5 WAYS TO SPICE UP YOUR JOURNAL PAGES

Hey you journal-loving people! Do you ever feel like your journal is a bit plain? I write on a daily basis and I reread my entries every so often. Lately i felt bored by how all the pages looked the same with the same handwriting over and over again. 

Sooo let's do something about it! I came up with five ways to spice up your daily journal. All these options are to be pre-made, so when you sit down at night you go right to writing and just add them whenever you feel like it.

Aren't these little arrows cute? I think they're pretty cool to highlight a passage in your writing or start an entry. As you can see I used paint swatches, so I'd have a gradient ( Ombré Arrows - we're so hipster around here...), cut and glued them together.  There are tons of ways to create these cuties: big to small triangles, light to darker shades... Get creative!

Looove these! No for real, I'm already dreading using them because I want to use them over and over! Might have to make more, woooh! I think the making is rather self-explanatory. Cut cardboard, write on a piece of white paper and glue that on there. I love the color it adds to a page though! So simple, so good!

Tags, tags, tags... I've wanted to buy a pack of these at the craft store forever. Well, how about homemaking them? They're literally a 3-minute project. Cut cardboard, glue a rectangle of paper / other cardboard on there, add the circle on the top and whole-punch it! You might also add some ribbon or lines to write on.

Did you realize there was something wrong until picture three? Haha, there are some things I ALWAYS do wrong at first try. Like mirror-writing. I got everything right ... except the 'a'. Gaaaw! Whatever, this is DIY at it's finest! 
Elsie started this series 'today is (insert adjective)' and I liked it so much, I though it'd be fun to label journal entries that way. The 'Today' an 'was' are seperated in case I just need a 'Today'. Maybe if I wanna say 'Today I won a million Dollars'. It could happen!

Okay so picture-wise this isn't number 5 'cause you've seen the exclamation-mark before. Actually you've seen it in another post before but I felt this needed to be an extra point. I think everyone should have one of these exclamation-mark stamps at hand. Sometimes you just need to make a bold statement. Also a question-mark or a dot would be fun, too, wouldn't it?

I talked about how most of these papercrafts can be used without other craft supplies at hand. Therefore I used a rather simple technique:

How smart is this, please? You can store them away as long as you want and when you crave a color-pop you remove the non-sticky part of the tape and bang: there's your sticker! 

This is what I imagine those tools to be used like. I'm so thrilled to use them overthe next weeks!
Hope you enjoyed today's post just as much as I did! I'm off now to decorate my page about this beautiful sunny day!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

HOMEMADE ALBUM COVER - PART I

Remember my Summer To Do List? One of the points on there was to create a summer journal... Well the 'journal' turned into more of an album. I have never filled an actual photo album myself the traditionell way - like in the old days, when my mom had to go and have someone develop her film rolls. I thought it would be fun to try it though and also I feel I'm gonna have a blast looking at this during the cold winter months. 

Because I always thought that store-bought albums look either boring or plain out cheap, I wanted to give my album a make-over. While working I realized this is sort of a longer process - upps, overestimated my fast-embroidery-skills! 

So today, I'll share my first steps to a homemade photo album cover. Enjoy!

Using tailor's chalk I marked the size of  my album on a piece of fabric that could fit around it comfortably. Well, I actually had to use two pieces of fabric, because one would not have been enough - it's fine, gotta work with what you got! Secondly, I put a white sheet of paper on my album and marked out the space I wanted to fill my embroidered type later.

I wrote and sketched out the words for the front on the paper, turned it over and traced along the outlines so I'd have a reversed picture. I taped it to my album with the reversed side up - still in the place where I'd originally wanted it. 

I covered the sheet with my fabric - right side down. Now I have the side of fabric facing me that'll later be unseen, as well as my reversed type underneath it. I traced the letters one more time through the fabric with pink tailor's chalk. Finally I could get to fun part - working with my embroidery hoop. Don't you think embroidery hoops are the most fun thing ever? They're wood and feel smooth and round ... Pretty snazzy ...

Well getting to the point - grab your thread and get stitching!

One by one the letters will appear as you follow your traced outline. I've mentioned the word 'embroidery' like two thousand time in this post already - so just more time: Embroidery is awesome and such a relaxing task! 

Be thrilled for my process on this project!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

JOURNAL # 5 - STORY TIME

Summer is seriously my favorite season. I took this picture around half past 6pm and is was still so nice and bright outside. I just felt this design needed gras as a backdrop. Also my biology trip went on a field trip yesterday. We explored the woods and rivers in a town close-by. Yepp, we're all around the age of 17- 18. It was an exciting day for us. I'm on a nature kick now - thanks biology teacher! 

I created this page rather spontaneously and tried to think of something fun to journal about. I remembered a video I had recently seen on Youtube where someone talked about creating a whole journal about the things one has accomplished in life. Well, I didn't wanna go that far today, but digging up memories is always fun!

I found the 'activate self-esteem' and '100%' signs on a bag from 'The Body Shop' and thought the colors would go perfectly with my baker's twine. 

Because recyceling is awesome I re-used the sheet of baking paper from my Dream Journal to create the pattern on my basic sheet of cardboard. I like going a little crazy with paint ... a destroying brushes apparently. I killed like three of them within the last couple weeks! 

Also I'm having an obsessison with embroidering these days - and the feeling this obsession might continue for quite some time. I think it's kind of a nostalgic thing, since I used to do this with my favorite art teacher in elementary school. She was so sweet! One day she just gave me this whole bag of embroidery thread, needles and other things. Still have some of it today. Great Lady!  

Here's another close-up. I also used some lace and more embroidery, this time with yellow baker's twine. Yeah and then I added some fun stories from my life. I think the average profil information like 'I love crafting and photography' are getting old. These are so much more personal! Here are some further details on the stories... 

1) I was about 10 when this happened and beforehand I had lost a game against my uncle, my cousin and pretty much everyone else who was there. I was bitter! Such a fun game and I was the loser! Because know you better than you know yourself, she felt that I was a bit upset and decided to play another game with just the two of us. Well long story short - I won. Mmmh, just five minutes before my mom had almost won a game against a flipping genius-bowler called my uncle.. I guess my mom is pretty awesome. 

2) No, seriously. I went to America. I bought 'cheese in a can', because we don't have that stuff in Europe. Aaand I had to find a video on Youtube to figure out how to work the can. Yepp, there are videos out there about this topic. 

3) I was about three. Always the same stairs - I wanted to figure out how dogs walk down the stairs so badly. I never figured it out until today so sometimes I'm still tempted to crawl down the stairs head first .. But nah. I don't wanna ruin my senior year GPA. 

4) On a bus ride while we were on class trip to France. I did it to impress everyone else - and then I discovered the deliciouness of chocolate and mayo. I'm not sure if I'll ever eat this stuff again though. Was kind of a 'What happens in France, stays in France' thing.

5) My hostfather laughes about this until today - and so do I. To my defense: I didn't use this word very much in my english class prior to going to the USA. So how was I supposed to know?!

6) I remember this one time when a friend of mine who could swim told me she'd hold on to me and drag me trough on this twirling whirlpool which was supposebly really fun. Well she let go of my hand just when we had gotten in. I and sank and stayed under water until she was all the way around the thing and pulled me up again. For whatever reason I didn't move. I just stared up at the surface and waited, floating throught the water. . Water was never my element. 

7) At my High School they had this thing called 'Camp-in-a-box' to raise awareness for the homeless. You had to raise 20 bucks though to take part in it. So yeah I didn't excatly pay for it, but you get my point!

8) Well apparently I was very tired and my friends weren't. I still love them. 

Hope you enjoyed story-time today! 

Oh and on another note guess who joined me while I was taking the pictures or this post?

My cat is awesome. 

Lots of Love, Tabea + Hildegard the cat ♥

DREAM JOURNAL

Whaaaad'up? Uh yeah, I'm finally fit again and ready to get my craft going! Lately I've been having weird dreams .. well my dreams are always weird. But lately I had several weird dreams in a short period of time. Is that a sign? Apocalypse?! Let's hope not ...

The other day I dreamed that I there was a Grizzly bear by my house and my dad chased it away with some weird rolling pin, another day my friend's car was stolen from outside my house and he was just freaking out, screaming at a truck that had suddenly appeared. And yesterday night, I dreamed that I got to know one of my friend's moms who I'd never met before - and she was mean! Like 'what are you looking at me?' - mean! Why are my dreams so terrible??

Because I love to remember my dreams (no matter how horrible they were), I sometimes write them down. So today I'll show you how to create a dream journal. It'll be the size of about 3x5inches.

You'll need acrylic paint (any color), cardboard, paper (I like to use old paper that I would not use as notebook paper anymore) , brush, needle, embroidery thread, marker, pin

This time, I put the steps right onto the pictures - for all the 'visual'-types out there! I'm with you!

Lastly glue both cardboard pieces onto the booklet. Done!

This is sooo cute! Can't wait to fill it with the things my nightly imagination comes up with!

For everyone interested in more 'dream-journal'-inspiration - here's my old one. I think the cover is pretty rad. It's Tavi Gevinson glued to the face of Jonny Depp. I made this one in a late-night session - Probably thought this was hilariously funny at the time. Okay, I still love it.  Also some of the pages I created in it - just plain lines would have been boooring!

Okay, have a great night / day (depending on when read this) everyone and remember to write down all the funny things that happen while you're awake or asleep. Rereading them later is a treasure!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

POETRY JOURNAL + ANTHOLOGY

Did you know you cannot mix the colors hot pink and magenta? With some thinking I probably would have remembered the latter one. But I wasn't aware of the fact that it's impossible to whip up a nice hot pink by yourself. You need pigments for that and blaaah... - I'm guessing the people at Menard's can tell you all about that. I was kinda bummed though. So bummed that I had to run outside and cry over my mom's peonies... Not really. But I did ran outside 'cause I saw how pretty they are blooming right now.

So let's get to the point here. I went to fight round number two with this littler bugger of a journal... It gave its everything - I had to work with a KNIFE to get the sand/glitter mixture and paint off again.. Second kind of glue on my black list - wood glue. Don't even ask why I used that stuff...

While murdering this poor little thing, I mused about what to do with it after I would have revived it. Mmh .. looking around .. uuh what is that over there on the shelf? Ahhh! My poetry anthology from last year! 

I always loved poetry in this weird way. I'm the most impatient person, but when I really take the time to read a poem it's so deep somehow. For me poetry is the most elegant writing style of them all - I have a passion for word groups and short sentences. A sentence like 'And then the rain started pouring' just gets my imagination. Weird example, kinda depressing - sorry, I'm a happy person, believe me!

I used to write poetry myself when I was about 14 or so. Then last year we actually got this anthology as an assignment. We had to write and collect poetry and present it in a way that would represent our feelings towards poetry. Love this assignment! I actually took it to Chicago with me, when we went there shortly before this was due to be handed in. Somehow special to work on a small piece of art that is so close to
your heart in such a huge city.

Well I love to share my beloved things with you, so here without further ado - my poetry anthology of 2012.

Don't you love the Cat Stevens Poem, too? I learned so much during those weeks of working on this. Poetry can have so many forms. There are literally no limits! Poetry can be anything from random funny words to deep thoughts put into just the right words. The most beuatiful thing about it is that everyone can do it. Talent or not - everyone owns paper, a pencil and a head. 

You might have already seen my Summer-List, so you know that I'm hoping to write some poetry again this year. Just for me. To have a nice place to put it, I created the journal I was talking in the beginning of this post.

It's not quite this bright pink in reality (hehe Photoshop .. my partner in crime..) but still a very lovely shade of pink. It's got bumps from the cutting and I wasn't very careful with the paint. My bad. I just got too excited about the glitter, I guess. Hot pink glitter - I almost fell over when I came across it. 

If anyone wonders how I did it. Basically 4 easy steps: Paint the journal - Drizzle the glitter over the wet paint - Let dry and seal with ModPodge (or something similar) - Stick the (fake) polaroid on it. Now you're a boss at journal-making! 

Okay one more message - in case I didn't mention it earlier on.

Be cool and try your hands on writing poetry - you'll be surprised by the results!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

THE BIG BOOK OF ALL THINGS INSPIRATIONAL

Have I mentioned lately how much I love thrifting? I often wonder how people can throw out treasure like the one above. The picture in the right is not a joke. Yoga 1970s style. I'm in love. Maybe because I stayed up until 1 am yesterday night and then slept on my couch. I just didn't feel like sleeping my bed - I'm such a rebel. 

Yesterday I wrote something in my journal like 'The inspirational Jesus is coming back to me' - like whaaaat? Haha I kinda felt like in trance when I wrote that. No I'm not on drugs, I'm too cheap for those.. 
But I seriously felt like there was a ton of inspiration out there, that I needed to take in and because having everything on your screen is fine and dandy, but having something in your hands is even better, I decided it was time for 'The Big Book Of All Inspirational Things'. I just came up with the title right now, haha! Has anyone ever watched that show with the kid and this huge book that he could jump into? No? Well it was great. I should go and find it. 

Albums are expensive and I'm a cheap gal, so this was why I headed to the thrift store. Obviously the walk over would even  have been worth it, if I would only have found the yoga book. Anyway, I found this old cook book from 1974. I feel like it has made a career in some old ladies bookshelves for decades and now it finally got its life back. Horray!  

Sometimes things just come together, and so it happened that I came across this book during a phase of being obsessed with plain white books and black and white pattern. I almost stopped breathing when I saw this inner binding. Whipped cream traces! I'm dying!! On the cover it says 'The cold kitchen's delicacies' which I think is a hilarious title for an inspiration-scrapbook. Oh I'm just sooo in love!

Since its a recipe book it is obviously filled with tons of recipes (and food porn as you can tell). The 1970s loved their easy foods though, I think. Think meat platters, fruit platters, 'The perfect Toast' (seriously, they got a recipe for that in there!) and loads of other cold goodness. Might  try a recipe at some point.

Because sometime too much text might be distracting, I painted over it with acrylic paint. Don't you ever use water on book pages! Aaaand theeen - I went to town glueing down all the fancy pictures I had at hand or that I found yesterday during my late-night blog-reading session. 

Did I mention I'm in love? 

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥