there are not enough hours in the day...

here it is, 12:33 am and i am still wide awake, wanting to soak up every last minute of the day!

you know, all these years, i've said, "i'm not a morning person." but i feel most alive/awake in the wee hours. midnight to 2 am is my favorite these days.

but with a little daredevil baby that keeps me on my toes, and likes to wake up at 7:30 in the morning, it's getting harder to get through the day with all my brains intact.

poor little one bumped her head on a wooden toy box friday night. had to take her to the emergency room at 9 at night. waited an hour in the emergency waiting room. waited two hours in the triage. she was asleep by the time the dr. came to stitch her up. she slept right through it. 1-2-3 little stitches and we were on our way home.

can i just wrap her up in bubble wrap until she's 30? keep her safe from harm? this little one will slow down for no one. she's meeting life's challenges head-on. literally!

journal pages and new journal class

this was the last journal prompt for the nostalgic musings class. it seems like yesterday that i started on this journaling adventure! it was in april, during the kid's spring break. i was in arizona with the girls visiting my mom and i have such lovely memories of sitting in my mom's backyard, with my journal and pens and papers and glue and scissors. or staying up late into the night, knowing i could sleep in the next morning 'cuz grandma was going to take her girls on shopping errands in the morning!

i'm still journaling and i have that class to thank for getting me into the daily journaling habit!

i was so excited to receive such a wonderful swap package from hope the other day that i got started right away on some journal pages using some of the amazing papers, labels and bits!

here i've used a game card, label, wallpaper, stamps, and old book pages that i got in the swap from hope! i tend to hoard my most prized papers and art supplies but with a daily art journal, i can add these items to the pages where i'll see them more often than if they were just stashed away for a rainy day! i'm getting a lot better about using what i have! my friend kisa teased me about the last post and called me a "paper nerd." ha! such an understatement. ;)

i'm also taking another journal course with hope called "lovely notions." it is a self-paced journaling class and the goal is to fill this lovely notebook with images and words that you LOVE. the cover was made from images that hope provided in a pdf collage sheet.

inside is one of the first writing exercises. i chose a quote by martha graham that speaks to me:

"There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost."

vintage ephemera swap

i am a lucky gal! i participated in a swap with the lovely and talented hope karney of paper relics. here are some photos of the most amazing and wonderful goodies she sent me. (just peeking inside that dennison box full of labels makes me squeal with delight!) ;)

here are some of the lovely labels! i feel so spoiled! those little ovals are to die for! ;)

she also included a very generous amount of ephemera! photos, post cards, stamps, tickets, a popcorn bag (i was JUST eyeing some on etsy the other day!), bingo cards, vintage sewing items, more labels!!!

eee! a WHOLE bag of glassine envelopes (neatly tucked inside a glassine envelope with an adorable red label!)

and this is just a sampling of the amazing vintage paper she included! (i LOVE how the word "journal" appeared several times throughout the collection! what a coincidence, because it is a word i am VERY into right now!) ;)

there were pages in several languages, pages from all sorts of old books of every kind you can imagine! there were even bits of embroidery patterns, handwritten ledger pages (big fave!), and schoolbook/kids book pages.

and lovely vintage ladies! oh, how i would have loved to have lived in a time when women dressed in lovely dresses and wore hats and fancy shoes!

and it doesn't end there! there was also a glassine bag full of letters that spelled out my name! AND a card with gold seal stickers (wow!)

(i feel like a kid on christmas morning!) AND there was vintage wallpaper (my jaw is dropping to the floor at this point!) these photos do not even cover half of how amazing each piece was!

thank you, hope for a lovely swap! this was a ton of fun! it is so inspiring to receive vintage items from someone else's stash. and i was a good crafter and i actually used some of the items right away in my journal instead of my usual "stash away and save for a rainy day"! (i'll post about that next!)