personalized journal

there's a new journal-maker coming to the interwebs. they're called book block and their kickstarter opens tomorrow. the cool bit about them is that they take your artwork or photo and make a personalized journal that's truly yours. they emailed to ask if i'd be interested in making one and in blogging about it. and being a bit of a journal junkie, i couldn't say no. but, i'm having trouble deciding what photo i want on my cover. do i go with minifigs for fun? something from the garden? cats? do i scan some of the coloring book pages i've done and use one of those? i really can't decide. what would you put on your own personal one-of-a-kind journal?

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here's haruki murakami's desk.

100 happy days :: day 19

notebooks. new colorful pens. moleskines, bookbinders design, the local tiger shop. it doesn't matter. all that matters is that they are unlined and full of possibility. i've even got a whole pinterest board - the write stuff - devoted to such things.

week 1: art journal calendar

the sunny side - 4th attempt at free-form embroidery on my sewing machine! i'm loving it!!

it's week one of daily working in my little moleskine art journal calendar and i made it through with motivation intact. in fact, most days, i had to restrain myself from doing more than one page and thus far, i have done that, because part of the exercise was to develop a daily practice of drawing or painting or other artsy endeavors in the same place. to work ahead would be to let myself off the hook another day and while i'm not saying that i may not eventually do that, i'm not ready to do so yet.

so i hereby give you what i've got so far:

january 1-2, 2010

january 3 - 4, 2010

january 5 - 6, 2010

the swedish stamp was from a package i got from kristina that day.

it's a ski jump (i think), so i painted it a little mountain.

january 7 - 8, 2010

the little viking ship stamp i carved myself from an eraser.

and the robot is one of my first attempts at free-form embroidery with my sewing machine.

close up of the robot.
i just glued him onto the page.

i've noticed a few things as i'm doing this:

: : the lines aren't bothering me like i was afraid they would.

: : i feel an obsessive need to date each one, despite the fact that it goes on a page with the date on it.

: : and i want to write where i was when i did the page. i guess that's something i've done in my written journals for years as well, even down to recording hotel room numbers in hotels around the world. i wonder why i feel a need to do that?

: : watercolors are my medium of choice at the moment.

: : i am LOVING the free-form embroidery, even if the little owl i did first looks like it was vomited up by a cat.

the vomit owl

thanks spud for that name. :-)

writing is the new praying: non-resolutions for 2010

i'm not super big on new year's resolutions, at least not the traditional kind--you know, exercise more, get more rest, eat healthy, lose weight, run a marathon, stop drinking wine - all that stuff. but during 2009, one of my resolutions was to carry a camera with me at all times and if i can count my iPhone, i did, in fact, achieve that. i also vowed to create at least 100 things and i have also achieved that (photographic evidence of the last few coming soon). in my private, written journal, i declared that i wanted to be a blogger blog of note and that happened in 2009 as well.  so in the interest of writing as the new praying, there are a few things i'm going to do during 2010.

1.) the main thing i intend to do involves these gorgeous moleskine calendar notebooks i scored last month at norli bookstore in oslo. inspired by these beautiful journals by cathy cullis that i saw on flickr, i decided that i want to do mini art journaling in these calendar journals. i also love these. and these beauties by geninne. i know that mine will land somewhere in between and somewhere more me, but it's something i feel motivated to stick with. the small size of these and the fact that there's a different color for each month makes me think i can stay interested. the only drawback is that they have faint lines, but i'm hoping that i can deal with that, tho' normally i feel constricted by lines.

2.) i'm going to embark on a 365 photo project. i haven't selected a flickr group and i'm not sure i'm going to (unless some of you are interested in starting one with me? - do let me know and i'll create it). i very nearly did this in 2009 as it was, but i'm thinking it would be good for me to push through my current lack of photo mojo if i gave it a whirl.

3.) the simplicity project - as you know, we are planning on being very selective about what we buy during 2010 here at our house.  thanks to a great suggestion by glenn, i'm going to keep myself posted/accountable/focused on this quest by sharing a weekly "what i didn't buy" blog with all of you.

4.) a book contract. i want a book contract in 2010.



so there you have them, my three main resolutions that i'm hesitant to call resolutions for 2010. what about you?