Journal Junkie

I love journals.  I love notebooks.  I am a journal junkie.

I like to make them my own.  I decorate them.  I alter them.  I USE THEM. A lot.  For ideas, sketches, notes, plans, doodles, everything.  I'll always have one with me.  I want to keep them organized, but I'll leave them all around the house.  I've tried to designate certain topics for certain books.  I always fail and use whichever book is closest to me.  But I don't care, because I USE THEM.

Here's Proof:

Before:

Years later:

So when I saw the gor.geous paper in the January Mercantile Papercrafting Kit, the urge to make another journal soon followed.

LOVE this paper.  Although the kit is sold out, there's still some of the January Paper Pack left - it's gorgeous.  

Clockwise from top left: 1. I cut flowers from on of the very pretty papers and used them as index tabs. 2. Another flower on a ribbon is my bookmark.  3.  The alpha stickers in the kit title some pages.  4. The rest of the alphas are snuck in a vellum pocket made with a doily from the Antiquarian Kit.

Clockwise from top left: 1. A glassine envelope from my stash holds clear plastic sketch templates.  2. Another page header using the alpha stickers.  3.  The alpha stickers on the talk bubbles and glued onto paperclips make adorable clips. 4. Items from the Antiquarian Kit and gorgeous flower filled paper create this divider page.

This journal was created mostly because I loved that triangle and flower paper so much, that I needed to use it with something I could carry around with me.  And then I could look at the paper all I wanted.

Here's the gorgeous paper in this month's kit.  Some of the papers were designed by Lisa Dickinson and are exclusive and limited edition.  

One reason to love monthly kits is the paper.  There's truly just too much out there to see and remember. So when I get my paper in my kit, I'm usually flabbergasted.  Like this month ... gor.geous.

My Desiderata Journal and the Love Affair with Wordle.net

I LOVE Wordle.net. I think I even love the guy who created it - even though I know nothing about him except for this creation :) . If you haven't tried it yet, you must run over and give it a whirl. It takes any text, scrambles the words, and creates a word cloud. You can change the font, colors, layout - you just have to play with it and you'll get very cool results. It's got great applications for scrapbooking and other crafts. Here is a journal I made using Wordle.net and Magistical Memories Chipboard:



Supplies: Magistical Memories Fancy Frame
Magistical Memories Flutterby's
Magistical Memories Window Tabs
Magistical Memories May Apple Bloom
Magistical Memories Folk Art Star
American Crafts patterned paper (pocket and divider pages inside)
Hambly transparencies
My Mind's Eye rubons
American Crafts and Bazzill brads
Staples No Snag notebook

The Staples No Snag notebook is great because it comes apart so easily. You can alter your cover and add pages if you want. I added a pocket page and divider pages. Here's a look at the divider pages. The Magistical Memories chipboard shapes are the divider tabs. I covered them with solid AC paper and added an abstract rubon.



I love the last paragraph of Desiderata most, and I used just the only the last paragraph to create the Fancy Frame plate on the front cover. The cover and the plate are covered with Hambly transparencies.



Here's a hint for putting your book back together. Your instinct would be to put the book together as you see above and fit the spiral ring back into it, but the covers won't stay on well that way. Instead, do this:

1. Put the back cover on top of the front cover - right sides together.
2. Stack up your inside pages in order under the front cover.
3. Fit your spiral binding back into the book from the bottom.
4. Gently squeeze the binding shut.
5. Then flip the back cover around and you're all set!

Have a creative week!

Jolie Chocolat

I visited Express Yourself the other day and found a new line of SEI papers: Jolie Chocolat. This stuff is GORGEOUS! Beautiful patterns, beautiful colors, and the sheets are embossed, glittered, foiled, etc. There's a ton of stuff in the line - here's a link to see it all: http://www.shopsei.com/main.cfm?heading=0&categoryoid=8&productoid=199&page=1

I bought some of the papers without having any kind of plan for them. They were just too gorgeous to pass up.

They were also just too gorgeous to just have sitting on my desk, so I made a creative journal with some of it. I really like the Staples No Snag spiral ring notebook. It's easy to take the cover off, remove pages, and customize the way you want. This is the fourth one I've done and I really do fill them up with all my sketches, thoughts, and inspirations.


Here's the cover. The paper is glittered - gorgeous.

Square templates (Hambly transparency) for my sketches hang from ribbon on the first page.

My own pocket page for 'stuff'.

Here's a closeup of cute new Primas I used as section dividers.

If you've seen any new line around that you think is just GREAT, I'd love to hear about it!