Everyday Journal April Update & More

I absolutely love Spring, but April this year has been a disappointment. Cold, overcast, snow as late as last Thursday - little is blooming and the leaves have not begun their arrival...until this week. On Tuesday it was 80 degrees, sunny and beautiful. The pear tree in our front yard had buds on it in the  morning and in evening when I got home it was in full bloom. I think nature is just as happy to see spring weather as people are!

I have not done a lot of art this month. I made a few pages in my Everyday Journal:

The 100 Day Project began on April 4th but I have only completed a few collage pages. I'm not sweating it and will just make pages when I can. I'm keeping with a "words" theme after doing Advent Words and Lent Words. My theme for the 100 Day Project this year is #100daysofcollagewords.

I had not taken any online art classes this year so I signed up Roben-Marie Smith's class called Salvaged: A Layered Pieces Journal. The class is about altering an old book into a journal and filling it with a variety of papers and ephemera. Altering old books into journals is not new for me but Roben-Marie taught us a way of binding the spine that I had not tried before. It has been a lot of fun gathering papers to fill it with. The class is not finished but here is my progress to date.

I used some old tea-dyed muslin I had for the spine and then stitched a few x's in it because I ran across a great spool of linen thread when I was digging in my quilting/cross stitch supply boxes.  The book is 8x11", which is larger than I normally like for an art journal, but I was drawn to the nature etchings on the cover. It did make finding paper large enough for the pages a challenge as you use paper folded in half to make the book signatures. I managed though! I'll post some pictures of the inside on a future post.

I reconnected with thrift shopping this month. It's been a while and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's more of a warmer weather activity. I did a shopping day with my daughter earlier in the month/ Another day with my hubby, and then last weekend the hubby and I went to a flea market. How I love digging around for old books and papers and other items! In addition to some books, a few vintage office items, and some ledger paper, I found some great wallpaper sample books, a bag of old letters and even a half full box of old Dennison's labels! The thrill of the vintage hunt is back on!

I'm going to see how the wallpaper works as background pages in an art journal.

I guess I did more art in April then I thought. It was just more building a journal than actual art pages. On to May!

To Market, To Market...

It only seems natural that the next step in our vintage journey is to enter a vintage market show. I am excited to announce that we will be participating in the Funky Junk in the Country Vintage Market on July 23 in Monclova, which is just outside of Toledo.

My sister and I have spent the past few months on "the thrill of the vintage hunt" acquiring all kinds of vintage finds. My hubby and I have been refreshing and repurposing a variety of these findings. The vintage items are stacking up as we get ready for the market!

June in Review

Summer is here and the busyness of the school year winds down for just a bit. It amazes me when I think about the fact that my daughter graduated from high school 18 years ago! The first year after she graduated it felt strange not to have the school year dictating our schedules and our calendar. We got past that - along with numerous other empty nest transitions! But then our church began a ministry to the elementary school nearby, and I soon became the leader of that ministry, and over the past 11 years I find that the school year once again has the greatest impact on my schedule and calendar! So, while I am not a teacher or a school employee, I find I release a huge sigh in June when the calendar and the schedule slows down for a while.