Art journaling prompts

Keeping an art journal has been on my to-do list for a long time. For some reason, there hasn't been much progress. My Moleskine journal I bought just for this particular purpose, is almost empty and has been sitting abandoned on the shelf. I realised that I need more discipline with journaling, inspiring prompts and sharing my work with others. That's what gets me going.

I purchased L.K. Ludwig's wonderful book "True vision, Authentic art journaling", and immidiately started working with my Moleskine. It's important to start with something, anything. No matter how the pages turn out. I just have to get the process started, an then go from there.

Another great source of inspiration is a journaling challenge that I luckily came accross: "52Q, a year of mini art journaling". There's a Flickr group for the challenge and you can also read more about it from the hostess Emily Falconbridge's blog. The question for the first week was: what do I wish for this year to bring? Here is my take on the subject:


I'll be using small tags (front and back), one for every week. I'm planning to use a binding ring to attach the pages together.

Natural science

This interesting box was a find from flea market. It was temptingly called a "biologist's collection" and I just couldn't resist it. I'm not even sure about the other items, but the sea horse is definitely beautiful. There's also somekind of hay, a small twig of lingonberry and a piece of lichen or maybe alga. You see, I'm not the biologist, I'm just an aesthete.

Polaroid Fun

My friend used to have a Polaroid camera many years ago. I remember the excitement of waiting for the image to develop onto the paper. But because the Polaroid film was quite expensive, we couldn't take tons of pictures back then. Times have truly changed, now there's a free software you can use to turn a regular photo into a Polaroid-like picture. How cool is that! The application is called Poladroid and it can be found here.

2009

Oh boy, it's January already. We had a nice and cosy couple of days at the cabin just sitting by the fireplace, skiing and going to sauna. But we also had a gorgeous fireworks, and my fingers got nearly frozen trying to take pictures.

Winter is so beautiful. Wish I could capture the views more accurately, but the light is so scarce. I'd need a better camera.



I still have a few days left before going back to work. Gotta take it easy and relax.

Last minute wrappings

Gift wrapping is one of the most fun things in Christmas. I give a lot of selfmade gifts, and I want the package to reflect the same kind of do-it-yourself feeling. Yesterday I found this great tutorial showing how to make a nice little paper bow. It's quite easy and very addictive, I already made a dozen of them. They are gonna make cute finishing touches to my gift wraps.

Have a peaceful and warm Christmas everyone!

Decorative

How could we survive this season without candles here in the dark North! I'm glad for all the extra light there is available, wether it's real candle or electric christmas light. Although you must be aware of the high cost of electricity these days. That's part of the reason why I have a huge pile of candles to feed my appetite for atmospheric light.

Saucers in the upper picture are flea-market finds. Vintage die-cuts will be hanging in the christmas tree this year.

Sweet couple

I want to share this lovely little music video by Anssi 8000 & Maria Stereo. They are a very cool married couple who make music together. I've totally fell in love with their sound. Hope you like them too. The song is called Bachelorism.

Reading warmly

I'm Reading again. This time I found newly translated (to Finnish) L'Amour humain by Andrei Makine. He writes so beautifully. Of all his books I like Le Testament français the most. That was the first of Makine's books I read, and after that I had to get my hands on all of them. I use the original french names, because the translated ones vary quite a bit. And as a nice little detail, the original titles are also included in the book covers in Finnish editions.

If you wonder why my hand is posing in the pictures wrapped in a tube... I just wanted to show my new wrist warmers. I knitted basic garter stitch and used some leftover multi-colored yarn. Fast to make and warm to wear.

Snow, sweet

This was the view from my window today. A winter wonderland! Snow brings so much light into these darkening November evenings. It's the same darkness every year but still it somehow surprises me time after time. But snow...I love it and really wish for it to stay. Probably it'll melt away pretty soon I'm afraid.


Some cute cuties under process here. I'm not sure yet what these will turn into. I might add aforisms or other sweet words next to the fairies.

Party

I bought this Zettiology stamp and now I just can't stop playing with it. The little party hats on the characters' heads reminded me of elves hats, and so I made some Christmas themed cards as well. Hmm, not very traditional kind of seasons greetings, more like a carneval going on.
But it goes along with my evening plans: I'm gonna have a little pre-Christmas party with my friends. Yey!