Journaling Journey

I haven't been posting much this month as I haven't created many new layouts. This isn't because I've not been crafting, nope - it's because I am in my bi-annual phase of filing layouts, finishing journaling, and all general boring scrapping admin that I usually put off until my scrap room is about to explode.

And, as usual, as I filed my layouts, I got distracted looking over old pages, reading the journaling and generally tripping down memory lane...

But I spotted a problem.

A big problem.

Obviously I have a goldfish brain. Because, there were multiple layouts where the journaling began - "There's no particular story behind this picture...." Disaster! Once or twice, sure, not the end of the world, but three or four layouts in, not good! It was so prevelant that I was considering creating a new three letter acronym of NPS - 'no particular story' for my pages!

So, there was only one thing for it - I had to redo the layouts!

Handily enough this journaling disaster has coincided with another scrapping development. I've taken to listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast. I'm new to this podcast, so I have practically the entire past three years of shows to binge on. And it's wonderful! In a country where there are about three and half scrapbookers (and so therefore so few people you can obsessed about scrapping with) it is bliss to get to listen to an hour show where all they talk about is the minutia of the hobby.

Anyway one little gem I took away from the show was about journaling. Someone said always journal what you will want to remember in years to come. Now, you know, this might sound obvious to everyone else but me. And it does sound obvious when I look at it here. But, my journaling tends to be a bit ropey. Sure, when there is an obvious story to tell, I'm grand. But if it's subtler, I tend to be a bit lost. I end up sounding like a Hallmark employee. Will I really want to read in twenty years time 'Oh darling you look so cute in this picture!' a few hundred times? I doubt it. Between 'gee, you look cute' and 'no particular story' it was all a bit of a mess. And to think my other interest is writing! And I've been paid for it repeatedly! (shakes head in dismay.)

So, what I did...

I redid the layouts. And I looked again at the pictures and thought about what I would really like to read in the future. And suddenly the photos went from cute but storyless to gateways to my thoughts and feelings and a record I will be delighted to have written down in twenty years and a record I will be delighted for my children to read when they are grown.

Phew!

So, here are a couple of the layouts I redid. Unforutntely I only thought to do a 'before' and 'after' when I got to the second one. So, with the first layout, imagine it with pointless journaling and lots of different paper that had to be ripped out to get rid of the stoopid platitudes.

This is the layout without the 'before'.

I am so happy now with the above layout - the journaling (all about how I was the only girl, and wish I had a sister and how delighted that they have each other) replaced pointless whittering which no-one would have been interesting in reading, even myself.


The second layout....


Before - 

 After -

The journaling here - which was completely absent before - is now a record of nine things she was doing at nine months. Lots of little annecdotes and memories that I would have otherwise forgotten. Am thrilled.



And just before I go - on a totally unrelated note, a link for Terri! (You know who you are :)

The Poetry Divas

I first speak at the third verse - the one that begins 'My squashy cushions'! Lol!



Bye for now!

Sketchy Details

Sketchbook365 challenge

I've been meaning for a while to join in with the fun on the Sketchbook365 challenge blog, but lacking the focus of most normal humans, I've only just got to it now. 

Usually I love a sketch challenge, but with this one, I found it more difficult to access my creative mojo - it was more like a creative dodo, as in, dead as a...

The Sketch!

So, here is the sketch the team at Sketckbook365 gave us this month ...

You agree, tricky. Cause, you don't want to just plonk down a house layout. You want to give it a personal twist. But the house image is so strong, that doing your own thing is challenging! 

I guess that's why it's called a challenge then.

So, I decided to just mess about with my messy scrappy stuff and see what happen... And here is my finished layout...

 The Layout!

Close Up

Below is a pictorial account of how the page came together! (Well, except for a few steps towards the end where my phone ran out of charge and I missed some pictures... but you're creative people, you can imagine those bits :)

The Process!

And ta da! the layout again :)

So, there we go, I've popped my sketchbook365 cherry ;) Hoped you liked it!

Happy New Year!! Er...

 
Isn't it dreadful. This is my first post of the year. And it's April!!

So, multiple choice quiz!

Question - What will Tríona's excuse be today for why she hasn't been blogging?

a) She'd been too busy crafting?

b) The weather's been so awful that the light has been so dreadful so no good pictures could be taken?

c) She's a busy mammy of four who is also, when she's not crafting, writing two books simultaneously and has an ulcer to nurse?

d) The dog ate her homework?

e) All of the above?


And yes, indeed, it is answer e!

Well, except we don't have a dog.

But I have managed to find one solution to the problems outlined above, I've fallen madly in love with Instagram. Take a picture, and sure, if the light isn't quite good enough for it to be a great photo, just apply a filter. Hey presto, a rubbish picture is suddenly interesting and arty. So you may notice that a lot of the pictures I'm going to upload today are of a quirky, square Instagram kind.



Canvases. I've become obsessed with creating multimedia canvases. I don't really have anywhere to put them, so perhaps I'll have to give my Etsy shop a proper go and see if anyone else would like them!

More multimedia fun! Dylusions sprays, modelling paste, stencils, pearlescent medium, bleach, acrylic paints. At least this one has a home with me (even if it is in the downstairs loo!)

More original artwork for the downstairs toilet! A poem by a friend of mine about how men don't change the loo roll. Well, it's a bit more sophisticated than that :) I've had a lot of fun creating the stamped and inked frame around the poem. It got the rare husband seal of approval too.

And no prize for quessing what colour the downstairs loo is painted...

Okie dokie. Well, that wasn't too hard - I've finally kicked off my 2013 blogging. I hope I'll be back soon to tell you all about a giant scrapping project I've been undertaking.

Talk soon!

And there's more...

I kept forgetting to bring the poem with me.

Wallet?

Check.

Keys?

Check?

Poem to leave in a shop to be found by an unsuspecting shopper to brighten their day during the stressful Christmas season?

Forgotten :(


Thankfully I had the best Christmas present and met up with the lovely Various Cushions - IPYPIASM originator extraordinaire - for a coffee yesterday. And she suggested, why didn't I just transcribe the poem there and then and place it in a shop, immediately!

So I did!

The evidence -

It was more of a before Christmas day poem, but hey, better late than never.

I hashtagged again - for those unfamiliar with the hashtag, it makes your term searchable on Twitter - I've been tweeting about IPYPIASM - and been directing people back to the blogosphere...sure, maybe the cleaning lady is crumbling up my poem without a second thought, but, hey, I know if I found a poem, the curiosity would kill me :)

Anyway, here's the text of the poem - not my finest work, but hey, who cares, it's all part of the IPYPIASM spirit!

Don't Count

For now don't count
the calories
don't tot those pennies spent
just dose your liver
till it's all a quiver
and the last belt notch is rent
have that chocolate Kimberly
that tin of roses too
buy a gift, don't be spendthrift
Get yourself a treat this year!
And don't forget the booze
go buy a crate of beer,
a bottle or nine of a conducive wine
don't stint, don't stint, don't stint!
Cause remember that when it's January
we'll be thrust once more t' penury
so eat and drink and give
2013 is time enough for cold reality.

Multimedia IPYPIASM!

Yes, I've IPYPIASMed!

Finally.

Deposited in the pound (euro?) shop in The Square, Tallaght, this little ditty -

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I've been a little bit naughty

I've been a little bit nice

what say you still get me a pressie

and we'll go halvsies on the price.

I won't be troubling the Nobel Prize for Literature this year with that offering, but hopefully it brought a smile to someones face.

And below is the visual evidence of my guerrilla poetry attack.

For, what I suspect, is the first time, we have VIDEO footage of an IPYPIASM incident... In my panic to dump my effort and run, I somehow managed to set my phone to video and not camera. I scrambled madly at it, all the while imagining security guards raising an army, grabbing their mace and batons and being moments away from apprehending me...

(Quite the accidental Spielberg, no?)

It was fraught! I felt like my poem might explode at any moment. Anway, in the end I escaped unscathed and they probably sold my poem for a euro.

On an aside, I was telling my baby brother all about IPYPIASM. After he pretended to think me and my crazeeeee poetry chums were wacky and cool, he suggested adding a hastag to the abandoned poems. Maybe see if any of our messages in a bottle wash up anywhere. So, at the bottom of my print out, where I'd usually just have IPYPIASM, I instead had #IPYPIASM... and I sent a few tweets using it.

I thought it was a good idea - but chances are it'll just get me arrested ;)

I like living on the edge.

Ok. Until tomorrow - TK Maxx, watch out - I'm heading your way and I'm rhyming.

IPYPIASM!!! (Well, nearly)

Yay!!!

It's IPYPIASM!!!!

I've come to it all a bit late this year (- but you know, I always do...)

And really, this post is a tad premature... I haven't, as yet, put a poem in a shop. The main reason I haven't is because I have failed to write a poem. I have tried a good few times. Nowt.

I worry that along with killing off the h. pylori bacteria that was causing my stomach ulcer, my cocktail of drugs also killed off my writing mojo!! Who knew I kept it in my tummy! Though, seeing as all the best poetry comes from your gut, so maybe I should have realised...

What to do? I suspect I need some l. casei poetritas. Good writing bacteria.

I'm off to the library to drink me in some pro-biographies, some Reader bifidus digestivum, replenish my depleted muse.

Alright, enough, I go before Martine McCutcheon turns up and starts talking shite...

40 And Not Out...

Hello darlings,


So, I survived. I turned 40 and I didn't spontaneously combust. In fact everything has pretty much carried on as normal! Whodathunkit.

But, I have been making changes. I decided living my life at a pace where I didn't need botox for my wrinkles as the g-forces from rushing around were doing the job instead, just had to end. I am only one mortal woman.

The problem is two fold. A, I can't get rid of the children. Apparently now I've had them I've got to keep them. So, that means that b, some of the things I like to do away from the kids have got to go.

What to give up?

This has vexed me for weeks.

The writing? But I can't give that up cause I love it and it's going to make my fortune one of these days. (though I've been so shattered by my busy life I haven't even been writing that much.)

The scrapbooking? ah now no, that's my stress relief. If I can't cut up colouredy paper and attach photos to it that I just don't want to live!

The allotment? What, give up the one healthy outdoors activity I do? (Not that we've been able to get up there in six months... we grow weeds now. We're very good at it.)

Seeing friends? But I like my friends...

Pilates on a Tuesday night? Hmm, I'd happily give that up but I'm not allowed.

So, I'm stuck... what to do?

Just as fed up as her mammy

And it's important that I do. Cause I've been feeling icky. Not well. I was told by a lovely English doctor during the week that I do in fact have an ulcer. And yes, sure ulcers are caused these days by a bacteria, but the stress of my little middle class life hasn't been helping.

hmmm.

But I just can't decide!

Help!

(That was more of a rhetorical help as I know no one blogs anymore!)