52 Sparks for 2013 – Another Journal
I’ve never spent much time with paper-based arts but obviously have had a hankering to do so – I’ve got the supplies on hand! I’ve decided to allocate a bit of time this year to exploring journals and book-making and have spent the last couple of days ‘playing’. If I hadn’t, I’d still be procrastinating and who knows when I would get started!
Over the past two days I’ve introduced my mini daily journal/tangles venture. More on the tangles in the next post. For now I’d like to share another journal effort – again based on prompts by Dale Anne Potter.
Because this second journal will be a ’52 Sparks’ journal – a weekly undertaking, I have given myself more space to work. For this journal I cut over-sized ‘tags’ from 110 lb card stock. Each tag measures 5×8.5 inches. The first tag of each month was cut a half inch wider so that I could create monthly tabs.
After cutting all 52 tags, I used the prompts Dale Anne has published, to make a small note at the top of each tag with the question, date and week number. This way I don’t have to go back to a list to find the topic and as I complete one, I can look ahead and prepare for the next week’s question. With my track record, I’d lose the list and that would end the project so this is my no-excuses approach.
I must say that Dale Anne’s questions are quite thought provoking – some are fun and some will take some deep digging to answer. That’s what makes journaling interesting so I’m looking forward to this project.
At the moment the tags are held together with a large snap ring. Because I get frustrated with bound books for multi-media journals, I wanted to be able to remove each tag as I worked on it. I have also gone ahead and made covers for the journal. I know myself too well. If I leave it until later I would never get to the covers! They will also support and protect the tags throughout the year and make me feel good when I pick up the journal!
For the covers I used some coloured scrapbook card stock mounted on both sides of the cardboard that was used to stiffen a packaged calendar I received for Christmas. I included a small fun foam image on the front cover. This fulfills the January challenge of a multi-media group that I belong to! I also embossed around the image I inserted and distressed the orange card with an ink pad. Once the edges were colored with the same ink pad the covers look like leather! Later in the year I will add a closure and possibly other embellishments, but for now this is a functional way to keep the journal pages organized.
As this is a weekly Wednesday project that Dale Anne is coordinating, I also managed to get the front of the first tag completed. After giving the tag a light watercolor wash, I used snowflake stamps to add to the background. A cut-out paper snowflake was glued to the surface and provides texture, then rubbed lightly with a blue ink pad to accent the cut edges. Because this is the front page of the journal and will probably receive more ‘wear’ than some of the later pages, I gave it a coat of Modge Podge to seal it.
The topic for this first week was our word of the year so of course I stenciled the word ‘Renew’ on the page. Now to settle into a quiet place and to use the back of the tag for some serious thinking about what the word means to me and how it can affect 2013 for me!