Daybook

 Today..... Saturday, January 20, 2018

Looking out my window..... I see a bunch of brown grass showing in the field across the road, and quite a few cows standing around and chewing their cud.

I am thinking.....  That Saturdays are the perfect days to spend journaling.

I am thankful.....  For catalogs with hand-drawn pictures like this one.

One of my favorite things..... Is the paper trimmer my Mum bought last year during the back to school sale. I use it so often, no more crooked lines for me!

I am wearing.....  A sea-foam-green shirt, and cream colored skirt with mauve flowers.

I am creating.....  A new junk journal. I'm still using my old one, but it's rapidly being filled and it's about time I make a new one.

I am reading..... Like usual, a nutrition book. As of today, I am reading "The Happiness Diet", it's a very good book and I love all the history they give on various "foods", take Crisco for example.

I am hoping.....  That my family will still be in good health for tomorrow so that we can go to church. Sicknesses in the Winter are so unpredictable that I'm never certain that our plans shall go unaffected.

I am learning.....  How to make a journal cover that isn't warped, or weak, or lopsided. I believe the journal I'm working on now is my eighth (?).

In the kitchen.....  A pan of blueberry lemon cupcakes are cooling before I can go frost them.

Picture thought..... Just looking at my journaling supplies makes me happy.

Recently.....

  Hello again dear friends, it has been yet another while since I've last posted. I know that I told you last week that I'd be blogging more frequently and then I immediately sat back and drank tea whilst forgetting all about what I'd said.

  Now that I'm back I assume it's only appropriate to inform you about all the little things that you've missed while I was being lazy. Since I'm on my Summer break I've gotten to spend a lot more time doing all the things that I love, like binding books, reading, journaling, and sketching.

  This first picture is what I started to draw last night but didn't quite finish yet. (I really dislike drawing clothing.) I've missed drawing so I'm happy to get back to it, though I should probably use better pencils than just my regular old yellow school pencil.

  
I've really been enjoying binding books to use as journals. Though I hate using the kettle stitch it makes neat books so I'm grateful for it. The book on the bottom there is the first one that I bound, the cover turned out a little wonky but I think I've got the hang of it now, at least I learned that using old cereal boxes to make "hard" covers is not a good idea!

  
Here are my last two, most recent journals that I made, have you noticed that I love to put charms on them?

  
Now, onto more pressing matters. (I'm literally laughing right now, even though I've been told my jokes lack a sense of hilarity, they amuse me) my brother Eldon made me a beautiful book press that I love to use when I make my journals, the picture doesn't really show it, but it's varnished, waxed, and very smooth. I was terribly excited about it, and readily made the cookies that Eldon requested as proof of my appreciation.

 
 My reading of late, hasn't been Anne of Green Gables, or Little House on the Prairie, instead I've been devouring (yep, I'm absolutely hilarious) this College Nutrition Book, I've learned so much and can hardly wait to learn more. I'm sure I'll get to learn plenty more considering how I'm on page 32 out of 512.

 
And there, that's the end of my hobbies of late, since I've gotten caught up with you I can now sit back and wait till tomorrow to make another post. It truly is a delightfully satisfying feeling!

S ~ Smash Book/ Art Journal

  I have no idea why in the world I ever had an excuse to be bored in my life, when the art of keeping a smash book, or an art journal, for that matter, existed out there, somewhere, just waiting for me to discover yet another passion in my life.

  Just a few days ago I discovered an art journal for the first time. I came across a video on YouTube by Johanna Clough on how to make you own art journal, binding it and all. Now, since I am recently really into binding books, I was willing to give it a go, and now I am in love with art-journaling.

  The lady I mentioned is a very young stay at home wife and mother who spends late nights creating in her journals. In overall perspective I admire her greatly and know that if you watch her videos you'll love her too. Besides, she has an Australian accent, and I absolutely love such accents!

  So far I have created three journals and am working on my fourth. The first one I'm using, two of them are going to be gifts, and the one I'm working on right now will be my first real art journal. If you have ever art-journalled (I have no idea how to spell that, or if it is even a legitimate phrase) and you have any favorite tips or anything, please feel free to let me know what they are because I would appreciate them very much.

Q ~ Quilling

  I absolutely love crafting, and anything at all creative, so when my Mum announced to me a week or so ago that I would be learning paper-quilling I was absolutely ecstatic. Now I have yet another excuse to fill my craft bag with even more deliciously fun stuff.

  I know that many people love to quill, and I envy them because to me, at this point in my life, it intimidates me a little but. I don't know if it's because origami and I aren't on the best terms, or perhaps it's just because I'm as mighty as a rabbit, but whatever it is, the idea of quilling simply intimidates me a touch.

  Honestly I have no idea what else to say about the whole quilling idea, because sadly I get to wait till our next school term (which starts in late July, or early August, I'm nor sure yet) to even try it out. But rest assured that as soon as I have completed some projects, that I'll be only too happy to post about them. I can hardly wait. I mean, who doesn't love bright pretty pieces of paper?!

  And now, since I was torn between writing about quilling, and making yet another post about quotes, I shall compromise and end off this post with one of my favorite quotes.

  Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~ Albert Einstein

I ~ Inside My Craft Bag

I have no idea how, but a lot of my posts lately have mentioned how Diane and I have been spring cleaning our room and today has yet another one of those posts. But do not worry that I shall bore you with trivial jibber-jabber over how to most efficiently spring clean a room, because goodness knows I have yet to learn it myself.

  Every month (which seems to be when we spring clean our room, don't judge us, Diane and I are very messy, creatively...) when Diane and I spring clean our room, the first thing we do after walking into our room with huge grins on our faces, and twirling around, is that we march over to our tidy drawers and pull out all of our craft supplies and sit down to craft.

  These past few days I have devoted my spare time to crafting and what fun it is! I have recently begun dabbling in the art of book binding and book cover making, it has been a bit interesting to say the least, and with my profusion of craft supplies that I always seemed to need nearby, I came to the most wonderful idea ever, I grabbed one of my biggest (but not the least ugliest) traveling bag, and gathered all of my most used craft supplies, and a few minutes later I had created the most delightfully filled bag I have ever owned in my entire life.

  In fact, I love it so well that it now has a dominant residence beside my desk, Sean loves my crafty bag too, and he spent a good few hours today rummaging around in it, pulling out treasures and exclaiming over them, he then busily helped me paint today, his favorite part was mixing different paints on my palette to invent colors before he painted a picture in his idea book.

  With all of this yapping about my craft bag, I decided it would be completely unfair to have made you go through all of that verbige without even getting to see a picture of it. So here it is.

Autumn Roses

  Just looking out my window I see leaves falling from the trees and ever so poetically floating through the air greeting the ground as an old friend. Now since autumn is so beautiful and doesn't seem to last long enough I decided to take advantage of all of its beauty and preserve and craft nature till my heart was content.
  So today since I felt crafty I made several roses and was absolutely delighted with how well they turned out to be, and decided I shall share a tutorial with you, in case you want to make some roses as well.

  To make Leaf Roses you will need:

  About 10 leaves, freshly fallen so that they aren't brittle and won't break or tear easily.
 
 A long, pliable leaf stem

 1. Starting with the smallest of the leaves with the colorless side facing you, bend the middle leaf tip down towards you.

2. Then starting from the right side tip fold it down and roll it all the way over to the other side.

3. Holding on to that rolled leaf tightly, take another leaf, colorless side towards you fold down the middle tip and place the previous leaf in its' center.

  4.Once again starting from the siding tip, fold down the outer tips and roll the leaf around the previously rolled leaf.


  Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have your desired rose shape.  Using a stem from a leaf, tie it around the other stems to secure the rose's shape.

  This tutorial is really quite simple even though sounds a little complicated. It's fun, and at the end you have a lovely rose.