Postal Persuits

The weather here on the west coast has been pretty ugly the last few days. By ugly, I mean sneaux, wind, rain, and hail, and just for added fun, power outages. (Basically just about every weather pattern mother nature can think to throw at us.) It's the kind of weather where the best thing you can do is batten down the hatches and retreat to the studio.

That said, I've mainly just been puttering. Yesterday, I decided to replenish my recycled envelope supply because I'm running low. Every now and again, I go through my old magazines, pull out the pages I want to keep and then use what's left to make envelopes. This batch was made from Stampington publications. Aren't they pretty? So much nicer to send out than a plain old white envelope!

I also made this wee journal for my friend Jan Smiley. Jan is the first person who ever approached me about doing art for her books. She saw my art online, thought it would be a good fit for a book she was writing and sent me an email. I will always be grateful that she did. It meant alot to me and set me on a path I had never considered before. I was even lucky enough to meet Jan in person not long after that. Her husband had some business here in BC, so she came with him and we had the chance to meet and hang out. We've been friends ever since.

Anyway, I wanted to send her something handmade so I put together this journal with all kinds of yummy paper bits. I love that it's small enough to fit in a pocket  or a purse. Jan travels alot, so I thought she might like to have a journal small enough to go along. If I remember correctly, it measures about 3 1/2 inches wide x 6 inches tall x 1 inch thick. I sewed 3 signatures of 8 sheets each into it, so it's nice and chunky. 

It's gotten to the point that I loathe to throw out any bits of paper I think might be interesting to make journals with. Add to that my steady curation of a "journals" board on Pinterest and well....it's becoming a bit of an obsession. At least I am putting it all to good use!

*****

I wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who commented and emailed me with kind words and congratulations about being awarded the Queen's medal.  You sure know how to make a girl feel loved. 

xox