Teal is the color of the day

To begin, I would like to thank everyone for your kind comments and concern over Bleubeard. He loves his food, has his appetite back, and has kept his food down for nearly three days. Even better news is the vet told me yesterday that I could resume his normal eating habits, which means I don't have to feed him on my schedule, which is often sketchy at best. It's a good thing I have never been a mother, because I have never stuck to a daily regimen in my life until I had to keep a timetable for poor Bleubeard. The last several days has given me a lot of admiration for all you mothers out there.

Are all of you who follow my blog as tired of the word TEAL as I am? I am in a one-on-one swap with a dear friend and we have no real timetable. In fact, when I sent the journal to her today, I included a banner (or bunting, if you live in the UK) that I made last March.

Here is the nearly completed book. You can see I still didn't have the signatures sewn in the book when I took the photo, but I wanted to share the finished cover with the signatures inside.


When we last visited this visual journal, I had just shown pages 20 and 21. They are the the middle pages of this set of signatures.


Page 22 has a security envelope and a page from an old music book. Page 23 has words from a crossword puzzle for prompts, along with a teal-ish paint chip.


Page 24 has lots of space to write on. I used some of the address labels I colored using Twinkling H2Os. Various paint chips were used on page 25.

For page 26, I hated to cover the shaving cream paper, so I mostly left the page blank. Dimensional scrapbook paper was turned into a pocket on page 27.


Page 28 was also mostly blank since I forgot to sew anything on it before I sewed the pocket to the reverse side. Yes, that's a rubber stamped image! Page 29 is my idea of color blocking using scrapbook paper.


Page 30 has a bit of mesh and two prompts about friends. Several scrapbook papers were the background for the topiary straight out of Martha Stewart Magazine on page 31.


Once again, I found I had boxed myself into a corner on page 32 by not wanting stitching to show on the previous page. You probably aren't able to read the irony of page 33, since I saved it at a rather low resolution. You can read the sentiment, but you can't read the date is June 16, 1988. Yep, as in right now.


For page 34, I added a postcard that I attached using a piece of measuring tape. It can be flipped up to write on the back. Page 35 uses scrap papers and a sentiment cut from a magazine.


Page 36, although colorful, was one in which I added mica powders (like pearl ex) that needed binder. The binder I used was glue, so I'm not too comfortable with this page. It also appears I have managed to get it upside down, because the triangle at the top was supposed to be a pocket. Page 37 has a saying by Flavia I found in some old scrapbook supplies. I photocopied it and made several. It reads "Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same."


A sticker, a note card, and a page from a foreign text make up page 38. I put my new MS punches to work on page 39, along with some grid paper.


Page 40 was made when I entered the IA challenge "Decide" a few weeks back. That's the end of the first set of signatures. I hope by the time I show the next set, my dear friend will have gotten her book.

The last batch of these signatures I showed, Annette (Voodoo Vixen) made the comment that I am often plagued with. Will the person receiving the gift actually use it? Like her, I often wonder the same thing. If given a journal, do you work in it, or do you set it on a shelf to look at? What would prompt you to use it?

Speaking of Annette, I saw a chipboard printer's tray she made this week. It is lovely and I called her a paper (chipboard) engineer. Speaking of paper engineers, Mark Langan is possibly the king of paper, or actually corrugated cardboard, engineering. What he does with cardboard is truly mind blowing. Mark lives in Ohio, and he designs corporate logos, mainly for paper and cardboard companies. He also makes some lovely geometric inspired sculptures that he sells. He is a true recycler (and therefore a man after my own heart). I hope you will visit Mark Langan's site today. This is one you should not miss.