Until taking that class I just didn’t get the idea of art journals. Coming from a traditional journal keeping background, it was hard for me to understand how an art journal could help express feelings.

However, the more I worked with these pages, I understood and really liked the whole concept of expressing feelings with not just words, but with paper, paint, and whatever I wanted to use.

Kelly’s class included regular journal prompts which I didn’t use since I have my own stash of them. But I loved that she also included collage layout templates to help those of us collage-challenged to get started.

Most of my pages use one of my own photos as a focal point. However, I did make some with pictures from magazines.

Here are a few of my pages. I’ve not yet made them into a book. Right now they are hanging on a line in my studio/woman cave.

What is enough journal page

This page is all about what is enough. This picture was shot at one of the gardens that was on our garden walk tour in 2009. I loved how they had all of their shovels all lined up against the shed. (If I would do this page over again, I’d make the picture much bigger.) Anyway, looking at that picture brought to mind that we seem to always be looking for more.  This page lists the questions that quickly came to mind after the layout was finished:  What is enough? When do we stop? Do we need it all? What is order? What is chaos? Where do I fit in this whole process? What’s it all about?

Dream Big journal page

The picture for this one was taken from a magazine. It is all about her potential – You can be whatever you wish! Dream big!

Telephone journal page

This one is about the telephone. This picture was taken from an old book. What a gift the telephone is!

It was so cold journal page

This picture was taken on our cold Florida vacation last year. It was so cold but it was a good trip.

Spring Discovery Art Journal Page

This one is my favorite. I found this trowel as the snow was melting. I wrote “This reminds me of how tired I was last season as I planted the last of the plants and got the gardens ready for sleep. Seeing this today made me tired, but also excited to think about the new season to come.”

I sure can relate to that tiredness today!

I am still working on this art journal. I used scrapbook paper for these pages, but I could use some of my painted or homemade paper. Then next time I’ll try just painting with no paper. It’s been a real learning and stretching experience for me. I’m anxious to push myself more in this direction.

Calendula soap in mold

After all of my research, I failed to realize that I needed to not only leave this soap in the mold longer than 24 hours, but also I need to grease these molds. This is due to the high percentage of olive oil. As you see below, one soap came out perfect, the others I ended up piling the soap on top of the part of the soap that behaved!

Calendula Soap

But I know they will be fine. They just look a tad funky. Now they need to cure from 6 to 12 weeks, much longer than my normal 4 weeks. Some of the Calendula flowers left over from infusing were ground up and added to trace.

Here is my recipe. If you are not familiar with cold process soap making, check out this link for instructions.

This recipe is smaller than my other batches because I was using this new silicone mold. It turned out that this batch was still too large for that mold. I ended up pouring the remaining soap into a milk carton. I’ve given you percentages so you can make this to the size of batch you want to make. I also make my soap in grams because I feel it’s more accurate although a lot of soapers have success with ounces. Just do what makes you feel comfortable but be sure run any recipe through a soap calculator.

I’m looking forward to giving this to Marsha once it has cured. And now that I know that I need to grease the mold, I’ll try this again. But we’ve talked about our next soap adventure will either involve lard or cocoa and mango butters with mango fragrance oil. Fun!

This book is from Craftside blog. If you love crafts and craft books, check out this blog. It is one of my daily reads, and they often have giveaways.

Textile Art

This is a great book. I’m so into surface design lately.

Then I commented on a the Bonnie Bath blog and won the following:

Bonnie Bath Giveaway

I received 1/4 cup of each of these herbs and botanicals: Pink Rose Petals, Red Rose Petals, Jasmine, Chamomile, Organic Calendula, Organic Spearmint, Organic Peppermint, Organic Nettle, Organic Orange Peel, Organic Rosemary, Organic Lemongrass, Organic Eucalyptus, Patchouli, Organic Hibiscus, Organic Poppy Seeds, Lavender Buds, and Organic Meadowsweet.

If you are interested in this sampler package you can buy it from Bonnie Bath for $10 plus shipping. They also have a great selection of handmade soaps, bath and body care products, and aromatherapy for the home.  I’m looking forward to using some of these in future soaps and body care products.

There are a lot of websites that give away items. One of my favorite giveaway blog (although I’ve yet to win anything!) is By Hand Giveaways which only lists giveaways of handmade items. If you have a handmade item you’d like to give away, they will feature it and list the link to your blog. A great way to increase your traffic.

That brings me to giveaways here. If you follow me, you know that I’ve been reviewing craft books, some of which I’ve given away. I have several more of those books and even a craft product to give away later on in this month and in October. Sometimes it takes me awhile to get around to the review since I want to take time with the book or video and give it my best, and I like to make something from the book. But you will be seeing several of these products soon.

I’m off to see what I can make with my new herbs and botanicals. Have a great first day of September.