It's VSN Challenge Time!

Good evening, everyone!  Most of my posts are early morning posts, or in the wee hours posts, but this one is coming to you at 9 p.m. EDT courtesy of Splitcoaststampers Virtual Stamp Night!  It's a virtual stamp weekend, really, with challenges from 5-9 EDT tonight and then again tomorrow from 1-10 p.m. EDT.  Our theme this Spring is April Fools.  I'm hosting the 9 p.m. challenge tonight and I'm hoping that you'll join me!

I am hooked on Traveler's Notebooks!  I got my first one last year when we were traveling to Italy for our chorale tour.  Little did I know how obsessed I would become, or that there's a whole TN community of TN lovers out there!  Anyway, since then I have grown to adore my TN even more, and because the legend of April Fool's Day is calendar-associated, my love for my TN inspired my challenge.  :) 

All you have to do is to take your planner, calendar, or to-do list, and make it pretty.  Stamp, paint, draw, doodle...find a way to transform the ordinary into something beautiful that transcends the everyday, that speaks to your spirit to bring calm, energy, or enthusiasm for the (often mundane) tasks at hand.

I use my TN to keep track of everything! If it isn't written down, it pretty much doesn't happen! It serves as a reminder to drink my water (especially on concert day!), to take my supplements and meds, pay bills, keep appointments, etc. It also functions as a food planner/diary, a to-do list, a journal and sometimes even a scrapbook/sketchbook.

I have found that a beautiful page in my TN can make even the most mundane of tasks more enjoyable. It's a great place to experiment and discover how colors play together, how various mediums interact, even to discover good ways to fix oopsies (like how to cover up the mistake I made when I forgot to mask the 31 when stamping the calendar for April).

I use de Atramentis Document Black ink in my Lamy Safari fountain pen to write in my journal before any using water-based media. I hand-letter the day of the week with a Tombow Fudenosuke hard brush tip pen. Any stamping is also done using an ink that will not run, like Stazon or Ranger Archival ink.  Then I'm free to use Magicals, distress inks, watercolors, or other water-based media without fear of ruining what is already documented. It gives the paper this wrinkly, crinkly charm that I just can't explain!

This page is ready to welcome the beginning of April, and all set to remind me to drink my water early on concert day tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll play along!  Be sure to visit Splitcoaststampers Virtual Stamp Night for more challenges and all of the details!

Supplies:

• Tombow Fudenosuke Hard brush tip pen
• Lamy Safari ink pen
• de Atramentis Document Black ink
• Stazon
• Magicals
• Dylusions Bubblegum Pink spray
• roller date stamp
• Waffle Flower calendar stamp
• Kelly Purkey planner stamps
• Graphic 45 Nature Sketchbook Stamp Set 1 (butterflies)
• Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Butterfly Melange (music stamp)

Travel Time!

School's out and Summer is here (it'll be official in less than two weeks)!  For a lots of us, that means packing up the family and taking a trip or two!

For this month's Challenge Chicks' challenge, I'm inviting you to make a project that's travel-related.  I'm working on my Midori Traveler's Notebooks.  I have three going at the moment!  One is for our big Italy trip, and it's got photos, travel brochures, and lots of journaling in it.  The cover is classic, elegant black leather, and I altered the inserts with black and gold designer papers and washi tape.  That one I'll be working on for a while, and I'll be sharing more about it soon.

The inserts are the beauty of the TN set-up, which has elastic bands instead of rings.  You can carry one insert, or add several using special bands, customizing your planner/journal to work just for you.

photo courtesy of The Paper Seahorse

Yesterday I took a trip to Tampa to The Paper Seahorse for a Traveler's Notebook class and a Midori TN Meet-Up.  It was so fun!  I met some incredibly creative, talented journalers.  It felt so great to be with others who are as travelers-notebook-obsessed as I am now, and to listen intently as they spoke of their journaling experiences and recommendations.  The layout about that trip is in my camel-colored leather, standard-sized every-day journal, which contains a page-a-day insert of sketches/watercoloring, photos, stamping, and highlights of my days.

All of the girls at the meet-up signed a postcard, and Tona gave us some stickers and a little cat clip that I wanted to include in my layout.  I also had more pictures from my trip than would fit on my page-a-day format (some refreshing Tito's berry lemonade and a delicious lobster and avocado lunch across the street at Cask Social Kitchen, Paper Seahorse's Traveler's Notebook "heaven" plus our group photo), so I had to find a way to fit all of that in.  I scored the postcard in thirds, then cut a tag the same width as a cover, placing one photo on top, and a coupon and ticket sticker on the back.  When folded, the postcard slides into a band that secures it to the page with the tag hanging freely.  More photos go on the inside of the flip-out title.

My third journal is a smaller Passport-sized journal which currently holds an analog "month-at-a-glance" calendar and some bullet journaling for to-do's, etc.  Most of my schedule goes into my iPhone but there are things that are simpler to keep track of on paper,  and I'm always keeping lists about something!  The big list that I'm working on right now is a packing list, bullet-journal style, that will work for multiple trips.  I'll just washi-tape it to the travel journal in use at the moment so that it's moveable when that journal fills up.  My friend, Hope, and I are headed to Louisiana in a few weeks, and I hope to have my list complete by then for a test-run.

If you are looking for a planning system that is flexible and customizable to fit your needs, that you can simplify to make into something lightweight that will also serve as a take-everywhere-everyday or when-you-travel journal, then I recommend you check out Traveler's Notebooks.

Bitten by the Traveler's Notebook Bug

I recently mentioned as we were preparing for our trip to Italy that I had gotten a traveler's journal.  Since first discovering the Midori about two months ago, I have been totally smitten!  I have the original black standard size Midori that holds the inserts I took to Italy, a passport size notebook that I use to keep track of the everyday things that go on in our household (master calendar and notes), and recently started journaling in an insert that I'm using for art and daily journaling, what many would call my "Every Day Carry."  As June began, I joined several challenge groups on Facebook/Instagram, including #rockyourhandwriting, #planwithme, and Every Day in June sketch challenge.  I joined in the hopes that I can improve my sketching, as well as my handwriting for titles and journaling.  Ideally, some of the challenges can be dovetailed together, but we'll see how that works out!  Admittedly, I'm a little intimidated by the thought of missing a day and having a blank page in this dated insert...which should help me to stay committed, although definitely there are days it's hard to squeeze in, so some days get skipped and others I'm playing catch-up.  The whole idea is to challenge myself to learn and improve, and to have some documentation of Life in the process.

I had an appointment with my functional medicine doctor on June 1st, so for my first entry of the month I sketched a stethoscope and journaled about that visit.  The following day was spent making appointments and ordering the supplements that Dr. Kessler had recommended, and included a nice lunch with my sweet son.

I've been plagued by plantar fasciitis so I haven't been walking much since we returned from Italy, but Friday I spent the day in search of art supplies and it was nice to be out and about. Hopefully the anti-inflammatory Dr. K prescribed will work its magic and I won't pay later by having to hobble about on sore heels!  I mapped my long shopping expedition on this layout which was inspired by my bright, fun dream-catcher Onzie leggings.  

Sketching and watercolor are unfamiliar territory for me, so it's nice to include something familiar like inks, sprays, washi tape and stamps in these layouts.  Most of them are Kelly Purkey planner stamps, along with a few from Impression Obsession, and W plus 9.  There's a bit of scrapbooking, stamping, bullet journaling, and ink/watercolor in each one.  I'm still working out exactly which insert I prefer and how I want to use them.  It's loads of fun.

I'll be back periodically to post some of my sketches and layouts from the various challenges.  If all goes as planned, I'll be headed to Tampa to The Paper Seahorse for a Midori Meet-up!  It will be fun to see others' art, how they use their planners, and to share ideas.

Until next time...