In case you were wondering.....

.....probably not but going about making a journal the wrong way, well for me anyway, had a very interesting out come.

 This

 very blousy

journal which has nothing at all to do with Venice .

It never fails to fascinate me as to how the journal takes over and becomes what it wants to be,

Yesterday was a good day.  We went to a workshop at the Cockpit Arts studios in Deptford.  The subject was paper marbling and it was fun. Workshop was run by Lucy of Marmor Paperie  We started with just one colour and then went on to try several techniques and the day ended too soon. 

The first laughter of the day came when we looked at the aprons we had been given, summed us up perfectly, my meticulous friend and me.

Everything we needed was provided.

These are our first efforts.  There were six of us and, as you can see,  all had very different effects. 

These are our later efforts hanging out to dry.

Lucy was a good teacher and thanks also go to her friend who hung the papers so that we could get on with the exciting stuff.
 Hoping we will get the chance for another session sometime now we have the manner of it.

The long hot spell had finally broken and today we have rain.  It was funny to hear one of the children playing outside shouting, in great excitement, "It's raining".  Hope we don't now have too much to ruin everyone's holidays.

Comfort zone .........

..........I'm out of it. I started to work on a  new journal and it wasn't working.  I couldn't decide what was wrong and then I suddenly realised that I was out of my comfort zone.  An expression one hears and uses quite often but I think I now fully understand what it means.  This is how it happened.

I have made several journals lately and they have all been in my usual muted earth tones.  Entirely happy.  I decided as it was summer it would be fun to do something a little more colourful. First mistake.  I made this

I thought it would make a fun cover, don't judge a book by it's cover they say, so how do you make a book to live up to what is on the front. Second mistake, I decided my theme would be carnival, of Venice, to be precise.     I have never been to the carnival in Venice so I have no ephemera of my own.  Searching the internet soon revealed that all those people who have been don't publish copyright free images.  I found a few but it will be a stretch.  Third mistake, I got organised.  I made a box of scrapbook papers, some papers I made myself, searched out fabrics and dyed lace and now I have this really scary box challenging me to do something with it.
I made a page

and usually I can tell that something is right (for me in any case) but I keep looking at this and I don't get the expected "done" feeling. Just realised there is no tie in the tag but I don't think that's it.

Analysing my mistakes for future reference.  1. Decide on the cover when the signatures are finished. 2. Have a vague idea but don't be too specific at first, let it grow.  3. Don't try to second guess exactly what you are going to need, leave room for serendipity.

I am going to try and continue, mainly because I have done so much work so far, usually the journals take over and decide how they want to be  so I live in hope.

Two whole weeks of glorious warm weather, loving not to have to put on my usual many layers.