Every Scrap

I was awestruck by last evening's sky! 

I won't share every page in Diane's journal....but I will share a few more before I move on. 

Cherie should get hers Monday or Tuesday. 

I mentioned before that Diane included a two page printout of a meditation. 

I used the second printed page for a gelli print that became a pocketed page in the journal. The first page had this graphic design at the top with the title...and I made it the center page of a little booklet with several lined pages.

I tucked the booklet into an "io-WAYS" pocket. (LOVED featuring that phrase) I used Diane's card stock for the cover and more of her magazine scraps to make a logo for the booklet that mimicked the title graphic. 

I'll have to say...it made me smile to connect these two images using just magazine scraps.

On the opposite page was a clever printout with fun rhyming phrases like see you later crocodile....and bye by butterfly.  I included it as is with an accordion fold so it could be pulled out and viewed as a whole.

Diane included a rainbow swirl that was featured a few months ago in our Graceland College alumni magazine. I cut the same image out....it's in one of my own piles of papers somewhere and when I find it I'll smile and remember sweet Rosey.

I used one swatch of it framing Rosey's....Diane's granddaughter.

I used the other swatch over one last magazine image.

I loved this bold magazine image with the amazing sky and the farm silo. To give it some heft...I fused it onto some heavier weight paper which means NO WRINKLES! Paper fuses well! I knocked down the gloss paper with medium and overlayed the swirl. It looks much prettier in person.

Thank you for following along with some of the details of making Diane's joy journal. There was joy...in every scrap.

Rosey's Art

We woke up to 2-3 inches of snow...and it was almost gone by noon. It was lovely for a while in the early morning light.

And it ended up being a beautiful day to be downtown for the protest.

Tracking tells me that Diane got her journal today! Phew! 

She included two coloring sheets that her granddaughter Rosey had done and I tried to think of clever ways to include them. One of them was a snowman that I folded into a zine and tucked it into a pocket. But first...I added a little texture. I placed stencils under the snowman and used the side of crayons to do some rubbings. Such an easy things to do with kids! 

If you use this technique on heavier paper...you can watercolor over it and the crayon acts as a resist giving a wonderful batik-like effect. You can see an example of that on the box top in this post.

I folded it into a zine...and I tucked it in the other side of the cornfield pocket.

It was serendipitous that this page of the zine looks like a landscape! 

Diane and her granddaughter could continue to add things to the zine. Or make another one!

I forgot about the other coloring sheet until after the book was assembled....but I still wanted to do something with it.

This one was a large Christmas ornament...and in the end I trimmed off the hanger and turned the other side into a color wheel using my own catalog images.

Diane and Rosey could add their own images to the wheel and 

do more coloring or glueing to the other side.

The color wheel would have made a fabulous page to include in the journal...but all I could do at the point was fold it and tuck it into the back. Maybe one of the next journals will get a color wheel page....or at least a round page!

One last beautiful downtown cloud photo....Mother Nature's art!

Simple Surprizes

Isn't it fun when simple things surprise you.

Paul and I are part of a team picking up a couple of students at a local Middle School and getting them home safely....and we are delighting in our conversations with these interesting young people.

While we were waiting yesterday afternoon it was lightly raining and I happen to notice raindrops beading up on a shiny black car in the parking lot. 

I was compelled to take a closer look and snapped a few quick photos....because that's what I do. Snap now...assess later. I didn't realize until I uploaded the photos that I captured the reflection of my iphone on one of the photos. 

Then I played around a bit with coloring effects...and sent this simple daily  montage to Alyson. I was surprised how interesting a simple act of noticing had become.

A BIG THANK YOU to the journal recipients who sent me up and beyond the money for postage. I was able to shop for Maine Needs today and purchased three bath towels, a set of queen size sheets and 20+ pairs of underwear. 

Cherie's journal is in the mail...and I will start Debbie C's in a few days. Her papers are on on a tray in the dining room calling to me everytime I walk by. 

On a Roll!

Here's to seeking out joy in the waiting, beauty in the ordinary and hope in unexpected places. Morgan Harper Nichols

I can't believe how much my amaryllis bud has grown in just one week! 

It was slow getting started...but it's rolling now! 

Just like my latest joy journal for Cherie. I had to mull it over for several days as it was a little puzzling as to how to best use the clothing tags and all her other little things. But once I found an inspiration for the cover....and sorted out the pieces (puzzle pun intended)...I was rolling. I just finished it today and can't wait to get it in the mail and share it here. Just like her materials...it's a little unconventional. But I love it and I think Cherie will too. 

I'm still going to share more of Diane's journal. It seems to be stuck in St. Louis...as it makes its way to Kansas. It didn't make today's tracking target. 

I love how a bit of color is starting to present itself on the amaryllis bud....and here's a just bit of color on Cherie's unconventional cover. It's something from my stash! And it blends right in with my kitchen tiles.

Our Iowa

This made me chuckle....because it's so true: The immediate peace that comes from turning off the exhaust fan on the stove.

As I mentioned....many of Diane's papers came from Iowa magazines....and I knew I was going to use this bird for the first page. The OUR iowa title was a the perfect nod to our common past.

Diane also provided a several pieces of card stock...some of them striped with different metallic designs. I used it for cover pockets...and had enough to embellish quote cards that she provided that I tucked in both the front and back pockets. 

I cut around the right hand edge and layered it over an Iowa corn field on the next page. I collaged the back of it with more of Diane's bird images giving the page more heft.

The cornfield wrapped around the page and became a pocket for a pullout cardinal. 

The back edge of the pullout is from a meditation Diane included. It was two pages...and I used the second page for the gelli print on the next page.

A quilt on a garage as seen on yesterday's walk....

...and 40 little Gee's Bend quilts on my table.

I finished it yesterday...and I'm already sorting pieces for the next one.

Colorful Cover

Last evening's sky was just gorgeous! And today we nearly reached 70 degrees so our snow piles are shrinking by the minute. We can actually see patches of grass in a few places! 

When I was chatting with Diane about her joy journal...she expressed interest in my process. So I thought I would start by sharing how I made her colorful cover. If it stays on track...she should have it in her hands on Thursday. 

Diane included a lot of magazine cutouts in every color of the rainbow. She also included some of her granddaughter's coloring and printed pages that were meaningful to her. To honor these papers I knew her journal need to be filled with color....for her and her granddaughter. 

When I was in the messy middle I was a little unsure....but I actually ended up loving this cover!

When I work with magazine pages...the best option is to either use just a glue stick or collage them to give them some structure. Collaging them also allows you to knock down the glossy surface....but that is challenging because they wrinkle so easily.

I pulled out the images I wanted to use inside the journal and randomly cut the rest up for collage. The butterfly cutouts are from some wrapping paper that I've had for years and I thought they added a couple of nice focal points. There's a third one on the back.

Using matt medium I overlapped and glued the the papers onto my go to substrate making sure they hung off the edges so I could fold them over to the back. I still wasn't so sure at this point whether I love it. This was a late evening project...and that's always a gamble.

I knew I was going to fuse a strip of fabric along the spine fold...so I didn't worry about overlapping in the middle. That actually makes it fold easier. 

Here's the backside.....doesn't look like much yet. And in case you were wondering.....when I took this photo I got the link from the QR code how to become debt free in as little as 24 months! Will I ever learn?

I glued all the folded edges down and covered the inside with the same bright striped fabric that I added to the spine.

I love the border effect of the collaged papers against the fabric!

I really wasn't sure whether I should stitch over the whole thing. I knew I would go around the edge...but also knew it would be too much to try and go around each image. And what about those butterflies! hmmmm

But stitching changes everything is one of my mottos....so I did a simple line around the edge then worked my way to the middle in concentric squares. I used soft pink thread and it's barely there. But it's still there.....and it changed everything.

 

Now the cover feels more like a paper quilt than a paper collage....and the stitching seemed to pull it all together. 

The ribbon is from my stash and the star is from Diane...and they came together perfectly along with a bright green button for the belly band closure. 

Oh...did I have fun with this colorful cover...and the whole journal for that matter...and I think Diane will be pleased. Most of these images are from an Iowa Magazine...where she and Paul and I went to college. 

Finding Joy in Your Joy

Hang on to people who find joy in your joy! Case Kenny

Isn't that the truth! We all need people who celebrate our joy! 

I had to chuckle with I got an email from Lily in Alaska. She received her blue and white journal a few days ago and was doing the opposite of Dotty. She opened it right away and quickly scanned through the whole thing.....then went back and looked again more slowly. I found joy in Lily's joy....and enthusiasm.

As I mentioned before....Dotty received her journal a week or so ago and is looking at only one element a day. She just got to the second page page (which was a repurposed page from one of Paul's baseball scoring books) where she found a tiny collage in a tiny pocket. I'm finding joy in Dotty's slow and steady joy of her daily discoveries and observations. 

I mailed the next two journals this morning to Diane and Susan and I'm getting ready to start Cherie's. Then I'll move on to Debbie C's. 

I know that all of you aren't puzzle people...but hopefully you find a little joy in my joy with my puzzles.

I finished the 4th row of quilts....one more row to go. But I have to move the puzzle up on the table and connect the bottom border. 

So the big gathering is over with all of the littles and some of them had to go back to the jar. 

I kept a few extras...and my little puzzle gang is finding joy in my joy too! 

Abstract Light

I got saved by the beauty of the world. Mary Oliver

I couldn't help but celebrate the intense color and lines in this cabbage leaf when I held it up to the light! It's abstract light! 

And I was equally delighted with the abstract sunlight shimmering on this puddle. We reached 60 degrees today...and we finally have some serious melting! 

Here's a few other puddle shots I loved!

This first one is the reflection of the seed pods on our sycamore tree.

60 degrees AND blue sky blue sky reflecting in this puddle! 

It was a good day to be outside!

Assembler

I'm officially finished with Susan's journal and I enjoyed working with her soft color palette. I'll get it in the mail early this week....it's heading to Scotland. Here's her pile of papers....and I added a few of my own.

And here's a sneak peak at the cover.

I also made good progress on Diane's today....hers is an explosion of color. I feel like a kid in a candy store!

I'm also mulling over Cherie's stash as it sits on a tray in the dining room. It's a sentimental collection of this and that including a flower doodle from her dad. It will be fun coming up with the base papers to support all these little treasures. 

Each pile of papers and ephemera is so different and interesting. Cherie's may be the most unusual so far. Does anyone watch Project Runway? I feel like this is my Unconventional Materials Challenge...and I'll make it work! (That's a Project Runway line!)

For most of these journals I'm trying to provide a blank(ish) canvas for more creative play for the recipient...not much art from me. They are really more of an assemblage...so that makes me an assembler. I've often thought that is what I'm best at...assembling things.

But not everybody wants to add their own art. Cherie wants more of a finished journal without blank pages. I can do that too. That will be fun...and a chance for me to add more from my vast stash.

This large square quilled tree card poses a challenge because it's so thick....but I think I have an idea of how to use it.

I have fond memories of quilling  when I was younger! 

And I'm smitten with these clothing tags...especially Johnny Cotton and Pooh!

And how cool is this! I think it might be from a handkerchief?

It will be fun to assemble all of these things into a joy journal for Cherie.