Journals

I found Creative Mom this week. Right up my alley. She asked about our personal journals.

What is your favorite journal?

My current one. Whichever it may be. Or my next one. Or the one with the story I need.

In 2005, I became more diligent about journaling.

I had a journal I had started on September 5, 2001. Though I had a few other books over the years, this is the real Volume 1. I found the book at Tuesday Morning store. Lovely autumn colors to go with my October birthday. At the time, I was running tests at work. Many were interactive, but some were not., I'd have five minutes of waiting before I needed to flip a switch or tally the results. I had time to start my new journal.

I tried to avoid resting my hand on the spiral binding by writing only on the right-hand pages. When I reached the back cover, I flipped the book upside down and wrote myself to the front again. It was nice to meet my old self on the return trip.

Eager to write, as a new book encourages, I wrote on Wednesday, Sept 5. Thursday, Sept 6. Monday, Sept 11. An ordinary day. I wrote about friends, I wrote about my son, just starting kindergarten. I wrote about a good pen.
Then I wrote on Sept 11. An extraordinary day. My cat was at the vet when the news broke. I wrote in snippets instead of full sentences. Absorbing the layers.

My commitment dwindled soon after. The book ends on July 25, 2005.

I moved into a journal that my husband bought for me from a trip to England and Scotland. Pages had art and quotes from Shakespeare, but I usually wrote around them, rather than about them. It has a corner pocket inside the front cover. That's handy.

During this time, I started studying the ideas about journaling. I re-skimmed The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I found Hannah Hinchman and Jim Arnosky and Gwen Diehn at the library. I found Danny Gregory on recommendation of Donavan Freberg (on his PG-13/R site). I found Lin at View from the Oak and Karen Winters on the Internet. I was ready to draw more often. I was itching to get done with the lined book and into a blank book. More space for drawing. Less pasting in my drawings done on side papers.

I have never met a Moleskine notebook in person. I like the Strathmore Sketch with recycled paper, 100 sheets, 5.5" x 8.5".

What does it look like?

I look forward to decorating each journal cover to reflect myself and my mood during that time.

For my first Sketchbook, I carefully unleashed the cover from the spiral and flipped it over. The screen-like texture is part of the cover. It is cardstock weight. The back cover is 1/8" cardboard. I started pulling items at hand. I'm fond of purple, so I started there. The gift wrap was from a gift for my mom. It fully says: "Party till the cows come home!" I flipped through my collection of page-a-day calendar pages and found the Mary Engelbreit home. I started stamping and collaging. I sewed the ribbon. I started to add glitter glue to just the upper bubble of the heart, but it smeared so I filled in the whole heart (paper-punched).

For my second decorated journal, I decide to just decorate and enhance the cover as it looked. I used glitter glue and pearly glue, Radiant Pearls, DecoColor markers, a rubber stamp of a dandelion seed using a silver ink pad. I added to it as I went, though the bulk was done at the beginning.

For my current journal, I started putting found stickers on the cover. Mostly, fruit stickers. I try no to have more than two of any kind. This is encouraging me to eat fruit more often and to try fruits I wouldn't usually look at, because I want the sticker. I'm still not fond of plums and I prefer canned peaches to fresh. Ganoush liked the kiwi if it was peeled. The non-fruit stickers are also found items. Usually the last sticker on a sheet, so lonely. The back cover has larger stickers (including one from Gonzo's new glow-in-the-dark Yoda shirt) and a copy of the concert schedule for my summer band.

The Pokemon Ruby sticker is from a used cartridge that Gonzo bought with His Own Money. He traded in an old game, but he still had to make up money to complete the transaction. I acquired the sticker when he chose to stick it to the outside of the car window. Not good.

I added the date tags to all of my journals when I started the current book. I bought a box of metal-rimmed circle tags at an office supply store. I designed each pair to compliment the cover. I made strings of different lengths, so the earlier date sits higher when the books are upright on the shelf, side by side. It adds fun and color and reference info. I don't knit or crochet but I like fun fibers. If it suits, I'll add other ephemera from strings, like my deflated balloon from my 39th birthday, when we went to Chuck E Cheese's. For the current book, I made tags with elements of nature that I like. I have the top of a blue feather on the start date and the bottom of the feather for the end. It also has a maple leaf and two lightning bugs / fireflies. Every tag is similar on both sides.

Where did you get it?

I buy them at Michael's Arts and Crafts store. I wait until they are on sale. I try to buy a few weeks ahead of completing the current book, but needed to go out the night before to get my current book.
I've looked at other books at Michael's but this one calls to me. I don't want perforations. I like recycling. This is a handy size: room to draw, easy to carry. I can print 2-up pages and they'll fit on a journal page.

What do you put in it?

• Newspaper clippings
• Personal observations and reflecting
• To-do lists, releasing mental fluff and clutter
• Minutes from meetings: church, Scouts, Scottish. I want all stuff in one system, organized chronologically.
• Sketches. I really like Crayola Watercolor Pencils. If only they had one in brown...
• Chronicle of the day's events.
  
• I'll make a glued pocket out of two pages now and then, to hold a map or a calendar or such.
• My kids will draw pictures in it for me when they are bored and can't go roaming. They don't realize how I will treasure their art in later years.
• It's been with me to visit my in-laws and my brother and on my trip to see a taping of the Red Green Show. I'll note times of travel, exit numbers, mileage, good places to stop.
  
• Sometimes I'll print one of my blog entries to put in my journal.
  
• Sometimes I'll print someone else's blog entry.
• I've tried Danny's suggestion to pre-color some pages, challenging me to work with or around what Me of the Past had put on that page.
• When I get to the last three or four pages, I'll start writing a table of contents, wrapping up the book, reviewing what I've writing and drawn, making it easier to find what I think I may want to find at a later time.

Remember to click on each photo to see it larger.

BALOO food

BALOO Training - teaching Cub Scout leaders how to lead a Pack's family campout.

My favorite part of the day was lunch. Outdoors. I forgot my camera, but had more fun making sketches anyway. I share the info with you; click for the big version. I do this to share and to reinforce my own learning. (There I go, homeschooling myself again.)

Notice the notes in the upper left corner. One Scout Leader told of the worst meal made on a campout. A patrol of young Scouts were making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. (Box meals are allowed on the first few outings.) They somehow skipped over the instruction to drain and made mac & cheese soup.

We made and ate foil packet meals. They recommended starting with a cabbage leaf on the foil. Even if you toss the cabbage, it provides moisture, form, and support to the rest of the packet. Then the frozen patty and any frozen veggies you wish. Pineapple was also suggested for sweetness and moisture.

The instructor made Breakfast in an Orange. Slice an orange in two and scoop out the orange to eat now or later. In one rind hemisphere, crack and add an egg. In the other rind, add muffin mix that's been made in a food storage bag. Place both rinds side by side on a sheet of foil, wrap and cook.

She also made Meatloaf in an Orange. Pretty basic. Put a serving of meatloaf in a hollowed orange half and cap it with the other hollowed half. Wrap in foil, cook on coals.

Our desserts were chocolate cherry cake from a Dutch oven and some muffin/cake that was made in a box lined with foil. It wasn't a true solar oven, as it was raining that day. I missed the particulars, besides that the box was lined with foil (for reflecting) and the cake pan (lined with foil for easy clean-up) was elevated on three soda pop can weighted with water inside.

We also sampled Banana Boats. Peel open one sector of banana peel. Slice the banana lengthwise, but don't cut the bottom peel. Add marshmallows and chocolate chips to the banana cut. Wrap with foil and cook on coals.

Omelet in a Bag: put eggs and chopped veggies in a bag. Squeeze out the air and seal the bag. Label your bag (for all these recipes). Drop bag in pot of boiling water.

One leader brought Pie Irons, which make grilled sandwiches. Our fire drum was full of foil supper, so he placed his pie iron on the coals of the Dutch oven that was making the cake.

Last, we made some Bread on a Stick. The presenter said this was a big hit with her boys' troop. Get some dowels, cut to a good length from boy to fire. Wrap Biscuit In A Tube around the stick, either like a snake, or as a cap to fill with butter and jam. Hold the wrapped dough over the fire until it is cooked.

One other leader from my pack (vroom, vroom) went to training with me, but we were placed in separate groups. "Aha," said I. "So we can learn different stuff in our discussion groups and talk about it all the way back home in the car."
"I'm glad you understand," said the training leader with a smile.

Not that I was alone. As luck would have it (much like Ron's luck), I sat next to a high school acquaintance. Not a chum, but I knew who he was, he knew who I was. He told me that he recognized me at monthly leader meetings but couldn't place my name. Every month, he intended to look me up in the yearbooks but forgot by the time he got back home.

Red Hat Crafters

Back in January, my mom's Red Hat group (ladies over 50, not Linux folk, not that the two couldn't intersect) set their monthly outing plans for the year. April was my mom's month to plan and we came up with having a crafting day. We were inspired by a Red Hat scrapbooking book that I found at the library.

The idea evolved into decorating photo frames. It picked up support after I made a couple of samples so the ladies could wrap their brains around the idea.

Mom and I gathered supplies. We charged $10 per participant. Nine signed up, then three of them couldn't make it. But the other six had a great time. I base-coated a few frames for them to get started. One who was nervous about starting made two frames. Others brought more Foofy Doo-Dah to share. No one was on time at 9:00, but we were rolling by 9:45.

They had great ideas. They asked each other for help and ideas as much as they asked me. They were tickled when I reminded them that it was for themselves, not for a grade, not for a contest. If she liked it, then it was right.

I helped them make some bows, like the one in this first photo.

The one with the 6 and 4 is my birthday card for me my mom, who turned 64 this week. I wrote inside that I still need her and will still feed her, and gave her $3 worth of Dairy Queen gift certificates.

I taught them how to add a second layer to make an item pop when two pieces were too close in color, such a as the pink and lavender tissue papers on the tall purple frame. The words on the sticker weren't showing on just the lavender.

The partially hidden frame was my demo frame, made with Mod Podge glue and lots of collaging. Today's ladies were more interested in just using hot glue, which I agreed with. Quicker results. Notice that a few ladies took some of the larger papers and put them in the frames, either for now or for always.

Since the ladies were tending to themselves enough, I started crafting, too (which was my secret ulterior motive). I made frames for the ladies who had wished to come but were absent. I made the RED HOT frame for a lady born in Mexico. Thus the chili pepper. It was clear-red plastic, too dark on the purple, so I backed it with white. The paper cut-out hat had feathers, so I hot-glued on more and bigger feathers over them. This lady likes beadwork and makes her own jewelry. I left space for her to add more if she wishes.

In the Tall purple frame, the upper left corner has a piece of fabric that was "like a shawl." I told them that it was a shawl. When Ganoush and Skunk were four, they could not unknot a tassled scarf of mine, so they cut off the knot. Argh.

The center frame was another of mine, for a lady who loves to dress for holidays and often has glitter hair accents and glitter highlights on face, neck, and skin. I used sparkly papers and one lady's die-cut machine to make flowers, then added lots of glitter glue.

I also made the frame on the left. That recipient is much quieter in her style and lies Americana. I started the red frame for the Glitter Lady, but most of my papers were red-toned, so they needed a purple frame. I had already put the big sticker on the red frame, so I was able to add just a couple more quiet elements and call it done.

The Red Hat Ladies were so good, they were even careful to ask about which scraps were big enough to keep. And since they all helped clean up nicely and stuff my mom had sorted stayed sorted, I'll have an easier time putting all back into the basement (where I'm headed right after I post) and finding the stuff again next time.

Sketches and art

I've spent all of my computer turn learning about my new scanner and cropping them for the blog. I'll write the text tomorrow. Here are the pictures. Click any to see a larger version.

Sketches from my current journal.










Paint / collage from my 2005 Round Robin Art Journal. The beads were added by Cait. I don't know if she added the sax man or if someone else did.

Lego Cake / Checkers Cake

Our Cub Scout Pack has a cake auction every spring. In past years, we have made ordinary cakes and went wild with icing/frosting decoration.

This year, I wanted more of a themed cake. We went to a cool cake web site from Family Fun magazine (a product of Disney). Their Lego cake makes one large brick. CHG made 8x8 cakes for Gonzo and me. We each made a Lego cake with studs made from half-high large marshmallows. They compress a little when I log-roll them with the knife to bisect them. That helps with the spacing. The white studs didn't need extra frosting added. Tee hee hee.

Ganoush and I made the checkeboard cake, again not quite the one in the magazine. That's just for inspiration. She frosted the white, I laid out the lines with a bread knife andfilled in the squares with cookie crumbles. She added the marshmallow checkers.

(The round cake is by someone else; one of the nifty new ones that let you make a tunnel in the cake.)

We bought Ganoush's back at auction for $8.00 and Gonzo didn't desire any of the cakes. We will make a fresh Lego cake for his birthday party, when we schedule it. Other cakes included a castle, Ziggy, a bunny head, a treasure chest, and some very chocolate cakes. Seventeen cakes brought in $300 for the pack.

Glitz for Andrea

I finished my first journal of unlined paper and I started on my newest volume this week. It is also an unlined blank journal, allowing me to sketch or shape my words or glue in memorabilia and then write coments to go with it.

This time, I didn't cover over the actual journal cover with papers or lots of paint. The cover has been enhanced, glitzed up with sparkly stuff. I'll prolly keep adding to it in the next few months.

The largest red/blue/green/purple parts are a product called Radiant Pearls. I won them in a drawing a few years back at a local scrapbook store. I remembered to go back and check my ticket numbers (still stuffed in my coin purse) and I won a prize. I called back to the owner that I had a match. "Which one?" The top one. "Well, now. That's the grand prize." It was a large m&m's gift bag full of odds and ends of crafting. Things picked up at convention vendor booths. A 12 x 12 scrapbook album with a cover by Flavia, declaring Travels. Things I would not choose for myself, but I liked the challenge of working with what I was given.

I also used Crayola glitter glue, Crayola pearlescence glue, DecoColor markers, and some rubber stamps with pigment ink pads. Andrea will understand all of this. I also used an orange highlighter and Gonzo drew some squiggles with pencil. He learned how to draw the never-ending Cursive L trim.

Blo-pens. I hadn't thought yet to add a little with Blo-pens.

I think my favorite part is the turquoise around the pencil pointing to 8:30. It looks like some altered animation style.

Crow Head Again

Creativity, with photos

My answer to Ron about creativity is getting too long for a comment. I'll make it an entry.

Gonzo doesn't like the feel of the paste, but helped me set up the under-frame of the Bionicle mask, involving yogurt lids and cottage cheese lids.

Ganoush made her own masks as I made the boar's head. She thought she would make a unicorn mask for the program, but got distracted after it dried and didn't finish it.

We all watch Carol Duvall on HGTV and try some projects that catch the attention of someone. I like how we see the steps from start to finish. Planting seeds that will sprout later, making connections. CHG once noted that I'd prolly be good at polymer clay, but I really can't take on a new hobby.

I also made a darn good Crow Head (from MST3K).


My Crow Head, made for Gonzo's Halloween costume when he was four. I used fun foam, gold lame fabric, paper fasteners, a report fastener, a plastic Solo dessert plate to keep it on his head, inside the winter hat, felt, styrofoam balls, gold chnille stems, rubber bands (that erond and require replacing), staples, and a Pringles can.


I bemoan the fact that I goofed and made Crow's eyes white instead of yellow. CHG says to get over it.


The "real" Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theatre 3000

The Boar's Head

Our church's Christmas program this year was a Madrigal. Elizabethan songs and fancy gowns and herald trumpets and such. We had a potluck afterwards, but it wasn't an Authentic Madrigal Dinner.
Two years ago, the choir director asked me to make a papier mache boar's head for her, for that year's show. She used pink Styrofoam to carve a form and asked me to papier mache it. The paper didn't adhere well and the whole project didn't work at all. This year, I was eager to redeem myself in my own eyes. She was really pleased when she saw it. :)

Curious readers can click on each image to see more detail.


The interior is made from plastic milk jugs, duct tape, and leftover paper scraps. The ears are cut from a milk jug bottom to get a natural curve.


The bottom teeth are pipe cleaners (oops, that's not proper nowadays. Chenille Stems), wrapped in paper. This allows me to tweak the bends in the teeth as the first layer dries.
The top teeth are cardboard.


Wrapped in paper, ready for the first layer of papier mache. This site helped me a lot in getting the right shapes. What did we do for research before Google Images?


Upside down and covered in printed newspaper. The fan on the left helps the form dry quicker.


A tennis ball can is holding the mouth open enough that I can put a real apple in there later.


Afterit is after the second coat, this time using unprinted newsprint. The brown blobs are there because I make the paste from a bag of whole wheat flour that passed its Used By date.

I found my recipe here when I needed to do papier mache with my Cub Scouts. As it turned out, after a few practice masks, I haven't done a project yet with the Cubs, but I made a cool Bionicle Matau (Toa of Air) mask for Gonzo.
The eye is made of glow-in-the-dark beads on wire.


Painting the first coat. I looked too light to me and to the director, but Ganoush preferred this color. I'm using tempera paints because that's what I had.


Dressed and ready for the show.

I've been tagged

La Maitresse tagged me to join in the latest book meme. This one seems simple - say 15 things about books. Here goes...

1. I like books. Lots of books.

2. I prefer non-fiction to fiction because there is so much stuff to learn about. But I liked the short stories in Good Housekeeping magazine.

3. My favorite book is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Raskin wrote cool books. My dad once overheard my sixth grade teacher speaking to another teacher about me. Teacher said, "I have two students reading Ellen Raskin books right now, but only Heidi is weird enough to appreciate it." She didn't know that the man standing there was my dad. We took pride in her comment.

4. My next favorite book is How to Become King by Jan Terlouw. It is a Dutch book, translated to English. It is out of print and used copies cost around $40. I see know it is similar to the labors of Hercules.

5. The first word I could read was FREE. It was on a sign we passed often while traveling through downtown. "FREE car wash with tank of gasoline." My dad said that if the only other word I learned to read was Restroom, then I would do okay.

6. In college, I took a photography class the same quarter that I took Intro to Children's Literature (Kiddie Lit). I also took Russian History and Differential Equations that term. I was able to combine Photography and Kiddie Lit by photographing how to bind a small book (Step-by-step assignment) and then gluing the photos into the blank book and writing the explanation (write a book assignment).

7. I also wrote one Russian class paper on American Kiddie Lit concerning Russia over the years, the idea being that how children perceived Russia/the USSR would be determined by what they read as much as what they heard from adults around them.

8. Pre-homework for the class was to read the huge, real (non-textbook) Nicholas and Alexandria by Robert K. Massie, which I read all during our college band bus tour to NYC.

9. I never read Goodnight Moon until I was a mom.

10. Since both of my kids now have a library card of their own, we can check out a total of 180 books combined at any one time. CHG's card is his own.

11. In second grade, if the teacher liked your story, she would have it typed onto sheets of onion paper and you were allowed to illustrate the pages and then she had a book made. Kids could have the book put into the school library. It was returned to me when I went up to seventh grade. A few kids other than me had also checked it out. It was called "My Trip to Marsasip." (MAR-suh-sip) It was going to be My Trip to Mars, then My Trip to the Sun, but I changed it. The planets surface kept changing colors. It was a feature, not a bug, so I didn't have to remember what to draw from page to page. (See photos below.)

12. My answer to many situations are to go read a book. Got engaged? Go to the library, get some books. Expecting a baby? Go to the library, read some books. All those research papers rubbed off on me. And juvenile non-fiction is the best. Lots of pictures, clear text, basic examples. If you want to know about the Civil War or Origami or John Muir, go to kid nonfiction.

13. My dad has nearly every National Geographic Magazine ever published, starting with his dad's collection. I don't know what we will do with it when he no longer needs it. I think all of it is now available on CD-ROM. But I had a great time writing about John Muir in sixth grade and have a cite in my bibliography from a 1888 magazine.

14. I wanted to write that bio paper on Jacques Cousteau, but we couldn't find any books about him. In 1979? How weird was that? My teacher said that one article in TV Guide wasn't enough and I switched to John Muir.

15. I am currently reading The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehr.

I'll tag Todd & Sage. I don't know if Sage does memes. I know she likes books.



Cover. A fabric from home that articulated the terrain of Marsasip.


My bedroom really did have 10" wide red/white/blue stripes on one wall.


Black oranges just sounded cool.


These were not all from just me and my brother.

Art Journal

Different ideas have swirled around me and I have been reading about art journals. One blogger led me to Danny Gregory. At the library I found Hannah Hinchman and others. I wrote more in my last journal so I could get to my new, unlined one. So today is picture day.

The cover of my journal. Made from gift wrap, a ribbon, a heart punched from a photo crop leftover, a page from a Mary Engelbreit day by day calendar, and a punched heart covered in glitter glue. I tried to just highlight the heart, but later the glue smeared, so I just filled the whole thing in.



CHG and I play with a local college band. One of the band alumna joined the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, a part of the US Army. A group of five (out of 70) came to town for a visit - demonstration - recruiting opportunity. While they played, I sketched three of the musicians. They wear colonial attire, as the group was commissioned by Gen. George Washington and they have been together ever since.

I had some free and quiet time when our kids have three friends over and all were watching Schoolhouse Rock (and not School of Rock, as one of them had hoped). I was able to prepare some pages and play around in my journal.

That quote from Ganoush that I mentioned earlier: One of the places that she was born. I'm not happy with the background. It got cluttered and I didn't have great vision before I started. Which usually is good. But not always.


This is a collage done with tissue papers painted by Eric Carle and published through a Klutz book( that I can't find a link for - prolly discontinued). I gently used blue BloPen on the page first. The mountain really popped when I added the scraps from the penguins back and tummy. The sky was torn to make the mountains.


I don't know what this will be when it grows up.


The collage I made from things on hand near my art desk.


In other art news, a local business offers bisqueware for patrons to buy and glaze on site. They fire the pieces and pick up is a week later. I went with the kids in August for a friend's birthday party. We went again in early November with a homeschool group. Gonzo grumbled about going until he got there, then wanted to stay longer. He painted a cat figurine to look like his stuffed green Ty Baby cat, Kitty. Ganoush painted a unicorn to match the one she made in August. I painted a plate for my mom. They didn't have any cow figurines, so I improvised. Mom is in a Red Hat group. Not the Linux kind. It's a sushi plate, but no one in my family eats sushi. (All the more for Sage, then.)



I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her, so waited until Tuesday. Fortuitous thing, too, for it led to our schedule changing a little so she could go with the Camp Wacky Homeschool to have another glazing session. Gonzo painted two smaller kittens, Ganoush painted a bowl with lid, shaped like a cat's face. I painted an outlet cover for my mom, who just watched and helped get more glaze. We'll pick up the works next week.

And for Thanksgiving, I leave you with this cartoon.

The Crow Head

I mentioned Mystery Science Theatre 3000 today, here on Sage's new pages.

Now that I have photo abilities, I can post shots of one of my coolest crafting events.

When Gonzo was 3, he wanted to be Crow T. Robot for Halloween. So, Crafty Mom that I am, I made one, out of black fun foam, brass fasteners (aka brads), staples, gold chenille stems (because no one cleans a pipe anymore) , rubber bands, and gold lame fabric I still had on hand from when I made golden goose eggs for a local Willy Wonka production.

We bought him a yellow sweatshirt (size 7, which he still wears). I attached the Crow head to a black winter hat, using an Acco 2-piece fastener through the hat and through a Solo brand dessert plate slipped inside the winter hat, to give balance and stability to the wearer. Duct tape covers the fastener ends to protect the wearer's hair and scalp.

The upper head kept lopping over, so either side has a small Styrofoam ball wrapped in black felt and hot-glued under the eye section and onto the hat.

Either people have no clue what it is, or they can tell exactly what it is and are impressed. (I still regret that I didn't notice that Crow's eyes are yellow, not white. CHG says to get over it.)

He was quite a sight during the preschool costume parade and again later while trick or treating around the neighborhood. Every time he was asked, "And... what are you?" he proudly answered, "I'm Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theatre Three Thousand and my mom made this costume."

What's not to love about that?