ETSY shop update & it's finally feeling like FALL!

i've been working on some new upcycled mini journals for my etsy shop. i finally am getting into the holiday mood, so the new journals all have a wintry and festive feel to them. lots of red-and-green (brights and muted) as well as cool, snowy blue-and-white.

i've packed these journals with my most treasured vintage, handmade, and recycled paper. for vintage paper, i use music sheets, atlas pages, children's books & workbooks, coloring books. recycled paper includes used and unused ledger pages, "junk mail" (my favorite are the paper source catalogs. the colors are bright and the paper is thick!), and graph paper (which also falls into the vintage category, too).

i'm loving all the color combinations. i've also never been an either-or kind of gal when it comes to colors! i really love traditional christmas colors as well as more off-beat brights and more muted, vintage tones.

most of the christmas images came from an old magazine called "christmas ideals." it was full of wonderful images, poems, stories and songs all printed in blue or green ink. and i also recycled holiday catalogs (it feels good putting "junk mail" to good use!)

i have a lot of old children's books and workbooks from the 5os & 60s but the paper is too frail to include in my journals as pages. so i made some high-quality color copies on my printer on the back of my favorite scrapbook paper and, voila! i was able to include some of my favorite images, plus the copies retained the aged and textured look of the originals.

i've got a christmas tune in my head, but the words are changed to: "it's beginning to look a lot like AUTUMN!" there are leaves of all colors sprouting on trees and scattering in the wind like butterflies.

when i go on an afternoon walk with the girls, i hear the satisfying CRUNCH of dried leaves beneath our feet (although, since it's california, we're still walking around in flip flops! an odd sensation, but i love it still!) the smells are returning, too, like sweet, smoky fires, rotting pumpkins, wet leaves in the gutter. it's like a second spring of sorts, but with smells of decay and death instead of blossoms and life.

we took a little walk today to get some lunch near the university. we stopped for photos in the late afternoon sun and i played with my new point-and-shoot camera (it's a sony cyber shot dsc-t99)...still unsure if i like it or not! :(

(i love pictures of my girls, though! they are fun subjects!) most of the images, though, i have to do a little touch-up in i-photo (mostly with getting the color to look right).

maybe i should just read the instructions. i've never been a by-the-book kind of gal, i really like to just feel out new technology on my own (it should just be totally intuitive and user-friendly in my opinion, anyway!). but i was able to take some great photos! :)

and on another slightly-related topic (it has to do with journals, at least!), i received the mother of all art journals today! (it's 11.7" x 16.5"! the regular moleskines are about 5" x 8") i recently attended journalfest and i saw someone with the most amazing journal in one of my classes (orly avineri's "mapping me"). it looked like a super-sized moleskine and i immediately thought, "i must have one!" i asked where she bought it and she said Amazon.com! so after a little searching, i found it! it comes in regular drawing/sketching and watercolor paper! they are about $26 each (free shipping on Amazon!) but totally worth every penny, in my opinion! my quest for this amazing journal also lead me to the most wonderful blog, notebook stories. it's about, well...JOURNALS and the people who love them. if you are a fellow journal junkie like me, i suggest you check it out!

ok, that's all for now. the monkeys are getting restless and it's time for dinner. oh, and i keep meaning to blog about our homeschooling adventures, but i'll save it for another day.

everything is working out good so far! maya is loving her new educational environment (her home, and the whole world, really is her "new classroom.") and little sureya is getting in on the act, too, emulating her older sister by "reading" books and "doing homework." so cute! :) i've heard when you homeschool, the younger ones start in on the learning really early. i remember that from when maya was 2 or 3 and she would want me to assign her "homework" because she would see her older brother and sister doing their homework after school.

well, that's all the fun for now. i'll be updating the shop tomorrow AND i'll be attending the cavallini & co. warehouse SALE this saturday. i will be sure to post ALL the goodies i find! :)