Still I struggle. I’ve scheduled this so it won’t actually matter. Given all that, I decided I would punt. I was working on these sweet little labels, using the similar images as the Christmas tickets I previewed last week.
They are very old-fashioned and (I think) charming, and in my usual “easy-cut” shapes. I hate the fiddly cutting needed for really intricate labels, but most of these are either straight lines or notched corners that can often be punched with a small circle punch, like a two- or three-hole punch even. Only the ovals rely on cutting with care and as I always say, inked edges help hit any little imperfections.
I think these would be great for junk journals, as an element for a little cluster, or on a small card. I will possible add them over on Creative Fabrica as a kit that includes a PDF and a transparent background PNG, but these freebies are just a JPG to print and cut.
Grab them here and do share what you use them for – I am always so curious what people do with the stuff I add…
Woo Hoo. This is 100% the way I think I should make the collection books moving forward.
I didn’t end up using either one of the cover options, but instead went with a different collage. I felt the colours went better with the Jan-June collection book I had already made, as you will see at the end.
I found it interesting just how dimensional the scan was! You can really see the depth there.
I found the perfect cord to hold the booklets in and a few options for the text labeling the book
Crazy that I actually had enough of the letter stickers to write out full words and the date. And the adhesive was really strong – I did have to slightly overlap but I’m ok with that.
The first one is the real odd-one-out, in size and style, but the other three are all very close, which is interesting, given the middle two are made from gutted Harry Potter books and the last one is this one made from rubbish!
I’ve not added the 2 of 2 2024 on the spine like the one for Jan-June, but I still can if I decide that will be what I do for all. I might try slipping bigger letters in under the cords, like book one and see how I like it. I have loads of time to decide what the 2025 books will be!
Now, I need to think if I want to do what I did last year, and create 12 covers for people as a download. I might consider that and plan it for December.
Happy WOYWW! I had hoped to have more of the collection “book” to share but it wasn’t to be. I have been dithering about the rough edges, and think I settled on wrapping them with this extra wide brown tape. Wish I could recall where I got it! I love it.
I think it will make the edges smoother for wrapping with the paper to cover.
On my side desk I have a couple of little baby jackets, for charity knitting. The blue one is from a pattern called the Babbity Jacket. Such a cute pattern, but OMG al the lines of instructions. It took me a minute to think it thru and sort out how to place markers so I could just knit without thinking (so long as I occasionally checked my stitch count) and that is making the second one (the white one) much faster and easier to knit. Larger needles, thicker yarn, so interested to see how that changes the sizing. If you go back to this post the pattern is there.
And sadly, it’s that time of year again. The little mice seek warmth, and Poppy is showing off her hunting chops. Well, not so much in this photo, although she spent AGES with her nose under the little cabinet and between the wine bottles, sniffing the little guy. I live in fear she will catch it in the middle of the night and present it to my by dropping it, (dead or God forbid alive!) on my pillow as a gift.
What fun.
I can’t say I am feeling a lot better but at least I feel up to saying Happy WOYWW day.
Also, please update your email for me. I am transitioning away from the old one for crafting, to ma (at) ukma.me. Just a couple more characters than the original, so not too onerous!
I grabbed all my Daily Journal booklets for the second half of 2024 and that cardboard folder from the kitty litter and sat down to create my book.
Now, the November one is barely begun, and the December one is obviously still totally empty, but for sizing and all they will do.
At first, I thought I might just trim the excess, but if you recall I mentioned that I felt the cardboard was not as sturdy as it could be. Looking at where I would cut, I thought I might be able to just fold the excess back and make the covers thicker, sure, but also way more sturdy!
I scored on that line – and once again I am happy with my contact paper desk covering cause those straight lines may not be proper inch marks but they are still helpful!
That made the covers pretty sturdy, once I folded them over, but the spine was still actually where the stress would be, from the cords. I have loads of scraps of mat-board from an old frame shop and one on them worked fine.
Luckily, The Hubster picked me up a set of small (but pretty strong) clamps from…Aldi, I think, and they cam in very handy for clamping the covers after I glued them in place.
Wet glue is a pain, but in this case I want to be sure it is totally dry before moving on. So I wait. Ugh. I hate waiting! But tomorrow is WOYWW and the do-over good-bye lunch with the knitters, and I still have to pick the cover from my stash of things. I am considering using the large collage I made that I thought I was going to use as my December cover, but then didn’t.
but I also really like the one from strips – maybe I like it better!
Decisions, decisions. I guess I will have to make that decision first before I can move on, so maybe it’s good that I have this built in wait-time.
So a few things will make you say Oh yeah! I remember… First, I have been making collection books, for lack of a better word, for my Daily Journals for a few years. I usually collect six months into a single book, and that book has evolved over time. Most recently, I have used gutted Harry Potter books as the surround.
Over time I have made these simpler, realizing, for example, that it is enough to simply tie the cords around the spine and slip the individual journals in. They are easily removable but also they can be read in place.
I really do love using up stuff that I have on hand, and at this point I would have to head to the Charity shop to pick up an HP (or similarly sized) book so am looking for an alternative.
The other thing that I have shown a lot is the cardboard piece that comes with every kitty litter shipment we get. As a matter of fact, I used one to make my disc-bound journal!
The issue I have with these is that the cardboard is thick, but not as sturdy as I might like. In fact, I’ve been considering adding an inner stiff card liner to the disc-bound journal before I use it, as it is bowing a little over time. Because of how it is constructed, I think it will be easy enough to add a piece to the insides of the covers. But that is a project for another day! Right now I am looking at the size and thinking I should be able to create my collection book from one of these. I need to consider a few things, but in general I believe I can make it work!
With luck I will get that done, or at least make some progress on it, for tomorrow.
Sorry this feels like a bit of a throw-away post but after the stress of the last week, I still need some time.
Something about the click clacking of needles soothes a troubled heart and soul. Sorry I’ve not managed to hop round the desks this week. I am struggling to keep up a brave face. I’m hoping I’ll be able to manage it over the weekend.
I have been working on a few projects. One is the Babbity Baby jacket from Marianna’s Lazy Days. I love the pattern, it’s super cute, but OMG. The written pattern, line by line, is sooooo long. If you print it as is, especially if you increase the font size, it’s pages long.
I often change or edit patterns to make them easier for me and then I forget what I did the next time and have to do it all over again. Not this time LOL! I thought I would document my changes and maybe they will help someone else out as well.
You will need to go to the link to get the original pattern. That has stitch counts for all the plain knit rows so you can check to make sure you are on the right track.
Row 9 (and every odd row): *Knit to one stitch before marker, kfb, SM, knit 1, kfb*
Repeat * to * to row 18 but ending on a Knit row
Knit row 19 as written (buttonhole)
Repeat Rows 8 & 9 to Row 32, but ending with a Knit row.
Row 33 is a bit different, if you want to set up knit-in-the-round sleeves with no under arm holes. If you want to knit the sleeves flat to avoid purling, just work Row 33 as written.
K 24 bring yarn forward, slip 1 purlwise, then yarn to the back slip 1 st from the RHN to LHN, place 34 sts from LHN on waste yarn turn work, CO 3 sts using Cable CO method turn work, slip 1 st from LHN to RHN, pass the last CO st over slipped st, pull the working yarn
Knit 44 SM Knit 34 bring yarn forward, slip 1 purlwise, slip the stitch on RHN back to LHN, turn work place 34 sts from the now LHN on waste yarn CO 3 sts on LHN using Cable CO method
sl 1 st from RHN to LHN, pass the last CO st over slipped st, pull the working yarn Knit 28
Row 34 to end: As written, but knit the extra stitches under the arm as they appear. Adjust your stitch count to account for them. For the sleeves, just pick up and knit the extra stitches under the arm, placing a marker between the two added stitches. In the next KNIT round, k2tog either side of the marker to remove those extra stitches. Then you stitch count should remain the same as written.
Don’t forget if you knit in the round, you have to alternate Knit and Purl rounds to keep the garter stitch pattern!
For me, knitting and letting the markers tell me what comes next makes the whole process easier. After Row 7 I don’t have to refer to the pattern at all. I just jot down the stitch count for the row before the buttonhole row, work that, and knit to the Row 32 stitch count. I can pretty much fit the whole thing on a 1/2 sheet of paper. I have another one 90% done, using chunky yarn and 6mm needles and it is coming up larger, as expected. You can see the difference I hope, despite the crappy photos in the dark of a late fall evening.
I suspect I will need a lot of soothing comfort knitting over the next two years, and I might as well do it for charity between my own projects.
Well. I am shutting my brain down for a bit, I think, to process everything, and to try to dispel some of the stress of the last two years, and the absolute despair I feel at the moment. There will be time to re-group and work one day soon, but I’m not there yet. For my post today, tho’, I thought I would re-visit that Junk Journal In July (in August) that I did. You can see pretty much all the pages by clicking here. All of the pages were at least vaguely political, and here are a few:
and
The journal ended with a page that was me, trying to wish in to existence, the outcome I hoped for.
And there is no celebration in my heart. So what will fill the last page?
A quote of hope, or should it a quote from the first speech, American Carnage…
Happy WOYWW to all my desk friends. This is the “off” week for knitting as one of the gang works nights so she is in work one week then off one week. On the off weeks we meet and the other weeks one comes to me, if we both feel up to it. This week it looks like we will meet, but I usually manage to pop to the early-joining desks before I am out of my jammies.
My desk is not super interesting. I am using up black paint from the art journaling, in an effort to be less wasteful.
After doing some stencils and that one stamp, I will probably fill another rice paper sheet with the Fodder School stamps. They are handy for collage.
Not much colour today, as even Poppy is on a boring background. An odd look at her soft underbelly LOL!
She actually has more white on her than you usually see. Isn’t she sweet? I am the long lump behind her, covered in a fleecy blanket and she is cuddled up next to me on a cold evening.
So, I was a pretty optimistic person in my youth. Then a few things happened that kinda took that out of me. Later in life, more stuff happened and I just never recaptured that spark of positivity. The Hubster always bemoans my glass half empty outlook. I was looking at some scraps on my desk, mostly B&W papers, and I thought there might be a page there.
It seemed like it would cover a side, with the addition of a bit of a Collage Soup page I had previously printed, torn, then not used. Then I also unearthed one of the stamp sets from Angela, and had a good hard look at them.
But nope. I just could not bring myself to use them – they oozed optimism and that is just not me. I left it for a bit to ponder. The thing is, I got some test results back and my levels dropped. Not as low as they were before the infusion, but yeah, lower than they were. I guard against being too hopeful, but there was a bit of a glimmer. I carried on with the page, using some of the fat Woodies-style pencils from Lidl (first try – not quite so creamy and saturated as the actual Woodies but loads cheaper) and some of the spray inks still hanging about. I thought the swirly stamps would break up the angles of the papers and the colours worked well with the colours of the eye.
I ended up picking what, for me, leans positive. I may head into a tailspin once the election results come in, and I am really trying to protect myself against letting THAT happen. Is it too much to actually allow myself to at least hope maybe this phrase applies to that as well as the treatment process?
I just hope it isn’t an either/or situation. And in both cases I fear it might be ages till I know, one way or another, if my sliver of optimism was badly misplaced…
I am aware that the end of the year is creeping closer. I had reviewed my existing art journals and know at least one of them is very close to being filled. What better time to begin to tackle that so I can work in my disc-bound journal in 2025? I grabbed some stuff and plunged in.
I did use the “pull-out” shelf and it worked fine.
It was a lot of layers of various things. That weird arc of sprays might mean I need to clean the nozzle. A bit of brayering sorted it.
I am out of practice! I just kept adding more and more.
At that point it needed something bold so I grabbed some stencils from Joggles and my quote. That finished it off nicely
I have a bit of an idea for my 2025 journal, but I need to work thru that a bit before sharing. I have another page I want to do then we’ll see.
scrappystickyinkymess 