Do you Journal? How about an Art Journal? Or, a daily Journal . . . or an idea journal or a notebook of notes?

I’ve kept a variety of journals for more years than I can count. Fun Fact - my current journal is always my favorite one. When I fill one journal, it’s a little sad until I personalize the next, move into it and begin building a relationship through images and words between its covers.

A journal became a constant companion when I was caring for my elderly parents - a time when I had very little control over anything. My journal provided a few minutes of feeling in control of something - me and a few minutes here and there.

My Art Journal and writing Journals have evolved from ranting and draining useless thoughts into my current style pages that hold small pictures and bits of this and that which feel important in the moments I'm capturing.

Our free Daily Newspaper recently included a wonderful article posted on becomingaminimalist.com/reasons-to-journal written by Joshua Becker. I thought I’d include a partial synopsis here.

1 - A journal is a great place to write out goals. This practice allows us to articulate and clarify the reason we are heading toward a given desire.

2 - A journal serves as the perfect place to record our progress. It’s easy to lose sight of the successes we’ve enjoyed when life seems overwhelming or hopeless due to circumstances beyond our control.

3 - Writing helps us gain clarity as we move forward toward future successes. It can also assist us in processing past mistakes. Journaling can help you FEEL better and who doesn’t need some of that?!

4 - A journal proves our resilience. We’ve each solved many problems, but it’s easy to forget unless it’s written down where we can see it.

5 - A journal allows a story (my story) to inspire others. Or, it serves as a perfect space in which to write a new story!

Be sure to visit Joshua’s blog post to read the entire article.

I highly recommend that everyone use some form of journaling if for no other reason than to serve as a spot to park thoughts, collect quotes, or gather life experiences.

In this class, you’ll see my step-by-step approach for beginning a journal. I’ll show you the journal I prefer, how I select and use images and much more.

Be sure to download your notes and I’ll meet you in class.

Remember to Get Creative today! It’s Easy!

Barb

I intend to create these posts from a somewhat timeless point of view. However, as I write in the autumn of 2020, our world has experienced what seems like endless turmoil for months. There’s just no denying it. I could choose all kinds of adjectives and metaphors to describe my own personal journey through this experience, and some of you might relate while others would describe the saga very differently.

It’s been a pretty scrappy year so far. We’ve each transformed very abruptly from freedom to restriction - for our own good, right? We’ve each moved through so many emotions; doubt, disbelief, shock, fear, denial, and then we have the question with no answer; “When will this be over?” Everything as we knew it feels so fragmented now; scrappy.

Contemplating ALL of this has caused me to reflect on my “stuff” - emotional and physical. It’s probably because I’m in this one space more than ever before and I can’t easily ignore my head at the moment!

In this space, like many of you, I have loads of accumulated fabrics and papers. They are beautiful and stimulating as I imagine what to create with them. When inspiration strikes, I get busy. Sometimes I work on a new class and sometimes I’m content to explore and enjoy the creative process.

I’ve realized at the moment just how much I appreciate the small things like all the pretty scrap bits and pieces. I love them but they certainly pile up and overwhelm my space if left untouched for a while.

Recently, as I was sorting my seemingly endless colorful scraps, I began ruminating about the world outside my door. Does that ever happen to you? For me, mindless tasks equal wandering thoughts.

Questions pop up. Worries seem larger than ever. What can I do about what’s happening “out there”? What can I do about what’s happening “in here”? It gets pretty daunting, doesn’t it?

So, I decided it was time to do something. I hope you’ll join me on my creative excursion. Let’s transform some stuff. Let’s just create for the sake of creating. Let’s embrace these moments in our lives and use them to breathe and allow. Let’s let go with the flow and just see what happens. Bit by bit, action by action we can possibly lessen the overwhelming emotions. We will find beauty and joy as the scraps in front of us transform.

I bet our wandering minds will take us to some interesting places, too. Let it wander. Let it be just for a while as we create beauty out of scraps. It’s pretty awesome to create something out of nothing.

Be sure to download your class notes.

I’ll see you soon.

Remember to Get Creative today. It’s easy!

Barb

Have you experienced a childhood memory that seems to resurface in a new reincarnation later in your life? It’s funny, but SILK is like that for me.

My nuclear family lived in a house on a few acres of land where I grew into a wonderful friendship with a little girl who lived behind us. It turned out that my father had sold her dad the lot on which they built their home. To reach their house, they had a very long driveway called The Shady Lane. (Isn’t it funny to revisit the details that are decades old? Sometimes I stumble over a word that I use every single day, but I can always recall the name of the neighbor’s driveway!)

When I was playing at my friend’s house, her mother never seemed to cook like my mom did. I don’t remember ever eating a meal there but she always loved to come home with me for a meal. Although I have no memory of the smell of home cooking at their house, there was always a distinctly odd aroma. Years later I learned that both of her parents were entomologists - a word I loved to think about and mull over in my little girl's mind.

One day when playing with my friend, we went into a room that used to be a back porch. It was filled with strange containers that I discovered were the source of the unusual smell. I asked my friend what was inside the containers. Nonchalantly she replied, “Silk worms.”

Now, I had no idea what a silk worm was nor why anyone should have them, yet there seemed to be tons of them in that back porch room! It didn’t smell awful, just like nothing I recognized. To this day I don’t know if the smell was actually the worms or the leaves they were fed or the resulting moths and cocoons. I don’t know why they even had these creatures. Perhaps it had to do with a project for the University where they taught classes. Who knows?!

Fast forward many years. I worked in a fabric store where we sold many types of fine fabric including several kinds of silk. I learned about chiffon, charmeuse, gabardine, broadcloth, crepe de chine, and silk dupioni, which was my favorite. You might find it hard to believe but I still have scraps of those beautiful silks in my fabric stash! Once a “collector” always a “collector”!

After developing an appreciation for the silks that I carefully cut for our customers, I could tell them apart with only a quick touch. There’s just nothing like silk! I was spoiled forever!

Fast forward quite a few more years and imagine my delight when I realized that I could purchase silk fibers to use in my creative art adventures. In this class we will explore a fun process of transforming beautiful silk rovings into a type of paper that has properties of both fabric and paper along with a few memories of a little girl’s curiosity about silk worms growing in a back porch room.

Be sure to download your class notes and I’ll meet you in class.

Remember to Get Creative today! It’s Easy!

Barb

Have you experienced a childhood memory that seems to resurface in a new reincarnation later in your life? It’s funny, but SILK is like that for me.

My nuclear family lived in a house on a few acres of land where I grew into a wonderful friendship with a little girl who lived behind us. It turned out that my father had sold her dad the lot on which they built their home. To reach their house, they had a very long driveway called The Shady Lane. (Isn’t it funny to revisit the details that are decades old? Sometimes I stumble over a word that I use every single day, but I can always recall the name of the neighbor’s driveway!)

When I was playing at my friend’s house, her mother never seemed to cook like my mom did. I don’t remember ever eating a meal there but she always loved to come home with me for a meal. Although I have no memory of the smell of home cooking at their house, there was always a distinctly odd aroma. Years later I learned that both of her parents were entomologists - a word I loved to think about and mull over in my little girl's mind.

One day when playing with my friend, we went into a room that used to be a back porch. It was filled with strange containers that I discovered were the source of the unusual smell. I asked my friend what was inside the containers. Nonchalantly she replied, “Silk worms.”

Now, I had no idea what a silk worm was nor why anyone should have them, yet there seemed to be tons of them in that back porch room! It didn’t smell awful, just like nothing I recognized. To this day I don’t know if the smell was actually the worms or the leaves they were fed or the resulting moths and cocoons. I don’t know why they even had these creatures. Perhaps it had to do with a project for the University where they taught classes. Who knows?!

Fast forward many years. I worked in a fabric store where we sold many types of fine fabric including several kinds of silk. I learned about chiffon, charmeuse, gabardine, broadcloth, crepe de chine, and silk dupioni, which was my favorite. You might find it hard to believe but I still have scraps of those beautiful silks in my fabric stash! Once a “collector” always a “collector”!

After developing an appreciation for the silks that I carefully cut for our customers, I could tell them apart with only a quick touch. There’s just nothing like silk! I was spoiled forever!

Fast forward quite a few more years and imagine my delight when I realized that I could purchase silk fibers to use in my creative art adventures. In this class we will explore a fun process of transforming beautiful silk rovings into a type of paper that has properties of both fabric and paper along with a few memories of a little girl’s curiosity about silk worms growing in a back porch room.

Be sure to download your class notes and I’ll meet you in class.

Remember to Get Creative today! It’s Easy!

Barb

“What if?” is one of the most creative questions you can ask. When you’re trying to solve a life-problem, unforeseen solutions can somehow show up when you just stop and ask, “What if?” I’ve personally experienced exactly that while being a family caregiver. Just when overwhelmed by something I'd never come up against and ready to give up, I tried to remember to ask, “What if. . .?” By being open to possibilities beyond my frame of reference, solutions ALWAYS presented themselves. I don’t know how that works, but I do know that it kept my sanity in tact!

Life stuff (I'm sure you know what I mean . . .) can easily shut down creativity in spite of having plenty of resources right in front of you.

I have a creative space with a variety of supplies and materials that are somewhat organized (or stuffed into every available nook and cranny). I have to admit that I've been known to forget why I have a some things, too. Has that ever happened to you? I hope I’m not the only one.

So, when you're shut down for some reason - feeling completely uninspired - how do you get yourself moving, creatively speaking? I've learned that the almost-magic answer boils down to two simple words, “What if?”

Humor me and just try it. Take an art supply that you haven’t used for a while. Move it around in your creative space. You know, sort or move it from one spot to another. Notice how much of this thing you have. What do you like about it? Have you ever used it? Do you remember why you have it? No pressure. Just looking and thinking.

Now, it’s time to ask the magic question, “What if . . .?” What if I try adding paint to this embroidery stabilizer? What if I try dyeing sheets that I use in my clothes dryer? It seems such a shame to throw them away, doesn’t it? Or, what if I heat up my clothing iron to see what supplies react to heat. (**PUBLIC SERVICE ALERT!! Always use any heat source in a very well-ventilated space. Even better, go outside if possible! Please do not take chances with your respiratory system - ever.**)

The best thing happens when you ask “What if?” You get lost in the moment as you PLAY. You’re distracted by successes and unexpected results. And I bet you’ll discover some favorite new techniques along the way, too.

The moral of this message is to get out some stuff! Ask the magic question and then just see what happens, I bet this class, Non-woven Wonders, will help spark your imagination, too. So, download your illustrated Class Notes, grab something to drink ‘cuz it’s another long one!

I’ll see you in class.

Remember to Get Creative today!

It’s Easy!

Barb