The journal as a lily pad

I've been rocking steady on my latest "Renew this book" visual journal for two weeks now. This is such a refreshing and motivating experience for me. I've been so caught up in the writing, the collaging, the journaling, and the creative byproducts that in the short time since my last post I could write about six updates.

One of my favorite comments from a friend was, "The journal stuff is grand, but I still want to see your cards, photo art, and gift ideas."

This week I made a goofy journal post about reindeer. I purchased the cool Fiskars reindeer punch at an after Christmas sale and wanted to stay true to my commitment to use new items within ten days of purchase. I played with the punch and made a couple thank you notes for holiday gifts. Using the punched out reindeer as a stencil I played with it again on a journal page.

From that journal post I did a leap frog from my journal lily pad to creating a Valentine card. I've always loved the the corny phrases used on many Valentines and the deer pun was too good to resist.

Moving right along....

I've signed up at Julie Balazar's blog for her Art Journal Every Day challenge. I've been taking pictures of posts and will show some on my web site and here.

A new article about  journaling was posted at Helium last week:
How Writers and Artists can use a Journal to Develop Creativity

Planning a wedding any time soon? There's also a recently published article called How to incorporate tree branches into your wedding decor

The newest video series "Renew This Book" is in process now. The first video is up on You Tube--the subject is selecting your base book. There will be written instructions for each video posted on my web site.