Category Archives: journaling

I Am Back

After my last post, I got sick. REALLY sick. I got the never ending flu. For weeks. I think I am finally getting over it but I am still stuffy. It was the kind of sick where I was completely wiped out. I was out from work and all I did was sleep. I was so exhausted I couldn't read or pretty much anything. The third round of medication finally kicked in late last week. So, no more coughing up a lung and my head is a lot clearer.

What does that mean. It means I finally got back to a regular journaling routine. I am working in one of my older journals now that had remained unfinished. It is a smaller journal but has lots of cool stuff in the portion that is finished. It gives me a bit of incentive to get back to it. Even if just a bit.

One of my new supplies… colored pencils. Actually, I never really liked colored pencils. I didn't like the “white” in between strokes. So for all these years, I have not wanted to use them.

In my “new”, old journal, I wanted to have something simple to color my doodles. Kind of like an Adult coloring book of my own making. Markers don't really give shading… and you have to worry about them bleeding through the paper. Chameleon Markers could solve the shading issue but not the bleeding issues (besides they are expensive). So I searched through YouTube and found some Adult Coloring videos to get some ideas.

I saw some beautiful work with colored pencils… and I decided to give them a try. I had some old Crayola pencils that had mainly remained unused so I tried them out. They were okay but didn't go down smoothly leaving some scratchy strokes. I saw the possibilities that colored pencils could have but wanted to find an option that gave a bit nicer result. So I got a pack of Prisma colored pencils.

This is my first try. My journaling routine is to Write a Gratitude Practice in my journal in the am. It includes answering a few prompts and then a page of free writing. Then tonight I doodled in the empty spaces and on top of my free writing. I got to try my pencils and I have to say they are fantastic!!! I am not so good at shading but they did a wonderful job. The color went on easy and smoothly. I really love the results.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can have more of a step by step.

 

Happy Tuesday!

 

Spilling My Fears, Using my Practices to Help Me Through

It is Sunday. I feel like my world is coming apart. Emotionally I am raw, disappointed, but mostly angry and so very scared, worried, and down.

At work I have a new job, a new set of tasks, completely new to me and to my employer. They restructured all the offices to accommodate a huge change. I have been training for the first part of implementation… which was really just getting set for the real change that will happen in 10 days or so. I have worked really hard to make this transition because I especially care about some of the people in charge of these changes. But I am so very fearful. There seems to be a complete and utter lack of understanding of what the job (the work, the time it takes) entails… Truthfully, I don’t think many of management wants to know. They made an arbitrary decision on what would work without any knowledge of what the job requirements were. The dice were cast. Now, as we get closer to complete implementation, I am scared out of my wits. The introductory stage of the process is barely coming together. I can’t see this situation turning out successfully. I feel so trapped. I feel like I have been set up to fail… something I hate… I feel like I have been set up to disappoint people I respect… something I hate even worse. It makes me really angry… and that anger has morphed into depression, stress, and worry.

There are four of us in this new position. None of the others care too much about it. It is just a job. I feel like, for them, if it works out that’s great… if not, so what. Paychecks and incoming finances are the BIG WHAT. There will be a lot of unhappy big wigs and a whole lot of very unhappy employees if paychecks can’t go out because the grand vision didn’t work.

I wish I could do what I can do and not worry (even if that is all I can do, anyway). It is one of my biggest challenges. Worrying will get me nowhere. But all weekend I have been tied up in knots. All I can think of is I am going to fail and let everyone down. I just want to run away and hide. If I could, I would do the ultimate runaway, and quit. Just to get away from all these negative feelings. That is bad, isn’t it? Wanting to run away and not dealing? I am just so tired and wornout with all these feelings. I wish I knew what to do to let go… maybe see things from a different perspective. I just don’t know how.

It is my greatest hope that spilling my fears on this page will somehow lessen these negative feelings and help me get a grip on things.

 

 

Sojourn 8: Junque Journal

Spilling your life is what this blog is all about. But we haven’t talked about the easiest way to spill requiring very little writing… if you choose. Very little arting… again, if you choose. But can be creative and funky and as beautiful as you want. And it can hold all the bits that makes your life… all the “junque”… all the ephemera… fodder… Because it is an amazing container… for you… of you!

The past Sojourn exercises have given you a chance to practice specific WAYS of spilling. A Junque Journal is not so much a way to spill but more like a container for your spillage. All you have to do is fill it… Tape, clip, staple, stick, glue. I know, that even if you think you don’t have a creative bone in your body… you can do this. What is more you have probably been doing this for years and years… but you did not have a specific place to keep these ordinary treasures. That is what a Junque Journal is for.

If you have a box where you might throw old movie tickets, clothing tags, motivational sayings, interesting business cards, birthday/greeting/christmas cards… interesting pictures, photos, dried flowers, leaves, feathers, bits and bobs… ANYTHING… they can go in your Junque Journal.

To see all the juicy goodness a junque Journal can be… here is Tangie Baxter’s Junque Journal Introduction from YouTube:

 

Fun, fun, fun! I just love looking in Tangie’s FANTABULOUS journal! I think you can get a real feel on how cool it can be to have a book where you can spill your life… and flip through it… and add… Gorgeous!

Making a Junque Journal is fairly simple. You need a cheap composition book, some scrapbook paper or any other decorative paper (gift wrap, magazine pages… anything). Colorful stamp pads (if you want to add color to your regular composition book pages). 2-4 lengths of thin ribbon (3 times the length of your composition book). Your choice of glue: glue stick, glue runners, or white/tacky glue. Feel free to add: charms, bows, clips, envelopes…

Here are Tangie’s YouTube video instructions on making your own Junque Journal:

I am starting one tonight! I just bought my cheapie composition book, I’ve pulled out some ribbon, scrapbook paper, and a few of my favorite colors of stamp pads… I am so excited to get started!

So what about you? How about trying out Junque Journaling?

 

 

Sojourn 6: My Examples

So how did your week go? Did you actually try journaling, then decorating your page afterwards, even just once?

How did you feel about the journaling? Do you feel anything after doing this process? Relieved? Productive? Cleared?

What color pen/s did you use? How did you like using your pen choice? Was it easy to write with? If not, did it affect how you were able to spill your ideas onto the page? The first pen I picked to use was what I thought was a light purple color… but it turned out darker than I thought. I wasn’t sure how the darker ink would work out with writing on top of it. The second pen, a thin, lime green, crayola marker… turned out to be dried out as you can see below. It got lighter and lighter as I spilled down the page. I am not too hip on using a marker. I think I have been spoiled by some of the smooth writing ball points and gel pens… but the experience still was fine.

When it came to jotting down notes about what I wrote, I have to admit that the lighter the pen the harder it was for me to read and pick out what I wanted to focus on. So as the week went on, I actually would put a star beside a line or section I wanted to note as I wrote it. Starring the section didn’t seem to take away from the flow of the journaling but helped me locate what I wanted to note after I was done will the journal spillage. So, I think I will continue to do that.

Next came decorating. On this page I chose to tear out collage elements that I liked and glued them on the page with a cheapie glue stick. Not a whole lot of thought. Just grabbed a handful of magazine images, picked a few out that seemed to go, than arranged them on the page. Glued them down. It took maybe 15 minutes at the most.

The main image… the girl in the left corner… seemed to blend in a bit more than I wanted. I grabbed a red water soluble crayon, outlined some of the collage pieces, including my girl image… then smudged it really well with my fingers. And it made it pop out of the page a bit more. Then I took my black waterproof pen and my white uniball ink pen and doodled, did my lettering and added the things I decided to write down on my scrap paper. And of course HAD FUN!

 

To be honest, my loudmouth inner critic, tells me this is a really lousy page… the lettering is just terrible, it is too busy… on and on. Again, your inner critic will probably often tell you that any artsy endeavour you do is not good enough! The truth is it doesn’t matter. I will alway like looking at the pictures I chose to add to my collage… that’s why I chose them. The rest was all fun! It really is okay to have fun… And you have a memory of your fun to boot! Looking at the page makes me smile. I journaled and have a fun, funky, interesting page. A page that will remind me of the important things that I journaled about. A page that is so much more than a page filled with written journaling.

 

This is my doodle page. I took my black brush marker and started to doodle some flowers, quick. Not much thought. I even added the my Hibiscus Happiness zen doodle design in the middle (I made it up myself).

Again, I grabbed my scrap sheet and added the items I wanted to remember on to me doodle page.

It could have been done. But I decided I wanted to take a little more time to unwind, so I got out the crayons and…

 

I hope you tried Sojourn 6… and if not… maybe decide now to give it a try! Please, I would love to hear from you! Make a comment below and let me know how it went!

Tune in tomorrow for Sojourn 7!

 

Welcome to Spilling Life. I am so glad you are here!

This blog is dedicated to everything journaling.  Especially those practices that help you spill your life in a journal, on a canvas, on a napkin, on a blog, in a book!  I will make personal blog post discussing daily issues and how they relate to my jounaling practice and my life.  I also want to make this a special place where you can find lists, review, suggestions of books, magazines, and classes that relate to journaling in all its many forms.  My hope is to make this an interactive blog.  I have included Sojourns, journaling exercises, that I hope you will try out! Then comment, ask questions, let me know what you think!

And please, please, please, pardon my electronic dust.  I am learning how to create this blog as I go.  From day to day for the next couple of weeks, you might see lots of changes, maybe some blank spots…  and some leaness on content.  I have photos and videos and lists, and review all waiting to be added.  Some have been easier to add, some more difficult but please, stop by from time to time, to see what is new.  Again, thank you so much for stopping!  Hope to see you again soon!