Ahead of my Teacher - WOW!

Yesterday was market day, very slow but I did have an order from a retired policeman. Why is it that every customer wants something different than is on offer? This man wanted a straight edge to his waistcoat instead of the usual V-shaped front, so I'll have to alter my pattern for him. Still, it is always a challenge and keeps me going and I don't have to start until Monday.

I arrived home tired and happy and uploaded my emails. To my surprise there was one from Sue with yet another challenge...take two of our words and create journal pages from them, then do a recipe art journal. It was so funny that I had already done almost two of these items and just had to finish them off, so I was well ahead of the rest and the teacher.

My first word was the dreaded Challenge - however, Wimbledon had just finished and when I watched the televised final, Federer and Nadal were shown reading the Rudyard Kipling poem 'IF', so I downloaded it off the internet and printed it on my Challenge papers. Unfortunately I got them upside down and the punch holes were on the wrong side, but not to worry, Sue had explained we could thread fibres through holes down one side to emphasise a page, so that's what I did. Then my printer ink ran out, so again Sue came to the rescue by saying we should use pens, crayons etc to enhance our pages, so I just got a black pen and wrote the rest of the poem. I made a little booklet for the last page and put a pocket at the bottom to slip it into. I got some pictures of the finalists and some comments made by fans and pasted them into the booklet. The Wimbledon logo was pasted on the outside to finish it all off.

The second word - Impatient - was harder, surprisingly. I did a little research on the internet and found that impatience comes from tension and that tension causes knots in muscles and headaches. There was my starting point, I picked up a picture of a jumble of knotted fibres, raided my red embellishment box for anything that suggested tension, knots and problems. I fused a web of glue across the page and threw the bits and pieces onto the page then fused them down. I couched wire springs I had wound round a stick to represent problems along with french knots, and added a tassal to the side - job done!

The third challenge - the recipe art journal - was already done (see Wednesday) but in the meantime Stephanie had sent me extra photos and they had to be added to the journal. I also needed sand to add to one of my pockets, and found some in the shower of all places, so that went into a little plastic envelope to be sewn down on the inside. They had all gone to The Big Sheep adventure park for the last day, so I added the brochure to the back pocket, tied the journal up and popped it into the pocket I made on my journal page that Lucy had also painted. I added the photo of the three of us (3 generations) to the front of the pocket.

Realising what journalling is all about has given me lots of ideas for future pages and the next lesson is how to make small art folios designed for one off journaling. My fabric dying has improved as has the planning and research for new journals. My poor family will have to watch out as unsuitable items wing their way at Christmas and birthday time.