Catching up

I haven't felt much like blogging lately, but I have done some journaling. My main news is that I finally bought a new camera. I'm really enjoying it. I'm looking forward to hopefully taking some photos of my grandgirls tomorrow.

In other news, the roof is finally done on the new part of the house. Johnny asked what I thought about moving the kitchen to that part. I'm thinking about it, but it will be hard to change kitchens. It's such an integral part of the house and I've had the same one for nearly thirty years.

Crushes

Crusade Number 12 over at GPP Streat Team is Crush. I wasn't sure what to think of that until I realized that Michelle was talking about what I consider fazes or obsessions. I've been through several, starting with dollhouse miniatures in my teens. I bought every magazine or book I could find on the subject. I corresponded with people across the world (before Internet) trading my handmade miniatures for what others made. I spent endless hours with them. And then I was done, so done that I could only find one photo on my flickr stream.

This photo actually shows several of my next crushes. About the time that I finally got online, I developed a big crush on crazyquilting. So big that my alias on several sites is still Crazyquilter.

I got into web pages and mailing lists at that time and spent endless hours with both with a crazyquilt theme. The little doll in the middle of the wreath was my next crush, or rather taking pictures of her wherever I went and sharing them online. Dolls have been an on and off crush all my life.

Altered books came next and I spent a couple of years learning how to do things with paper, paint, scissors and glue. Then came my current crush/obsession of visual journals. I've nearly filled seven composition books. I love looking at other people's journals, books about them, and of course working in my own. I have a thing for recording. Everything paper and some things that aren't find their way into my journal. The phone sketch below on my lastest journal page was done in my car on a light bill that is postdated May 16, 2005. It's been floating around my workspace ever since then waiting to find a spot on a journal page. I go weeks sometimes without journaling, but it always draws me back.

My crush always seems to have lots to do with creativity. Other crushes along the way included making doll clothes, knitting and taking pictures through my kitchen window. I can't seem to go very long without making something.

Collaborative Effort

Drat, I knew collaboration had two l's. I even tried to look it up in my art room dictionary, but that page had been torn out to use in a project. Oh well, I can't spell. It's really no secret to anyone who knows me.

I had a wonderful time with my grandgirls and son and daughter-in-law this weekend. Right before they went home I wanted to show them the photo I took a few weeks ago of the turkeys and deer together in our garden. I had one printed out in my journal. Madelyn, who is four now, wanted to draw on a page in my journal that I had prepped for a vacation page this spring and still haven't done yet. I suggested the next empty page and she was happy to draw there. It was a lot of fun working with her drawings on the page. I'm looking forward to doing this lots in the future.

The fruit stickers are from Umberto in Italy. I still have several more to put in my journal. I love getting these in the mail. When Maddie finished the drawing on the right of the page, I asked her if it was Larry the Cucumber. She is in a Veggie Tales phase right now. Her birthday party in August had that theme and she has an adorable green t-shirt with Larry's face on it, so it was a pretty safe guess. She told me, "Yes, he's jumping."

I'm looking forward to the long week-end. The second week of school went well. I got a new marker board and new rain-gutter bookshelves for my free choice reading books. The room looks great

I know better than to go upstairs at 9:30 PM, thinking I'll work in my journal for half an hour. I wound up spending three hours, but I had fun. I guess it was worth it. The doll's skirt on this page is loose at the side because there is journaling underneath it. This is the first time I've tried something like this in a journal. I discovered that if you are going to use glitter glue, it needs to be the last thing to go on the page and you difinitely don't want to work on the next page while it is still wet.

Today I took some books I was wanting rid of to our local second-hand bookstore. They took nearly everything I had and I wound up with these fun books and the stencil for only $3.10. I'm not sure if the science book is Chinese or Japanese, but it has some great diagrams. I'm looking forward to using it in collages. The open book is A Guide to Making Decorated Papers by Anne Chambers. I hope it will motivate me to try some of her papers. The block print ones look especially enticing.