I love making blank books.I generally have no idea of how they will be used.I think one day I may be lucky enough to meet a fellow artist who uses one of my book and on that day with their permission there will be many images to share.

Easter in our neighborhood is a time of  visitors so I made a set of book to capture memories for one family,international visitors,a golden wedding anniversary and book for each of the children to explore.The only request is that unused books come back to me.

I’m off to a lecture on how to make a business from art at Daniel Smith and pick up some special paper for my next journal making project.

March and April see a run of birthdays in my direct family all the Read’s celebrate in those two months.

So as a tease one of these pouches is on it’s way back to Essex.The other will be going with me to Montreal.

This prompt works well for me.I generally journal while waiting for food to arrive.I use  my journal when I travel to be a memory catcher.I’ll document a town or capture a funny moment.My memory is poor at times so the little 6 x 4 books help-great memories and fun keepsakes all rolled into one.They also get me good service on planes,restaurants and coffee shops.

Mandala-I know what I thought one was and a wee Google search confirmed my idea.I looked around for different patterns and as soon as the Owl popped up knew that was the one for me.If you look on my Pinterest feed you can find others.We are so likely to see owls locally so I choose gold and brown pens.A bit of a mistake as finer mark markers would have been more helpful.It took a long time to color and my hand is not to steady at the moment but I did finish the mission.

Page 20 just seemed to develop from page 18.I had a round Mandela and 3/4 of an empty page.I have no idea where the tree paper bag came from but was a handy find.When we see owls in Nisqually and hear them in bed a night I think of how important it is for us (the hands) to support the wildlife.

I realized that I hadn’t created a straight collage page for this challenge.I’m not sure that some more text will be included but for now I think the foundations of this page are complete .

Well as I’m behind I got the challenge day muddled up and ended up completing this page after the ephemera page and I really like the way the two pages connect.I grew up in flat roof house in a New Town development.Below the heart is a hand-cut stamp of the house I now live in.Post grad I work will a team in Oxford on PITU . We were pioneers in pediatric cardiac surgery and I am pretty proud to have been part of that team. We could have achieved this without a good grip of regular anatomy and physiology. 

I am what I am is a song made famous by Dame Shirley Bassey.I love the way she sing this with such gusto and passion. I borrowed the lyrics and put them in a woodland setting.I could add rabbit and butterfly stamps but the words are enough for this journal page.

Ephemera an impossible word for a dyslexic person but at least I know what it means.I have lots of postal floss around the studio.I had scraps from making the fabric postcards,my tactile Christmas cards and of course swaps.