished) and have more inclusions. I've added all kinds of stuff in here; everything has a story. To me, there's a sort of 'travel journal' feel to #3.

Some in progress pages:

Some completed pages: 

So there you go. This is where I've been keeping myself lately. With a few stray minutes at the sewing machine or knitting needles. I have several other journals in-progress that I haven't worked in in a while and I'll give you a peek at those as well if you're interested. I know I'll make it back around to them eventually so I do keep them close. If there is one thing that I could accomplish by showing you my 3 closest companions, it would be to just encourage those of you who are thinking about art journaling to give it a try. It is the most user-friendly art medium out there. I don't consider the work I do in my journals to be my 'best' art, but it is definitely the work that is closest to my heart. If I never ventured outside the bounds of the book, I'd still be one satisfied artist.
 
Well, it seems that the holiday season is fast upon us and I'm beginning to feel that hurry-up-and-enjoy-it-before-it-slips-away feeling which has me working on a hulking November to-do list that I'll share with you next time. Until then.... 

guaranteed goosebumps

sparkly & bright

A "cold" front blew through South Texas this morning leaving us with rumbling grey skies and a crisp North wind, which equals heaven to me. As the air shifted and the wind began to pick up, we quickly pulled out of the house for an early morning showing--a good excuse for breakfast out and a quiet crowd-free stroll through Target. It just so happened that the Target elves were busily unpacking Christmas tinsel, chocolates, and glowing lights. It was perfect timing to put us all in the mood for the holidays. (Now when tomorrow's forecast of 80 degrees with plenty of sun returns, remind me not to forget the holiday spirit.) Knowing we may be moving during the holidays or at least hoping for the perfect family to buy our house for their Christmas present, there probably won't be too much decorating this season, which is my favorite part, of course. But we'll make the best of it and look forward to next Christmas...in Colorado? We can only hope!

So, since we're all in the mood for the holidays and since I'm still finishing up a few things before I can show you Journal the Third, I thought I'd share my pretty Papaya! packages.

What a fun challenge this was! It's actually hard for me to call it a challenge when I had such fun and it all came together so easily. I love it when that happens.

I ended up making several gifts because I love this sort of thing and I just couldn't resist. Maybe I should keep them out as sort of holiday spirit props. To get us through the more Spring-like than Fallish weather around here.

I seriously love this patchwork envelope. It's definitely going up somewhere. Make sure you take a look at all of the other pretty packages here and here.

a tale of 3 journals: journal the second

 

 

Journal the Second, aka, the file folder journal, is by far my favorite journal at present. It's similar to this one but I'm waiting to bind it all together when it's done or when I'm done, whichever comes first. The covers are made from a spray painted file folder stitched together with heavy weight fabric to give it a little extra strength. I've also nestled in another folder to hold all the pages together nicely until I decide to bind them up. You'll notice that the cover is not really decorated, unlike Journal the First. In fact, I don't think too much about covers. My usual modus operandi is to work on the cover only if it screams at me that something specific needs to be done (the 10 cent stamp keeps me humble and reminds me of what my thoughts are really worth). Otherwise I leave it for the very end. Once the journal is finished or filled, I'll decorate the cover to kind of tie it all in together. Either that or I'll ignore it and move on happily to the next one.

The beauty of Journal the Second is its simplicity (easy to make, easy to change, easy to work in) and its loose pages. Although preparing pages for journaling with paint, ink, etc. is one of my favorite things to do, there is no prepping pages for the file journal. I simply stick my spray painted papers right in (after a little stitching, of course) and call them ready to go. Its first few pages have stayed the same, but I like to move the rest around depending on which sets of pages I'm working on or have completed. Once their 'done', I like to admire them for a while and then I don't really want to see them again (for a long while, anyway) and it bugs me to keep running into them.

  

 
 
These are a few of the pages in the front of the line for now. I'll tend to work among them first.

(Notice the Papaya! influence??) If I get stuck on a page, it will eventually get sifted to the back until inspiration strikes again. I've never worked in order or chronologically. I'd rather skip around working here and there as I feel inspired, so the loose pages are particularly nice there. And I love that I can stick them back under the sewing machine any time I want! 

You can see that starting with the spray painted papers gives these pages a completely different feel than Journal the First. They start off busier and way more colorful. I don't know if I'll always journal like this, but I'm seriously enjoying it at the moment. Here are some completed pages; some you've seen before, but to give you an idea where they fit in to the whole journal family....

 

 

 

  

Next up: Journal the Third, the adopted child....

a tale of 3 journals: journal the first

I'm finding myself working almost exclusively in one of three journals lately and thought it might be fun to introduce you to each of them, being the ladies I spend the most time with. I don't name my journals or title them, although now I'm thinking it would be helpful with this post if I did. I mostly think of them in terms of size and sometimes mood-- my mood. When I think to myself, I feel more like working in this one than that one, it is usually a random choice based on how I feel at that particular moment or, at most, simply a matter of feeling the need to work on a smaller or larger scale. Yet, each book is developing its own...not theme necessarily, but voice. Or more like its own way of speaking. But let me let them show you in their own way what we mean. Introducing (in no particular order)....

Journal the First

This little lady has been scantily clad for most of her life. It was only in the last week or so that I got my butt in gear and made her a new dress. Though she was always destined for better things, her bare bones come from a pad of watercolor paper cut in half, including its chipboard backing turned into the book's covers. Wanting the easy way out and a journal that opens flat, I opted for a coil binding which is ugly but easily disguised with a pretty fabric cover. 

The beauty of #1 is her simple uniform pages. No fuss and plenty of room for painting, ranting or anything in between. The thicker watercolor paper is perfect for all kinds of wet media and artistic abuse. My usual method is to paint backgrounds on a few pages at a time then work among them with collage, doodling and writing until they are more or less 'done' and I feel compelled to move on and paint a few more. I'll work like this until the journal is filled or I've outgrown it and feel the need to start fresh. I'm hoping this one will be the first journal I complete every page in. As much as I love each of my journals and recognize their importance at specific times in my life, there is nothing as depressing to me as an abandoned journal. Hopefully, as I grow as a journaler and an artist, I'll either get over caring about blank pages or learn to finish what I start.

 

Some sample pages:
 

 

Next up: journal the second, the black sheep of the family....