invite

Despite January's deep strides towards it's own middle I have decided to plow on with the advent window art journal prompts for as long as it takes me to be done with them.
These little scraps of paper have been doing work on this gals soul-digging, emotion-grabbing, creativity-pushing capabilities.
And she's lovin' it ^^
I've been promising myself to start an art journal for the longest time and these prompts are just the thing to poke out the inky fingered journaling girl living inside of me.
Today I pulled the word 'invite' so I free-wrote all and everything that I want to invite into my life in this new year.
Do you art journal? Have a link? Please share, I'd love to see it!

opening windows

This week I decided to start following along with Messy Canvas's Advent Window journaling project.

I am arriving a little late to the party as we're less than a week from Christmas but  now I've begun I realize it really is just an inspirational and fun activity that can be done at any time of the year.

You're given 31 written verbs which you should select randomly every day so each day you will have a solitaire word to reflect on, live by, sketch or journal about. 

The first word I pulled was "decorate".

I've decided to use a pretty notebook Dallas bought for me a while ago that I had intentionally set aside and was keeping for a special purpose or project such as this one.

With most of my words I will mostly want to use them as writing or art journaling prompts but this word I decided to take literally.

I pasted it to the center of my page, took out my pen and doodled and decorated every spare surface on the paper.

This is my first art journal project and I'm excited about the next 30 words I will pull and meditate on and what they will evoke from me on to paper.

Inky fingers

Taken from Rachel Duarte's 'Journal pages' set on Flickr

Untitled, a photo by rcd826 on Flickr.

I'm helplessly in love with these journal pages created by Rachel Duarte in San Francisco.

Click on the link to have a peek for yourself but only if you are prepared to lose the next 20 minutes falling, skirt flared like a bell, down a rabbit-hole of page after page of beautiful film photography, pressed flowers and feathers, sublime handwritten quotes from literature and lyrics, dreamy pastel paint swatches, pages torn from vintage books and lists of her friends star-signs.

It's a masterclass in scrap-booking ~ there's a romance and a mystery to keeping things treasured away on paper, locked between pages and cover. I'm getting that same old-fashioned, grab the fountain pen and get your fingers inky itch as I do when I write my handwritten letters home. What better way to preserve the keepsakes and sweet memories from this time in my life when I am collecting so many?

I think Seoul will find itself being patted down and  it's pockets rifled through this weekend for the perfect journal for starting my new project ^^