Love This Journal . . .

This year, I celebrate my 8th year of keeping an art journal, and I still love it every bit as much as ever – never get bored with it.

When I first began, I was so in love with the whole idea that I made a series of video workshops to get other folks interested too – so I would have somebody to play with.

The videos were tiny and fuzzy because they were long, and large videos couldn’t be hosted anywhere because of file size limits. So, they had to be resized. The resolution was so bad I had to use a dark pencil instead of my beloved 3H, just so the lines would show up.

In spite of all that, the workshops were wildly successful and over a thousand students got turned on to art journaling. Some of them even went on to fame as art journal instructors themselves.

But then, Apple’s “cloud” platform of the day (MobileMe) went away – and took all our fuzzy videos with it. (weep, weep)

Sadly, I waved good-bye, and vowed to find another home for them. But there were no answers then. (weep, weep)

But, time heals all, and internet capacities really improved, and You Tube offered three important things – private channels, HD resolution, and they dropped the video size limits.

The HD resolution thing made all my old Sheer Heaven videos on my public channel small and fuzzy and they would have to replaced (weep, weep), BUT . . . now I could bring the Love This Journal videos back!

So I did.

I am once again offering this wonderful workshop series, but as a WHENEVER Workshop series this time, so you can go at your own pace. I divided the lessons into sets of 10 per session and lowered the price.

If you took the Love This Journal workshops, take a moment for fond memories. Are you still keeping your journals? I hope so.

If you did not take the workshops, and you want the joys of art journaling, here is the link to session #1. It will get you started on a journey of joy.

Love This Journal Workshop, #1

Why do I love my journal SO much?

Because there is no other place on earth where I could celebrate the stories of my life that need celebrating (or remembering at least). Journaling my stories is my favorite thing to do, and here is my latest favorite (and funny) story . . .

I told you how I haven’t been feeling creative.

I thought that some outdoor time would help clear my head, and the garden desperately needed clean-up.

But I couldn’t kneel or squat or bend over, or get up and down off my little garden bench. I bought a new one that had a tractor seat that swiveled and adjustable height, but I couldn’t get up and down off that either. And the swiveling part was scary.

I rolled my office chair out there – the one with the handle that lowers the height of the seat. It has arms, and it sort of worked, but the casters were no match for the flagstone and bricks and dirt and narrow walkways.

Momentary despair (weep, weep).

I might mention here that Mark was having heart failure watching me do all this with a cane. But he knows better than trying to stop an unstoppable woman – especially one wielding a cane.

So, he went off for a day of something or other.

And I scowled around the house, pouting and searching for a solution. And then I saw it . . .

It had been used for its handles over the household “throne” so the “queen” could get up and down (its bucket part was still untouched in the box – we didn’t need that). The rest was now retired, sterilized, and was awaiting whatever fate we had in mind.

I don’t think you can donate these things, sterilized or not.

At first, I was trying to figure out how I could use it as handles around my new garden seat, but those cross bars complicated that idea – and how could I get THAT seat off there? We had never put that back bar on in the first place, and I didn’t see what good it could do anyway.

And what was that lever on the side? I had never noticed that before. Did it raise or lower something? What?

But I knew the answer was in there somewhere, so I wasn’t going to give up.

I lowered the legs to their shortest height, and it was just the PERFECT height. And the angle of the legs made the thing so nice and sturdy – even if two legs were on flagstone and the other two in a flower bed.

But I can’t sit on THAT seat in the garden! What if the UPS man came by and thought I was self-fertilizing?

Could I attach a board over THAT seat? Not practical or comfortable.

How about that cushion I had purchased for a garden chair – the one that didn’t fit? It fit here. And I could tie it to all four legs. It would be soft to sit on and it would hide THAT other seat from view.

I was so pleased. It was the world’s most perfect garden seat and safe for a person in my wobbly condition.

When Mark came home, I was working away clipping and cleaning, sitting on my new “throne”.

It took him awhile, but he finally figured out what my “throne” was, and then he had to laugh for awhile. A long while.

“That lends a whole new meaning to “garden stool”, he said. Then he had to laugh some more.

When he was done, he suggested I hang my clippers, scissors etc. on that toilet paper holder.

“What toilet paper holder?” I said.

And the rest is history.

Now, if you didn’t have an art journal, where in the world could you put a story like that?!