Remember

I'm once again joining Erika, my internet friend and host this month at Art Journal Journey where her theme is "Every journal page tells a story."

Today I've created a mixed media page, reminiscent of Valerie's concept of scooping up any and everything loose on her craft table.  That's what I did when I  created this spread.

I started with a sheet of deli paper I had painted earlier and glued it to my substrate which is my Coll-AH-ge Two altered book.

Everything on this page, with the exception of the deli paper, is recycled.  I had cut the word "Remember" from an old book cover months ago,

I fussy cut the bird from an old calendar page I had originally set aside to use in Valerie's bird theme for our International swap.

I found the flower on my craft room floor, and the string was removed from a tag I used a few days ago (the wheat tag).

The feather came off one of Squiggles' toys.  After he played with it awhile, I decided to use it on this page.

And finally, the piece of red was left over from one of my Asian themed pages.

Now that you have seen all the pieces I used, here is the story in journal form.  I remember my Grandmother (grandparents raised me from birth) had a parakeet she loved dearly.  One day, while she was cleaning the cage, the parakeet flew out the back door I opened at just the wrong time.

My grandmother was brokenhearted and cried for days.  I felt so bad, I wanted to crawl away and die.  On the fourth or fifth day, there was a banging noise at the back door and my grandmother went to investigate.  Lo and behold, her beloved parakeet had found its way back to my grandmother's loving arms.  Its claws were clamped on the screen door, and both my grandmother and her beloved (albeit frightened) parakeet could not have been happier.

Thank you for visiting, and yes, this is a true story, even if the paper bird, and all the pieces I used for this mixed media piece were pulled from my recycle bin or my craft table.  Now let's head to Art Journal Journey, because there are even more incredible journal stories there.