Dude. I can't say thanks enough for all of the sweet hellos & words you guys have left me here over the past few days. :) You rock!! It's so great to see new readers pop up and say hi for the first time, and I'm having lotsa fun clicking through to your sites (all of your sites!) and saying hello & feeling like we're connecting. :)
I'm trying to visit everyone who takes time out of their day to visit my little spot, here on the web right now, because I feel like that's something we kind of forget about as bloggers, sometimes - and as a reader of may many blogs, myself, I know it's nice to feel acknowledged & be given some love. :)
I did this a lot when I started blogging way back when and kind of got away from it accidentally along the way, but it only takes a few seconds to click through via Typepad's e-mail notifications, which makes me uber happy. :)
So please keep saying hello, so I can!
I can't even describe how right & perfect & freeing the 'Summer of Love' art journal/book I had the chance to make for Kara was, at the time it popped up. :) It feels like the perfect need-inspiration-to-get-out-of-this-funk time to post it up, here - it's my favorite mini/art journal of mine ever. When I finished it (well, the little parts I did get done...), it just felt so me, right-this-moment.
Seriously, it had been a long while since I'd delved into how therapeutic art journalling can be - I completely forgot how it felt to not overthink the process or the content or the products and just do. express. make.
I'm remembering now that this is a major part of what got me through film school, sanity-wise - the art journalling. I hadn't scrapbooked in a few years at that point, & it was tough moving out to a new city & living on my own for the first time, not to mention going through a break-up after 2 years with my (now) ex-boyfriend, having a falling-out, of sorts, with my dad, and working a crazy demanding/grueling film-making schedule at school (we're talking nap-for-an-hour-before-class-starts grueling). To get messy & write it out and splash it around was my saviour. I would take a mental-health moment from my film drawing at school & squish it in & stay up late on a Sunday night art journalling & would feel so refreshed the next day (I have plans to share this old art journal, eventually - it's really funny to look back on).
Anyhoo, if you took Kara's class you've seen some peeks of this/my journal, but here's a more in-depth look (the first of three parts) at what I made:
This is the cover, made from an old book - I used yarn to spell out the title &
cut a little window in it, and stitched some vintage lace trim on the side.
And the super-cute (& quite charming) binding...it's my favorite!
And the back cover + a little handwriting/vintage wallpaper love.
Kara now has the class up for sale PDF-form in her Etsy shop (which she's closing very soon while she moves), & I highly suggest it if you want to break out of your box & sift happily through 138 pages of prompts & photography goodness!
Next, I can't wait to share a few of the actual pages, very very soon! :) And, also - work on mincing words - another looong post, I'm sorry! lol.










