preparing my journal…

“I fall in love everyday
with ideas and sensations…”
~ Atticus

Creating my journal from cover to cover is a lot more involved than I thought it would be. It sure makes me appreciate how convenient my calendar journal was. However, I’m committed to making change this year, and my journal is a good place for me to start. There are a lot of decisions to make…what do I want on the cover, front and back? What do I want on the inside cover, front and back? Do I want there to be a cover page before the months begin, and what do I want to do with it? Do I even want to separate it out by months, or ditch the months altogether? I could easily get overwhelmed, but instead, I take a breath, calm my frantic mind, and think about where to start…

…inside covers.

Here’s what I did:

I decided on soft pastels, colored the inside covers, then brushed over it with Mod Podge to seal it:

I have two stencils in mind to use…Journaling Right Hand and Journaling Left Hand (I bought these from a wonderful, and addictive website called StencilGirl.

I really love using the pigments, and the soft, warm affect they create, so I used pigment on the stencil. But, turned out it was too light and didn’t show up very well.

Back to the drawing board. I decided to use ink over the pigment. This is a little scary for me because I tend to be a little heavy-handed with ink, and it smears, which sometimes turns out to be a look that I like, but not for this. So, I tried it out on blank paper first, then stenciled the inside front cover.

It worked, and an unexpected side-effect of placing the hands on the inside cover, one in the front, the other on the back, is that it feels like they’re holding the space for what I write and collage…I’m ok with that. I still have a little work before I’m finished with the aesthetics, but my 2017 journal is coming along.