It's a swap!

I have always been interested in journals, although I rarely write in them.  I have always been interested in scrapbooks, but never wanted to make one or try to even begin to understand page layout designs.  I have always wanted to put together an old time scrapbook book, where bits and pieces of a trip or an event were just pasted on pages. 

I have also always wanted to document the things that I see, that might not have any value to anyone else.  A soup label, a receipt, a cereal box.   This is probably one of the many reasons why I started taking photos of things instead of people. It seems like people are documented all the time in family photos and snapshots, but things aren't as often. 

Being a collector of things can make for an incredibly messy house - at least if I'm the one involved in the collecting!  I've tried for years not to buy things (but I do of course) and no matter how I try, crazy little bits of paper and objects make their way into my home.  I fell hard for security envelopes and have quite a collection now, with far too many ideas on how to use them, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.  I want something done perfectly and if I can't do it perfectly, I just won't do it, yet I still believe that I will.

The other day I found this website called Remains of the Day.  It is the anti-perfect.  It explains how to use all the little bits and bobs, papers and fabrics from all of the collecting we've done and get it put into a journal that you make from all of those items.  You use a sewing machine and sew them in!

You can use about anything in there from old library cards to photographs and receipts.  I have been wanting to start sewing my photographs onto the fronts of the cards and maybe add a few embellishments, so I bought a sewing machine.  I haven't used it yet!

(It's that perfectionism again)

So I joined the class and the group was having a swap - you send in some of your stuff and you get some of someone elses stuff.  Which isn't a real good way to get rid of more stuff, but it does give me a bit more variety to work with.

 

Pluto is a planet in this book!!

In my scrap swap I gave away four pages from the dictionary, two pages from the hangman book (with all of the little scratch off discs still intact,) some pieces from the Butterick pattern, a small North Carolina playing card,  one of my photos, an old library card,  a portion of a tourist map,  big piece of the striped fabric shown, as well as a few items that didn't make it into the shot because I used up all I had in the swap packages.  I packaged up and mailed out the swap packages before I realized that I didn't take a photo!  Silly me.

About a week from now I'm going to begin my journal.  My friend is coming into town on Sunday and after she leaves I'm setting up a little sewing table in the guest room and will learn how to thread the sewing machine and get to work on my cover.  I'm really looking forward to it!  It's not about doing it perfectly, it's about doing it!!  Right?  Right!!

If you'd like to see a video of a finished journal, you can see one on the class info page, here.

I will update on my project as I go along.  Now if I can just get my house cleaned up enough so my friend will have a place to sleep :)

Have a great great day!
Kristin