Long stitch bound journal

I wanted to make a blank book for my niece to use as a journal-catch all for her trip to Bolivia.  She will be in Sucre, studying Spanish for 3 months.  So, I based the cover loosely on Bolivian tapestry.  The cover is paper and embroidery floss.  The yellow diamonds are inlaid in the blue paper.  I chose long-stitch for the binding, to flow with the cover design.  Blank journals like this are good for saving ticket stubs, programs, food labels, other common paper things from the region one is visiting, as well as one's own memories, and messages added in their own hand by friends one meets and fellow travelers.

Long time no blog.  Well, it's early Show & Tell time.  Alisa Golden has a great blog that I follow, Making Handmade Books.  In January she showed a project she is doing with a weekly calendar.  I had an extra 2014 calendar, so I decided to use it as a kind of visual journal/media exercise book.  Here are my first few weeks' attempts.

The first one is 6 cropped images from some photos I took interpreting light.

In the second series, I wanted to deal with a distant image, a mid-range image, and a close-up image. Besides the printed out images, I used only green pencil and a black pen.

This third spread is not finished. The blank space will be tissue collage.  I wanted to work with transformation with this page. So I'm transforming the upper lefthand image into the lower right hand image.  I have used colored pencils and and a #2 lead so far.

I'll add future pages as I complete them.  I love this use of a previous year's calendar.

Well, it is winter

Polar Vortex blah blah blah. It's winter! I admit it. I don't want to venture out very far at 20 below, but come on -- suit up, protect your nose and cheeks and head out! If it's sunny and no wind, it's fine.  Of course I prefer it to be 0 or above.  This was actually taken on a below-0 day.  I had my car close by.  It was windy, but I couldn't wear gloves and take pictures at the same time. I'd brave the cold for up to 30 seconds, or until my fingers screamed at me, then I'd warm up in the car before heading out again.

Turtle Blogger, that would be me. Just barely slipping in under one year between posts! Snow is finally melting here, and since I heard a woodchuck's whistle on Wisconsin Public Radio yesterday, I think I can identify the thing that just whistled numerous times somewhere in my woodsy/yard as a woodchuck, not a bird. There are quite a few birds, though. One family building a nest above my bow window. If you've managed to find your way here, to read this post, you deserve an image, too. Can imagine Lake Michigan looking like this again soon, from the shores of Door County.

My Most Beautiful Thing

It's a smile. Everyone looks beautiful with a genuine smile and a sparkle in their eyes. And the beautiful thing about it is - we can get them and give them for free. We can give them to loved ones and strangers. We can give them to animals, or to the universe when we come up with a brilliant idea or solution to a problem. We can give them to ourselves in the mirror. They don't cause clutter; they are not fattening; and they do not need translation into other languages, metric, weight or temperature systems. They just ARE. I mean, they just are BEAUTIFUL!

Today I'm taking part in the My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things - inspired by Fiona Robyn's new novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Bloggers from all over the world are taking part and writing or posting pictures of their most beautiful things today. See everyone else's blog posts here.


Have a beautiful day!.

See the Beauty, it's everywhere

On April 24 I'm taking part in the My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things - inspired by Fiona Robyn's new novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Bloggers from all over the world are taking part and writing or posting pictures of their most beautiful things Tuesday. See everyone else's blog posts here.

Check back to see my post. Meanwhile, here's a beautiful thing for today. My mom collected kaleidoscopes. She always could be uplifted and cheered by looking through a kaleidoscope, or at a kaleidoscope quilt, painting, or other creation. This was generated on the web. Kaleidoscopes are beautiful, but my mom was more beautiful - she expressed so much love, and she saw something good in everyone.

Quick Little Book

Everyone's name is special, but some names are REALLY special. For instance, Hannah. I love it because it is a palindrome. Fortunately for me, a very sweet palindromic Hannah is part of my life, and I recently had the opportunity to send her a little book. I used pre-cut neon sign papers that you can purchase at an office supply store. They are simply folded in half and hinged with small tabs of another neon sheet. The structure is a simple accordion, with the covers each written to read "upright." So one is "upside down" in relation to the other. The partly open view, shows each cover. The other view is of the book fully laid out. Loved doing this little project!