A Good Day!

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention. 
Julia Cameron

There is so much spring happening out there....but this thistle caught me by surprise on our walk this morning. The snowflake shape and fuzzy leaves were just a delight. There is a chapter in The Comfort of Crows called Loving the Unloved Animals: the opossum and the vulture...and even the wasps...the spiders and yes...the mosquito. 

I'm choosing to love this unloved weed plant.

As you know I'm in a handmade journal mode...and what I love most about it is they are ALL for other people. Today I worked all morning on all the different journals...and then spent a whole afternoon in the garden and yard. It was a good day. 

I've been making books and journals for a while...but the junk journal process is relatively new for me so I'm always looking for ideas. Just this morning I stumbled across a youtube video by Meg Frances  about a patchwork quilt-like approach to assembling a junk journal. It thought it would be the perfect way to approach the second journal for Lynn.

I likely will use this circle watercolor that Lynn did for the first page....but then the patchwork begins. 

I started just like Meg did...folding a smaller piece of paper and just kept adding and glueing until the page reached the size I wanted. The black and white stripe was actually a piece that is mostly folded to the other side. I love these little peekaboo moments.

Since I used Meg's method...If you want to see the process I recommend watching her video. She shows and explains it very clearly:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkC9nVYOnFI

There are advantages to this technique. It's a great way to use up small scraps....and since you are layering papers on papers on both sides the thinner papers get reinforced. I think I'll get better as I go along...and I'm certain I will add in some pages with just book pages and some that are one type of paper to break it up. That will give Lynn plenty of options for paint and collage.

Lynn  had a box of cutouts that would be fun to layer in....but she can do whatever she wants! It will be her journal to play with.