2011 Art Journal

I woke early the other morning with 'creative brain'. I am NOT a morning person, so waking at 5am and having to get up at 5.30 is not a habit of mine! I was thinking about what I wanted to do creatively this year, and was thinking of all the lovely stitchy ideas I have, but also kept coming back to the idea of another art journal. I have this one which is a good place to try out new techniques or do arty stuff in like this and this, but I quite like the idea of having something else there more like an informal diary to jot thoughts down in - a memory of a day perhaps - remembering what was said or how I felt - or just to capture some lyrics or a quote I've heard and liked.

I want something pretty - collagey - papery - but also some stitch. So I went to my cupboard and found this photo album that I bought cheap a year or so ago. A few sheets of decent paper inside - attached by string to the spine. I chopped the string, and cut lots more watercolour paper so I now have 3 decent-sized signatures. When they are finished I will only have to drill one more set of holes and be able to use the existing holes in the spine to rebind it. I changed the cover to look like me - remembering to Be Present this year. I have had fun with these pages so far, with glue and stitch using colours, patterns and images I like.With space for writing thoughts, adding more images or other embellishments. A place to play.