I read a lot of other blogs and I long for the ability to say the right thing and choose the right pictures to have an interesting and helpful blog.  I feel that my hit and miss ramblings are useless to anyone but me.  The solution to this eludes me, but I am going to try to just blog whatever I want to when the mood strikes.  I’ll see how that feels and try to quit over thinking it.

I want to know how people do those collages or mosaics of small pictures in their blog posts.  I usually see them on blogger blogs, so I suspect that might be a feature of blogger.

For my latest journal I wanted to work on loose pages, rather than a bound book.  I cut 9 1/2 x 14 in. watercolor paper in half to use for the pages, but it’s really too small for me.  I’ve done enough pages to bind into a book.  I like working on loose pages, but I need to use the full size sheets rather than the half size.  Here are a few of the pages I did on the small size.

I’ve been playing with different styles and ideas.  I’m layering paint and paper more than usual.  I just got a new dip pen and some new ink.  I’m loving playing with them.  I am mostly liking romantic, cream and pink, victorian looking pages.  So I want to use the dip pen and ink to write on them.  It seems fitting that a page with antique lace or paper that looks like Victorian wall paper, should have old fashioned ink to write the words.

I am still working on the new website, but as you know if you’ve ever built a site, nothing ever goes as planned and dates must be flexible to deal with problems.  So, while I wanted to launch the site this week, it isn’t happening.  But I promise it will be worth waiting for!

I used a comp book for the cover.  I removed the paper by cutting the threads.  Then I folded watercolor paper into 5 signatures with 4 pages in each one.  The next part is where Rice’s video was so helpful.  You have to plan out where your sewing stitiches will be and she has a great trick using grid paper.  Mine isn’t perfect but it’s much better than I expected for my first try.  I painted the cover black and glued on a page from Frida Kahlo’s diary.  I want to make more!!!

I will share some scans of some of my recent journal pages to give you an idea of  they type of pages I create in my journal.

1.  I painted the sun on the left page with liquid acrylic paint and a thin liner brush.  I used a paper plate to create the half circle on the right page, then painted the area outside the circle.

2. I painted both pages with pink for the background.  I glued a magazine picture of lady’s face on the right page, covered her with gesso, then filled it in with watercolor pencils.  With white liquid acrylic (or gesso, not sure which) I painted the wings.  Then I used bubble wrap and acrylic paint to “stamp” the circles on the background.

3.  I painted the background with a goldish yellow, I think it was yellow ochre.  The image on the upper left was an inkjet print printed on t-shirt transfer paper and glued on with mod podge.  I made the vertical red stripes with watercolor crayons.  I used a rubber stamp to make the checker design.

4. I painted the background a pale pink.  The images were cut from an old journal where I had been playing with geometric designs in graphite pencil and watercolor pencil.   The jan is rub on letters.  I didn’t have numbers so I had to write in the date.

5.  Painted the background brown.  Cut the rough shape of a dress from a dictionary page and glued it in.  Made the angel head and wings with a white Sharpie paint pen.  The checkerboard was made with a rubberstamp and white liquid acrylic.

6.  I love this sort of seafoam green color so I used it on the background and wanted to see how it would look with red.  I saw the border technique that Teesha Moore uses and just grabbed a magazine and cut out anything that was in the red group.  I cut small strips of these images and glued them around the edge.

I wrote on the last page of  my current journal last night.  The cover on it is one of my favorite’s.  Writing in my journal is such an effective way for me to sort out reality from the crazy thoughts in my head.  As thoughts circle around my mind, thinking only sucks me into the whirlpool. But writing helps me get it out so I can organize them.  Once they are organized I can determine what is important, what is just crap and what needs attention.  Journal writing has kept me sane for a long time.

I am starting a new journal today, in anticipation of the “Oh My Word” Mission for 2010.  If you don’t know about it, you can read it here.  My word for next year is Acceptance.  I chose that word because I want to learn to accept myself just as I am today.  All of me.  But since choosing the word, I’m finding out that it is also about my accepting others.  Just as you can’t love others if you dont’ love yourself, you can’t accept others if you don’t accept yourself.  It is going to be an interesting year to discover all I don’t know about acceptance.

If you are participating in the Oh My Word mission with me, be sure you have a blank book of some sort to write in, OR a blog.  As I offer ways to focus on your word, you will need a place to record your reactions and thoughts.  I know several of you have posted your word, but if you dont’ have a word yet, just remain open.  Spend some quiet time listening.  I know that seems impossible right now with the holiday activities, but it only takes a few mins to listen.  While you’re driving, or brushing your teeth, just focus on being open and ready to hear your word.

So far I have already done 80-something pages!!  Many of them are just writing.  I did painted backgrounds and just wrote on them.  But I will share a few of the pages where I did more than just write.

I ordered that Artist’s Datebook from a seller on Amazon.  I got a different book from them that is letters for secretarys.  I let them know and they immediately shipped my book and told me to keep the wrong book.   The secretary’s book has great paper.  Those nice, thick aborbent type.  It just so happens that I’m on the last few pages of my current journal, so I made the accidental book into my new journal!

I have never made a journal cover that I really liked.  I see others’ journals with these beautiful covers, but I just can’t get the “cover muse” going, I guess.

The colored ones on the left are from a time when I was searching for the kind of journal I liked.  None of them are completely filled.  Then I found sketch books.  I love that sketch books are cheap, spiral bound and a nice big size.  I completely filled several of them.  Those were the first ones I ever filled before changing to something different.  But, as I’ve expanded the art techniques I use in my journals, I’ve found that the paper in the sketch books just can’t hold up to the abuse.  So now I prefer watercolor paper.  I have a few that are just watercolor paper pads.  But most recently I have bound my own books with watercolor paper.

I like at least an 8 x 10 in size.  Any smaller and I feel confined.  I combine art and writing on most of my pages so I like lots of room!

What type of journal do you use?  Do you use just one, or do you keep different journals for different purposes?

P.S.  I’ve fallen down on taking a photo every day.  So, I’m counting this as my photo today

I found a Junior Monopoly game at the thrift store.  The board is half the size of a regular monopoly board, so I decided to cut it in half and use it as a cover for a journal.  The pic above is the front cover.

Here’s the back…

I bound it with my new Bind-it-All machine.