And the Winner is…

First of all, I want to thank you all for your wonderful, kind, touching, supportive comments!!!!!!! I am beyond grateful!!!!! You all made me feel I am not alone in this. You gave me so much good energy and I am thankful to all of you for that. I wish you all happiness and good health. Thank you.

For some reason (unknown to me) the video of me picking a winner doesn’t want to upload here, so I uploaded it on FB in a JJJunkies group. Those of you who don’t belong to that group will just have to trust me 🙂 about the name drawn, and it is Connie Monroe! Congratulations Connie! Please send me your address as soon as you can.

Thank you all for participating, and once again, thank you for your kindness. I really really appreciate it.

 

Tough Stuff

Hi all! How are you? I hope you are all ok and having a great time.

I have been trying to write a blog post for ages and I just didn’t know what to say (write). And to be honest, I still don’t. But I missed my blog and I missed being in contact with you all this way. So, here I am.

I am doing ok physically. I finished the treatments, it was rough but it’s finished. I am slowly getting strong again, I feel less and less tired, and even though there are many things still not quite all right, I hope they will be with the time passing. I am waiting for a first checkup at the end of the month to see if I’m Cancer free or not.

Mentally, I am also ok. Most of the time. When I don’t think. When I do think about my situation, I get scared. I get confused. And angry. I am not scared of death, I am scared of the possibility to not be with my husband. I want to live this life with him a bit longer. There are so many things we would love to do together. I am confused because I don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to deal with all this. I used to be a control freak, I used to try to plan everything in advance, and now I am facing a life without any possible planning or any certainty. Well, hello me! There ARE NO certainties in life! Let it go! Live in the moment!

It’s hard. But I am trying to change my way of living and thinking.

And the ‘angry’ part, well I am not sure who I’m angry with. It’s not God, I trust God. But my best friend told me that I sound angry and I trust her too. I guess I am angry with Cancer.

Sometimes I wonder if all this has some purpose. Maybe there is something I have to learn out of all this? I hope it’s not a punishment because I truly try and always have tried to be a good person. Yes I’ve made mistakes, but honestly I never did anything with bad intentions. So a lesson maybe? Or is it just a coincidence? Just a random thing?

I just don’t know!

To tell you the truth, I’m still not trying very hard to figure everything out. Most of the time I try not to think about it. My husband is my rock, he supports me, he understands why I have to escape to my studio day and night. That is what makes me sane. My art. I spend hours and hours working, thinking about what to make, how to make it, what materials to use, and that’s my sanctuary.

I don’t have children, and after the Radiation therapy I never will. The hormonal therapies for infertility I’ve received throughout the years have probably added if not caused this crap I’m dealing with right now, and I often wonder what my legacy will be? What will I leave behind after I’m gone? But one wise woman told me that it is not children or material things that matter the most when we go, it’s who we made happy. I do hope I have made (some) people happy and I hope I will make (some) people happy.

And if nothing else, there will be a ton of journals left when I’m gone. 🙂

So, I am giving away this journal:

It has different papers inside, mostly my textured handmade paper.

It is a gift from a heart.

Thank you. Thank you for reading this, thank you for being a part of my life. Even if we’ve never met or never will, it doesn’t matter. You are all part of my life and we are all connected. And I am thankful for that.

Some Updates

Hello lovely people!

First of all, I want to apologize to my blogging friends for not commenting on their blog posts enough (if at all). My Internet activities came down to my Etsy shop and a bit of Facebook. That is all I can do right now. It’s because I have no patience for long reads, or any reading except books, because I am ill. I have Cervical Cancer. I found about that around Christmas and since then my life has turned up side down. There have been days of despair and sobbing, but most of the time I have been and I am ok. Right now I am waiting for the treatment to start, Chemo and Radiation therapy, which should be in about a week. Yay. 😦

But, I have to do what I have to do and life goes on. I, thankfully, have a ton of things to do and a ton of things to make, I have been busy with my shop, and most importantly, I have my wonderful supporting husband and our two dogs to make me smile every day.

So that is why I wanted to apologize to you my friends, I am thinking of you, I hope you won’t forget me, I just need to go through all this the best way I can and know how, and hopefully I will be able to welcome Spring Cancer free and with a smile on my face.

But enough about that crap. Here is what I’ve been doing lately.

My studio is jam packed with all kinds of materials and supplies! I have been hording things for years, and even though I work and create and make all kinds of things, I still buy yarn and fabrics and paint, I still get things from people, things they don’t want and I DO want, I still recycle (even more), and I simply don’t have enough space for all those fabulous materials. That is why I decided to offer some of my treasures to other people so that they can use them and make fabulous creations with them. 🙂 Here are the kits that are in my shop (and I have many more prepared ).

The Black and White kit:

You have the link above in the name of the kit, so I won’t explain the contents here, I will just say that I construct all my kits with great care, I try to make them big and filled with different things that buyers can use in several projects.

I also have a Blue and Green Kit in the shop:

Again, a ton of things to play with!

There is also a Valentines Kit:

Then this great Masculine Kit:

You can’t see very well in these photos, but there are so many vintage pieces in these kits, some great papers, old or vintage embellishments, book pages, fabrics, yarn, I mean, I love them! I already decided that if they don’t sell for some reason, I will use them as they are and make some fabulous journals and small bags, tags, oh so many things!

Ok. I got a bit distracted. 🙂

There are also some smaller supplies/kits:

My Handmade Paper:

Then another type of Handmade Paper:

A small Blue/Green Embellishment kit:

Small Red Embellishment Kit:

And this lovely Pink and White Small Kit:

This one was recently sold:

As well as this kit:

But there is so much more! I have more kits to add to my shop, but let me show you this gorgeous, (mostly) White Kit that I will hopefully add to the shop in a day or two:

What I especially love to do is to use my handmade unfinished tags and book page bags to pack all these small pieces and yarns into. That way a buyer can use them in a project also, and I get a chance to recycle and help this planet a bit.

Anyway, I have been in and out of the hospital for the past twenty days or so, and I have a week before the treatment starts, so I am trying to work as much as I can and to stock up my shop. I will (hopefully) be home for the weekends in the next couple of months, and my husband will also help me with shipping the packages to buyers, so the shop will work normally. I do need that type of work/fun/amusement/thought distraction now. 🙂

I wish you all great day/night!

 

My Glue Book

Hi lovely people!

Are you in a Christmas spirit? I’m not. I don’t know why. Maybe because there are so many things happening lately. I’ve been having some health issues and many other things on my plate, but it’s not all bad. I’ve also been creating and playing in my studio and that always makes me happy. So here I am with some of the pages from my collage journal or glue book. They are not finished, I will be adding more stuff to them, but here is how they look now. 🙂

It’s a lot of fun cutting images from magazines and gluing them into this big journal. It’s actually an altered book and it is perfect for this. I started by gluing background images first on many pages. That way I created a start for me to add things when and how I like. It’s a very meditative process. I don’t do it regularly, but when I feel like I need to relax, I just take my box of magazine images and cut and paste. I think I’ll do that again one of these days. I sure need some relaxation. 🙂

I hope you like these pages and maybe you will take an old book or some notebook and play with junk mail, magazines and scrap paper.

Have fun! And have a great day/evening! 🙂

Heart Junk Journal

Hello lovely people!

Here is a new journal I made!

It is made almost entirely out of recycled materials. I just looove when I’m able to turn “junk” into something beautiful and useful.

I took a piece of soft plastic sheet that was sitting in my studio for ages, layered it with some soft (again) plastic packaging material and cotton fabric, stitched them and made the cover. Then I added an applique piece to the front cover which was made with cotton fabric and silk, and I think it looks just right for this journal. Of course, the closure was also made with a recycled piece, a  band that came from my mother’s shirt, brand new, just unwanted, 🙂  and I added my handmade fabric beads to the ends to make it more pretty. There are also my handmade beads on the spine, as well as on the inside of the journal.

There are stitched book pages in there, my handmade papers, plain white pages, etc.

Oohhh it makes me so happy! I really love this journal. So colorful and cute!

The above photo shows an envelope that I made out of a book page, stitched and painted and clipped to the page. There is so much room in this journal for writing and adding things!

I went crazy with details and embellishments!

 

And that is it! I hope you like it, and I hope it will give you some ideas on how to recycle more. 🙂 You can find this lovely fun journal in my Etsy store.

Thank you for visiting!

A New Journal

Hello lovely people!

I do have a new journal to show you, but first let me show you some of my paper bowls. I promised in my last post that I would. 🙂

 

I do have more of them, but they are not finished. These were the first that I painted and varnished, and they turned out great, but then I switched to another project so the rest was left to wait for me to play with them some other time.

But I did finish this journal.

I really love this journal. It is so wonderfully textured and industrial and rusty and just gorgeous! It has all kinds of papers inside, including my handmade paper, of course, and tags, pockets, booklets and tuck spots. You can find it in my Etsy store. 🙂

Have a great day/night everyone!

And the Winner Is…

Hello friends!

First I would like to thank you all for your lovely comments about my work, both here and on my FB profile. You guys are the best!

But I don’t want to keep you waiting, so to announce the winner of my giveaway:

all of the names went into this lovely little bowl that I made and I will explain that to you also (later) 🙂

then my husband randomly chose one

and it was

Congratulations Julka! 🙂 Please email me your address and I will send the journal to you. Yay!

So, about the bowl. You know how I love to recycle. Actually, with the years passing, more and more of my work is inspired (at least partially) by recycling. Our planet is suffering. We are polluting it and destroying it and I feel horrible knowing that I am part of that. Well, some things are almost impossible to avoid, like using AC or buying products that contribute to pollution because there is no product in the grocery store that in some way does not contribute to pollution. But I try to do as much as I can to minimize that. And one of the ways is to recycle as much as possible.

We all get junk mail, receipts of all kinds, bills etc. And I have already shown you my handmade papers (which I love). 🙂 So as with making paper from newspapers and junk mail, you start with tearing them into small bits and soaking them in water for at least several hours but preferably over night.

After that, you put them in the food processor and blend them.

Then take a sieve or colander and if the holes are a bit big, add some thin fabric or a cloth or what ever you have on hand, and strain the mixture.

You don’t want it to be too dry but also it shouldn’t be too wet. I know it sounds like crap when I say it like that, but there is no way for me to explain it better. The thing is, you will know if it’s dry enough because if it is too wet than you won’t be able to stick it to the bowl. And if it’s too dry, you will have hard time shaping it over your mold.

Here is mine nicely stuck to the bowl, which serves as a mold for my paper bowl.

As you can probably see, I covered the bowl with plastic wrap before putting my paper over it.  Oh! I almost forgot to mention! You should add a little bit of glue to the paper paste after draining the water. For example, I would add about a tea spoon of glue to every cup of paper paste. But you could add more or less, I don’t have a recipe for that. In fact, it would probably be good to check out on Youtube how people do that, more professionally, but I was just playing and having fun.

Anyway, that’s how I did it, and I pressed it pretty well that paste.

After it is a bit dry, but not completely, which you will also be able to see because if it’s not dry enough it won’t be able to come off that bowl in one piece, you can take it off and put it somewhere to dry completely.

Unfortunately, I don’t have photos of my bowls right now, but I will photograph them and show them to you in the next post. Hopefully this was enough explanation on how to make them, or at least to try and just have fun making a mess. 🙂 But you can make some really beautiful bowls this way, and after adding paint and varnish to them, they make lovely decorative pieces and also great gifts. Especially if you fill them with sweets! 🙂

Have a great day / night everyone!

Good News and a Giveaway

Hello lovely people!

I have some great news to share with you – my Etsy shop is finally working again! I am slowly adding more things to it, but there are some lovely journals there already. You can take a look and tell me what you think. 🙂

So to celebrate that, I would like to give this lovely little journal to one of you!

It is a small journal, about 4,5 x 5,5 “, but it is quite fat and it has hard cover, very textural and lovely, and a lot of pages inside, as well as pockets and tuck spots. There is also a clay piece on the cover as a decoration and a focal point.

Do you like it? If you do, just leave me a comment and I will be back very soon (probably in about 5 days) to draw a winner. Also, if you wish you could leave a comment on my FB profile and that way you’re also in a game(although that will still count as one entry). 🙂

Good luck!

A New Member of the Family

Hello lovely people!

I know. It’s been a looong time since I wrote a blog post. I have been avoiding Internet as much as possible because I needed some time and space for other things. One of those things was work, but I will talk about that some other time. Now, I want to share with you some family news! We have a new dog!

I apologize for bad photos but he is a fast dog. 🙂

His name is Tomi (Tommy) and he is cute cute cute!

He didn’t have a good start in life, being left by the road in the bushes, but this puppy is now ours and we love him! My husband and I went to pick him up on my 40th Birthday. I like to say that he was my special present. 🙂

Tomi is a mix, funny, full of character, always hungry (but that is obviously a normal thing here in our household,hahaha), and he has the most adorable short legs!

Meda was a bit confused at the beginning with this new dog taking all of his toys and his bed, but Meda is such a good dog, very patient and sweet, so they are becoming friends more and more each day.

So that’s our new boy. 🙂 I am so happy we were able to save him. No more lonely days and nights, no more fear, just love, warmth, soft blankets and lots of yummy things in the fridge,LOL!

Treasures

Hello lovely people!

I just wanted to share with you a new and wonderful collection of treasures. It is so great to have friends who are willing to let you rummage through their old stuff and take all kinds of bits and pieces. 🙂 My dear friend took me to her late aunt’s house and told me to take whatever small thing I like! Imagine that! After screaming and going all “Ooohhh and aaahhhh” and almost peeing in my pants, I started collecting. Luckily we only had about half an hour to be there, because I would need a suitcase at least to put all the stuff in! 🙂

Here is what I found:

The box above is kind of a piggy bank I guess. It’s leather and metal but has no key. Hmmm… How will I open it? 🙂

All those keys and metal tags, light bulbs, rusty old things, also some not that old but perfect for altering and all just perfect for incorporating into my work! I was so happy when I found them and I still am! I also found this texture tool which is to die for! 🙂

I also couldn’t resist taking home this dusty old box filled with papers and receipts from 1920’s till 1930’s!

The paper is very delicate, damaged and brittle, but it’s history! It’s time preserved! It’s someone’s piece of life captured, and now that I came to the rescue 🙂 it’s going to be saved and loved.

I can only imagine how old this rosemary is. 🙂

I have to clean them all and prepare for another life in my books and journals. I feel as it will be a way to preserve them and most importantly to honor someone’s life. Even though I have never met that person, we have a connection now.