A journal, some news and a blog break....

Hello friends, - today I have quite a few things to tell you about. It's not often I share personal things here, so this is a bit of an exception. I recently retired which gives me the freedom to have other adventures and very soon I am off to China where I was invited to teach for a week. After that I will fly on  to Australia to be with my grandchildren right up until the second week in November. As this means I will be away from my craft space for a long time,  I will have to take a bit of a blog break, so after August 15th there won't be many projects here most likely until I am back. Of course I am bringing some art supplies with me, but I don't know how much time there will be to blog about them.
Anyhow, onto today's project. The one thing that always comes along with me is a journal, so I have prepped a few pages to show:

As time was at a premium, I kept it very simple, and used only minimal supplies. As you can see, it's yet another midory sized one using Eileen Hull's wonderful journal die, but more about that in a moment. I used some of my endless stash of scrapbook papers and washi tapes. (like stamps it's an addiction I'm sure) I'll let the photos do the talking, but as you can see I left everything flat and without embellisments, so it would be easy to carry and light in weight. The closure is a simple elasticated ribbon, with plenty of room for additional things I may want to add at some later point.

I know I will not have the time to do involved mixed media art journaling, so this is more in junk journal style, though rather minimalist with plenty of space to jot down notes and memories.

Here is the first inside page with a paperbag pocket. It has a little gusset, so will hold quite a bit in the way of ephemera etc.
Below some of the double pages with some more detailed photos inbetween:

Another little pocket, with space for tickets and things

At the moment it just hold further bits and pieces I want to use for following pages.

The ticket on the right side acts like a tab. I cut two and adhered them around both sides of the page.

Here is the other side. As you can probably see it was all done in a bit of a hurry and there is not much variety. Below some closer views of each side.

And here the final page I have done so far... travel themed as you can see.

Now for the news, - I was lucky enough to have been invited to partake in an Eileen Hull publication, produced by Bellcraft Publishing. If you are at all interested in journals, you have heard about it already on Facebook or seen it on blogs. There are the most stunning examples in there, all with links to the blogs of the people that created them, plus a load of other useful information, help and tips and ideas. You can read all about it, including costs etc on Eileen's blog The book itself is downloadable and available from HERE, and there is a discount if you order during August!

Well that's it for now, I'll try and visit blogs when I can, meanwhile stay creative and thanks for your visit.

xxxxx