I collected journals for several years throughout my twenties. Now, I make them. I don’t fill them nearly as fast as they accumulate, but I enjoy them, all the same. If I have learned anything over the last five years, it’s that art is accessible — to anyone.
Revel in it.
The one thing I can say for growing up in a town with a population of less than 500, so far removed from mainstream living, is that one learns to work with the materials one has. We decorated with anything we could get our grubby little mitts on. Which, when I stop to think about it, is no doubt where my fondness for reusing and recycling derives.
The wood bits here:
They come from 3 boxes of wooden stir sticks the coffee distributor for Owens Valley gave to me one summer when I worked at the then Jot’em Down Store. If a box broke open during transit, the stir sticks could no longer be used for coffee and so many of them ended up in a landfill. All those Popsicle sticks, gone. Gone forever!
For weeks I cut and glued those suckers to EVERYTHING. I made corrals and feed bins for my Breyer collection, decorated my room, etc. And, I’m pretty sure I still have easily a whole box left.
I raided the local wallpaper store for the covers to Fleur-de-lis. I’m not sure how the decorative element will stand up to wear and tear — my beta testers aren’t always good at reporting structural failures.
And my favorite so far:
The cover to this kettle-stitched journal is scrap leather left over from a pair of chaps. Rod of Lloyd’s of Lone Pine used to sell me scrap leather whenever it was available. It was great for making tack (again, for the Breyer collection). My experiments with real tack left me walking home more often than I’ll admit. Not that either of my girls would EVER abandon me to the wilderness and force me to find my own way home.
Oddly enough, I never learned to make moccasins, which is a shame, because they really are quite comfy. I hope there are rainbows and wild ponies in all your hearts today.
Adieu.
