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Notice how the color is changing? Cool

Masks

What have I been up to, craft wise?  Many things, but this is one.  My mom picked up a mask for me at her beauty shop (the beautician's neighber makes them, and she sells them in her shop).  I like then way it was made, and finally bit the bullet, dug out fabric, made a pattern, and started sewing.  I'm not a person who sews, but, apparently, I can make a mask.  Or a dozen.  Here are a few of them.

Hard to be creative?

Have you noticed that during the pandemic, your normal urge to stretch and test your creativity is gone?  Or at least stunted?

I love to make cards, and yet, it took a month of pandemic to sit down and make a card.  The experience was joyful, and I wanted to make cards (even when I couldn't) but I didn't until that day.  Now, I'm making them, but not as often.  I miss it. 

I actually have two blogs, and while this one is lucky to see a post a month, I usually post about four times a week on the other one.  But from the middle of March until now, there is only a single post.

I hope I can settle into a new routine of posting and creating.  I'm working on it.  But if you are experiencing the same thing, I think we can both take comfort in the idea that this is a normal reaction to an abnormal time. 

Gratitude Quotes

As part of my bullet journaling this week, I’ve been finding a gratitide quote each day. These are the ones I including in my journal:

• I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude (Brene Brown).
• Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings (William Arthur Ward).
• Joy is the simplest form of gratitude (Karl Barth).
• Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend (Melody Beattie).
• Gratitude changes the pangs if memory into tranquil joy (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Image Notes: Created using iPhone 7. No adjustments made.

Nametags

I belong to a digital alumnae chapter of Alpha Chi Omega. We meet most often via Facebook and email, but once a year, the group gathers for a Founder's Day breakfast with the Collegiate Chapter we support.

This year and last year I was asked to stamp nametags for the gathering. In this image are 120 approximately business sized nametag inserts for plastic holders. The carnation is from Garden Charmers by Penny Black, stamped with Lobster Lawn Fawn ink and Moss Hero Arts ink. The lyre is from a very hold Hero Arts wooden block set, stamped with embossing ink and embossed with fine gold powder. The paper is MFT sweet tooth - an almost white card stock.

The misti tool was a great help with these; I also used the new corner set to pull the card stock away from the Misti corner but still have a "corner" to position it with.

Multitasking

A couple of weekends ago I attended a conference. At the tables were coloring pages and colored pencils. I tried to resist. Really, I did. But there was this black and white page and pencils and who could resist! At first, I just colored during the break, but then I found myself drawn back to the page, so I colored and listened. That must have been what they wanted people to do, right? Why else put them on the table?

I did learn that I can listen and color at the same time. I kind of knew that, but this confirmed it.

The whole time I kept thinking that I could do a better job with my own (much larger) collection of colored pencils. Who can color with just 10 color choices, anyway?

Three Things not on a Thursday

Carol at Carol Knits does a weekly post on her blog called Three Things on Thursday. I was thinking about what to write about this week, and that prompt of hers came to mind.

1. I ordered a new fountain pen a couple of weeks ago. It's a TWSBI Eco.  I ordered the one with no color with a fine nib. It's a demonstrator pen - the first one I've owned.  I filled it with Diamine Ancient Copper ink. I anticipate that I'll be using it for the headers in my November bulletin journal.
2. I ordered this traveler's notebook cover through Amazon. It's a really pretty brown leather, and not very expensive. I really want this one, but decided to go with a less expensive one for now to see if it will work for the purpose I'm planning for it. I think this will take the place of my Plum Paper planner. I love the Plum Paper planner, but I only use it to plan my work as communicaton coordinator at my church - it's really more than I need. I created an insert for the traveler's notebook with my weekly spread for my work at church. I ordered an undated monthly insert from Penguin Paper Co. on Etsy. We'll see how it works.
3. I pulled out my crochet hooks this evening to fix a "run" in my mom's prayer shawl. I told her I wouldn't be able to match the pattern. She didn't care: "put a flower on it." So I did.

Oodles of Doodles - May

I've mentioned before that The Petit Planner on Instagram publishes a monthly doodling challenge.   In  May, the challenge was a list of foods.  It's fun to do - and fun to think of creative ways to interpret the words.

Some of my favorites this month were cookie (I drew the Cookie Monster) and hamburger (Hamburgler).

Oodles of Doodles

I am creative; I can stretch that to say I am artistic. What I am not is a person who is able to draw. That would be a great gift, and it is a gift my older son has. He didn't get it from me.

However, I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, and Stephanie Klauk posted an image of her bullet journal - the page where she was working through the Oodles of Doodles challenge for April. It's a list of prompts - 30 of them - and for each of them, you use the prompt to lead you in a doodle.  A few example prompts for April are tulip, bunny, ants, picnic - you get the idea.

It looked interesting  and as I said, I can't draw. But I CAN play. So I grabbed the list from The Petite Planner's Instagram feed, and created a spread in my bullet journal.

The drawings are doodles. They aren't great - as I said, I can't draw. But it is fun. And it reminded me about something important regarding creativity. You don't have to be good at something to do it. Do it anyway. Play. Create. Have fun expressing yourself.

Incowrimo - Encouragement Cards

Have you ever heard of incowrimo? It is an abbreviation for International Correspondence Writing month.

Since I started bullet journaling, I've been watching videos by Boho Berry. She participated in incowrimo - at the time I thought it required you to write a 28 letters in February. Cool idea - handwritten letters.

I didn't want to write letters, but decided to accept that challenge and send out 28 handmade encouragement cards in February. You can tell, if you know anything about incowrimo, that I didn't actually go check out their website - until today, as I write this post.  According to the website, "InCoWriMo challenges you to hand-write and mail/deliver one letter, card, note or postcard every day during the month of February." So, my card commitment was write in line with challenge - it doesn't have to be letters.

At first, I thought 28 encouragement cards was a stretch goal Keep in mind that I didn't count the ones I made for Valentine's Day. As the month went on ... Wow. Not just a stretch goal - it was a big commitment.

And yet, the whole process reminded me of why I send out handmade cards. The recipients were surprised - cards for no reason. A "happy" as my mother-in-law would have called it. People need that kind of encouragement, don't you think.

Will I do it next year? Maybe. It was worth it.

(By the way, the image was taken in a grocery store florist department with my iPhone - some day soon I'll write a post about my image a day for a month commitments.)

Bike Doodles

 In December, I started learning about bullet journaling. I decided to give it a try. That month, I pulled a blank book I had on my shelf and a couple of pens, and started giving it a try.

I liked it, so in January of this year, I started bullet journaling daily. I'll write a post about the process I use later - you can see my supplies at this link.

This morning, I was planning for the day. Steve had a bike ride on his schedule, and I wanted to include that in my day. I decided to work on a doodle of a bike that I could draw on my page. I started with a page in the back of my book, a google of bike doodles, and finally with the picture of Steve's bike that is to the right.

It's still a work in progress - I like the one on the bottom row, far right side the best, but fun to play with.

Doodle on.

Fountain Pens and Ink

I've become interested in foundation pens. Years ago, as a kid, I used a foundation pen, and I played around with calligraphy using a foundation pen with a calligraphy nib.  So this is a renewed interest.

My current pens are:

1. Pilot Metropolitan, violet leopard with a fine nib.  This is a great pen. It was inexpensive, and yet it writes very smoothly - flows across the paper. It comes with a converter and a cartridge so that you can choose which method of adding ink you prefer. I started with a cartridge and then switched to a converter to use bottled ink.
2. Platinum Plaisir, green with a fine nib. I like this pen, too. It doesn't write as smoothly as the Metropolitan, but it still does a good job.  When I purchased it, I also purchased a converter (which doesn't come with this pen.
3. Parker Vector 88. This isn't my pen. It belonged to my husband's grandmother. He bought it for her as a gift, and when she died, it was returned to him. When he saw my interest in these pens, he dug it out for me to use. It still had the cartridge in it that she had used, although it was empty of ink (or dried up). I worried that the dried ink would have ruined the feed or the nib, but cleaning it was rather easy, and it was restored. No one has used it for about 20 years, and now it's working just great. I purchased a Parker converter for it.

Inks I've tried:

1. Blue-Black Pilot cartridge - this worked as expected, but I wanted to try something a little bit brighter.
2. Diamine emerald - It's a nice green ink, but it leans more toward yellow green than bluer green.
3. Noodler's Green Marine - I like this one better than the Diamine Emerald because it is a bluer green. Personal preference.
4. Diamine Blue Velvet - Great blue ink. I like it
5. Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku - a deep teal blue-green ink - peacock. This is the ink I put in the Parker 88.

You'll see that for most of the inks above I've linked to samples from The Goulet Pen Company. They have a nice option that offers small samples of bottled ink to try. Great idea - and it has allowed me to try several before I buy a whole bottle.  The Iroshizuku link listed above was a "surprise" ink. It's another option they offer - you can purchase a randomly selected sample of ink.  Fun idea!

For those interested in finding more out above fountain pens, I recommend The Goulet Pen company Youtube page. It's what drew me into to exploring this world again.

FYI - the notebook above is a Leuchtturm 1917 journal that I use for Bullet Journaling.