A CALENDAR JOURNAL FOR MY DAUGHTER KATE...
My daughters Tess & Kate have two friends that saw the calendar journals I got back home from various calendar journal round robins I've participated in, and they fell in love with them. So I offered to start one for the both of them. My daughter Kate mentioned to me on the weekend how much she would like a calendar journal from me as well. So, over the last couple of days I've been working frantically, without her knowledge, at readying a journal. These photos are of what I've done with a 'Paris' journal for her. The one spread with the orange floral background & two of my 'papermonzsters' are of Kate & her daughter Skyla. In the spread Skyla is pointing at her silly mommom monster. Sky will be three years old this June 17th. She calls 'monsters', 'monners'. lol Therefore, I just had to use the caption 'Monners, monners, everywhere!' in this spread for Kate.

After some daydreaming & allowing my creative mind to wander, I've decided to start a new project of my own. I am going to attempt to create my own 'mandala'. It is actually going to be in the form of a journal. The journal covers & pages will be in the shape of a flower. I am looking forward to this new journey of reunifying myself. I would like to incorporate my 'papermonzsters' as I progress along the path of my new self-discovery. My mandala will be in celebration of self, & also 'Earth Day', as I plan on making it kind of an earthy journal.

Mandalas can be used to refer to the 'personal world' in which one lives, the various elements of the mandala or the activities & interests in which one engages, the most important being @ the centre of the mandala & the least important @ the periphery. Depicting one's personal mandala in pictorial form can give one a good indication of the state of one's spiritual life.

I have a spare 2007 engagement calendar that I am using for a 'stay @ home' CJ. It's the National Gallery of Art calendar. The paintings are absolutely gorgeous in it. This is my 1st entry. I've titled it 'Silver Angels'. The words on the left page are taken from a song called 'Precious' by Depeche Mode.

I just completed some spreads in another calendar journal. This time around it's Terry's CJ. The first spread I titled 'Greener Pastures' as it's the way I am seeing things lately! In this second spread I used Karen O's journal prompt: Think about the day you've had. If you were to write a soundtrack for it, what songs would you choose? Well, I had two songs playing in my mind the day I sat down to create in Terry's journal: 'Mad World' by Gary Jules & 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve. I decided on these two songs since I had been viewing how people were going about their day in a very hectic way while I was at work.

I'm in a bird chunky book project hostessed by Kathy. These are a few samples of the pages I created for the chunky book. On the front is the quote: 'My Soul is in the Sky' along with a tiny 3D feathered bird in the top right corner to go with the bluebird image I choose to use. Before mailing out my pages I decided to add a little more to them (not shown here), using 'Spider Writers', adding stars and swirls to the fronts. On the back is a quote I made up: 'Together Our Art Soars', celebrating the colaborative artwork of 29 Divas in the book! The bottom image is of a front/back closeup. I went with bright & cheery cardstock by 'Flavia' for the backgrounds since this is a springtime project. I love how these 4 x 4's fit so perfectly in your hand...they're simple little treasures!