Art journal for family reunion

I had wanted to take an art journal with me to record history of my family.  My great grandfather was Chinese and we are going to a family reunion of his descenants in Gisborne my home town. As usual I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to do.  I ended up with a bought journal that I have had for a few years and liked the paper and the size.  To save me time I prepared all the pages leaving room for notes and photo's that I will take over there.  This took me a couple of days solid, had stuff spread out every where as you can see in the photo's below.

 I edged the pages with old text paper and paper tapes, nothing to fancy

 Some pages I have entered detail I already have.  For each of his children I have allowed a few blank pages, depending on the size of the family

 I have entered some photo's that I have already found

Will share with you when I get back and hopefully have lots of information and photo's.  I would like to write a book with all the information I get, or maybe Kirsty might do that one day, it is something she said she would like to do one day.  Plenty of drama's and scandal mmmmh the plot thickens

catch you in a couple of weeks

Jacky

this is what we have been waiting for

At last SOLD SOLD SOLD.  Settlement date 20 December.  Yaghhhh, dealing with buying a block, selling a house, settlement agents and on and on it goes.  Arranging removalists to move all your household 200 kilometres, trying to tie it up with finding a rental property.  whesh, just as well John retires in a couple of weeks and we will be retiree's, or sort of, then its sorting through all the stuff before the big move, have you seen the stuff we have accumulated!!!!! luckily the new owner didn't want settlement until late December, more breathing time for us.  Then the fun stuff will start building a kit home, Storybook home, where they build to lockup and then we sub contract out the work, that will be interesting, but we can do it!!!!  Off to New Zealand Sunday for 10 days.  My great grandfather was Chinese and they are putting on a reunion for all his descendants, he had 7 children and most of them had between 6 and 8 each, so will be very interesting.  I have been making a journal to get all the details, will share with you tomorrow.
Have a good weekend
Jacky

Creativity

Creativity to me is like getting into a zone where I shut out everything around me, hours can pass with out my noticing.  It  draws me back when I am doing other tasks, many a time the potatoes have burnt.  I have not had time to be creative over the last few months, what with keeping the house looking presentable for sale etc, not to mention my things shoved away out of sight, the hours spent looking for things become too hard.  But last week I got back into it.  What with Kalamunda Markets on the Saturday and then we will be away for 10 days just before the next one in November comes around, means I have to make plenty of stock to cover both, also need to take advantage of the November market being more likely for buyers looking for Christmas gifts.  Following are a few items I have made over the last week.

 Art Journals made from upcycled old books and fabrics, hand bound, sizes about 5 x 6 inches.  Small enough to carry around.

 Decorated old books with old fabrics and buttons, look great standing in a small pile with the spines showing.  You can see not much of the old books are wasted, covers are used on small journals and the rest of the book created to look decorative.

 A friend shared how to make these little journals using old book covers and would you believe folded used envelopes, you know the sort, the only thing you get in your letter box now days.  I have decorated a couple of pages inside to show you a way of decorating your journals and made up small packs of bits and bobs of old book pages photo's etc to get you started.  The journals are about 5 x 6 inch hand bound.  Easy to carry around with you, if you would like a holiday project.  Look equally as good if you add your own photo's.

The green hand bound journal using old photo album covers is a sample of made to order journals I will make and the brown cover a sample ready to be created for someone special.