Nearing the end of my seventh compo journal

Sometimes when I'm in a down mood journaling perks me up. Sometimes, as below, I just wind up with a dreary, whiney journal page. I put it below because I couldn't stand the idea of starting my blog post with it. My second try worked out better. I started the page above with varying shades of purple. Light and cheery. Before I was done I had darkened it considerably. Notice my notes to myself encouraging my mood to lift, lift.

I get tickled now when I look at this page. I think that evening the blue gate finally did the trick. I really want a new gate in my back yard going down to the creek. You can see it from the kitchen window and I'd dearly love to find a vintage one to hang there. The barb wire fence wouldn't even bother me, if I had a cool gate.

This page prooves another thing, that I am a true packrat. I've had that little photo of a crazy quilt rooster since 1989 when I got a catalog with it in it. I kept the whole catalog because of that little rooster until a couple of years ago when I finally tore it out. Now after all those years it has a home in my journal.

Sometimes I'm not particularly ready to work with one of the vintage pages in my journal. I think this one was an example. I found the scissors and words on an old pattern tissue that had some ads on it. I recently ran across a crazyquilter online who actually finished a quilt project that I also embarked on, but quickly fizzled - a Y2K quilt that was to have 2,000 pieces. 200 blocks with 10 pieces in each block, all of them different. I had a couple of swaps to get different fabrics. I think I finished about 10 blocks and traded for a few more. Then I got distracted by paper arts and never went back to it. I had forgotten the project until I saw the finished quilt online. She said that she gave up on the numbers, but still has a very pretty finished quilt. The seam stitch drawings and words on this page I think came about as a result of this. I'd like to do some crazyquilting some time soon. I just don't seem to pick it up and get started. I'd like ot make a cover for my current journal like I planned back in January when I started it. Maybe if my sewing/craft room weren't such a mess...

The bird on the right page was inspired by this cool page . I messed up the wing. I thought I would go up and paint over the part that was too long, but I decided to just leave it.

My sweet Madelyn has decided that she likes to draw in my journal. I was showing it to her mom on Monday and she wanted to find a white page. We were asking her who that was that she drew and she said, "It's me!" and threw out her arms, fingers spread wide and threw her head back and got a wide smile on her face. Her mom said that she has a set of antennae that she wears with her tutu and fairy wings. She also added the rows of stamping with her Dora stamp.

The Sarasa packaging is from a new pen set that I got at Staples on Monday. I really like them. I've used Sarasas before and they really last for me, plus they have a nice size line. I just wish I could find one in olive green to replace the one that I used all the ink out of. It was a favorite for months.

I also picked up a vinyl covered composition book to make my next journal out of. One of my students had one in black and I really liked the feel of it. I found this one at Wal-mart. I used it to make my Volume Eight journal from. I deconstructed it and a quad rule compo book sent to me by an online friend and put it back together with aboug half quad-rule pages and half vintage pages from old books Thursday night. One more page in the current journal and I'll be ready to start this one. I laced some bright threads through the stitching on the spine to liven it up some. I don't know if I'll add to the cover or leave it like it is.