I'm taking a break now

The reason I've been so busy lately is that I'll have a friend visiting me for a couple of days (you know all these stuff you feel you have to do before you'll get guests. LOL) She's coming tomorrow so I'm taking a break from blogging and wrecking for a couple of days. (I'm probably back again on Monday)

I will TRY to get some time to post the weekly update on Thursday though since I always post that one of Thursdays. (And who knows, there MIGHT be a little entry about journal throwing as well if I can muster up the courage. LOL)

I miss wrecking!

I'm just busy with other stuff, really busy. But I miss my wrexercises! They really DO give me something and it feels almost empty without them. Eeek! What will I do when I've finished the journal? On the other hand, isn't one of the exercises to buy a second journal?

Anyway, I HOPE I will have some time to wreck things tonight or tomorrow. I think I need it to relax.

Flower Power

Flames of destruction

*cough* *cough*





Let's face it, I'm a creative person and I'm REALLY not a destructive person. The creative exercises are fun, they inspire me, they make me think, remember and give me insights. Creativity makes my heart sing!

The destructive stuff is just plain boring. It doesn't feel liberating, it's not about blocks or anything (so far at least), it doesn't give me insights, good or bad, it's just not particularly fun.

And while creativity makes my heart sing destruction only makes me cough. I've got asthma and while I have no problems with real wood fires the fumes from the journal really wasn't good for me. My book didn't taste as bitter as I'd expected but the smell of it was just AWFUL. I still have sore throat and I still need to keep my kitchen window open to air out the smell (and it's snowing outside so it's not exactly warm *shudder*).

Anyway, boring or not I'm still satisfied with how the page turned out. And adding a little bit of color of course makes things a little bit more fun again. LOL





See what I mean, I'm creative not destructive. Even while doing the destroying exercises I immediately try to add a bit of creativity too it. LOL (Those blobs a the top are supposed to be flowers LOL)

Unlike my friend Uniflame I didn't have any coconut scented bodyscrub so I had to settle with sandpaper. I could have used a bit of coconut scent right now, the awful burnt journal smell still lingers.

One day if/when I'm up to it I might go a bit more in to detail what I mean with creative people and destructive people. It's not as easy as that creative people always create things and destructive people always destroy, it's got more to do with how you look upon life and everything in it. On the other hand I might also decide NOT to go all philosophical on you. LOL

Weekly update - 3 weeks

Ooops! I almost forgot to do the weekly update today. Too much sewing is bad for your brain apparently. LOL





As you can tell the silver flowers are gone and the ants are starting to look a bit wrecked (one of the will probably lose it's head before next weekly update) but other than that not much new. The journal is still in a pretty decent shape. I've wrecked pages but I haven't wreck the entire journal a lot, so far. (And I'm NOT looking forward to it)

No wrecking today

I haven't done any wrecking today. I made a nightgown instead. I wonder if that's considered a side effect? LOL

Oh wait, I just got some ideas for one of the pages while typing this. I guess that COULD make my nightie qualify as a side effect. LOL

Let me take you for a spin (part 2)

Or maybe ALL WET AND CRUMBLED would be a better subject line for this entry? LOL

I have seen people that have washed their journal page and afterwards have been able to unfold the paper and put it back in the journal. But nope, this didn't work as planned in my case. Maybe I should have stuck to 40°C instead of 60°C that I preferred for my robe?





This is what I found in the washing machine. Two things are very obvious, the string has gone bye-bye and the robe still contained enough excess dye to stain. And I guess the third thing is pretty obvious as well, it doesn't lock like I be able to glue a "still pretty neat" page in to my journal.





This is the result! See what I mean about all wet and crumbled? LOL Folding this paper out again was completely impossible. It had merged in to one solid lump of wet, fragile paper pulp and touching it just made it crumble even more. Let's just say that I was happy that I wrapped it up in fabric or else there wouldn't be anything left for me to find. LOL

One thing managed to survive though. See the ant?





The paper you can see on the left side was the back of the washed paper. Now the glued on ants keeps falling of the front page but it stuck in the washer. LOL

Also, as you can probably tell, they dye form the robe DIDN'T stain the paper as I'd hoped for.





And now for the final (dry) result! It didn't turn out too bad I think. The paper had dried in to thick, a bit brittle cardboard, pretty much like the cardboard used for egg boxes/trays, at least here in Sweden. The text says: "Washed in 60°C" and "Well, at least the page is clean"





Time to update the fruitpage again! I have lots of interesting new fruits at home, pineapple, papaya and kiwis, WITHOUT stickers, but at least I found SOME new stickers, much thanks to my mom actually that brought some of her fruit since she shops from a different store and the fruit there have different stickers (I get to kept the fruit as well of course. LOL) So yesterday's harvest was three new orange stickers (on of a new brand), a banana sticker a pear sticker and cute apple sticker. They REALLY should add stickers to more kinds of fruit! LOL





And finally a W.I.P. (Work In Progress) because I've worked on this page for a couple of days without being able to finish it. (For those of you unfamiliar with the journal, I'm supposed to cut out the strips and form a paper chain of them) For some reason I find these strips boring to paint and I've also decide not to make the chain until I've thrown the journal off the balcony since the chain will most likely not survive the fall (and I need company to do the journal throwing since I want someone to wait on the ground). But well, since I want to document this as accurate as possible in time I've decided to show the W.I.P. photo while waiting.

Let me take you for a spin...

... in my washing machine.





It seems like taking a shower wasn't enough to clean up the journal. Now it wanted to be washed as well... or well, at least one of the pages.





Since I didn't have a pocket to put it in I decided to wrap it up neatly in a piece of fabric to avoid little paper crumbles in my washing machine.





I've saved this exercise for when it was time to wash my bathrobe since the robe still stains a little bit and I thought that could be interesting for the journal page. (And just because if this the robe probably lost it's last excess dye the last wash. LOL)

More details about this "wrexperience" later.

A new journal wrecker!

Friend number 1 (Tessibess) has started a blog about her future wrecking now even if she's still waiting for her journal. You can find it here: Tessibess wrecks a journal (Or to the right in my link list)

I don't know yet if I've managed to brainwash Friend number ½ though. LOL I'll get back to you on that.

BTW, I'm looking for other journal wreckers to follow so if you have a journal wrecking blog please let me know.

All wet and crumpled

Time to get destructive for a change!





Last night I realized that I had to rearrange the fruit sticker page a bit since the left side was on the back of the "paper chain" paper. Not a very destructive exercise but it didn't feel enough to get a blog entry of it's own.









The crumble challenge today was more of the destructive kind. I taped the page back in to the book afterwards since I like to keep the things I've done actually in the journal.





Crumpling paper made both me and the journal all sweaty (the journal most LOL) so afterwards we decided to take a shower. But first I decorated the shower page a bit.





Then in to the shower we went. I decided to stick to the cowardly solution and NOT place the journal on the floor (nothing said you HAD to)





"Bring this cat in to the shower with you" Okay, it didn't REALLY say this but my cats never misses chance for a photo opportunity. LOL (She left before I turned on the water but her mommy liked to sit in my exhubby's stomach when he took a bath and her uncle took long showers with his owner. Ragdolls are crazy! LOL)





Still a bit wet from the shower. The colors have started to bleed a bit (which I actually hoped for) but other than this the journal coped very well.

This is the first time I've ever brought a camera in to my shower. I plan to make it my last and ONLY time as well.LOL I'm not one of those "today's outfit" kind of bloggers, but I'm also REALLY NOT a "no outfit" kind of blogger so no more cameras in the shower. LOL

Another one (or three)

I like this one a lot! Beside the yellow that looks completely wrong. It's a clean, clear, lemon like yellow IRL and a lot paler as well, not this dirty, dominant hue it gets on my screen (Let's hope it looks better on your screen). The same goes for the yellow on the doodle I showed earlier as well.





While I was fiddling with the colors in Psp to see if I could improve the yellow (I couldn't, not without messing up the other colors) I accidentally turned it in to a negative image and I really, really liked the result. (And not just because this yellow looks much better LOL)





I liked it so much that I had to try the same effect on the first doodle as well.

Now I just wish I had pens that worked really well on black paper so I could make these for real.

Doodles and dogs

Tonight I really felt like doodling (it can become addictive LOL) and I didn't find something in the journal that fitted what I wanted to do so I decided to just doodle on a piece of paper. A bit tired with the cheap paper in the journal I dug out and old sketch book.





I KNOW it's lopsided. It's just a doodle, it isn't supposed to be perfect, it's just supposed to be fun to create.





While looking in the old sketch book I also found a drawing of a collie I did for school project back in -88 (the same school I went to when I walked around with cutting pliers in my handbag. LOL) and I thought it could be fun to share it with you. After all, I kind of found it thanks to the journal wrecking so if I stretch the rules a bit it too can be considered a side effect. LOL

The never ending line

Today's challenge was to draw a non stop line (I had to cheat a bit and lift the pen in the middle of the book)





I decide to fill in the figures with pink and green and for some reason this page reminds me of Linneas even if the flower in the page doesn't look AT ALL like Linneas. Linneas are the smallest, most fragile looking flower living in dark spruce woods. It's like a little fairy flower.

And while writing this I really long to take long walks in the woods, which I can't do any more.

It also reminds me about prinsesstårta (=princess cake) a traditional Swedish cake (the green version that is, the pink one must be a new invention). I rather long for a piece of cake than for a walk in the woods. LOL

A whiter shade of pale

In case you've gotten tired of all those bright and bold colors I'm giving you something completely different this time, an all white page.





Old buttons, velvety stickers (the lace thingy on the right page) felt hearts, fabric flowers and lots of Quick Kutz cut outs.. oh yes, and a snow flake braid as well. This page was quite fun to do but it was less fun to photograph. White on white doesn't always show up very well. There are four jigsaw piece shaped cutouts glued to the left page, two above the heart and two bellow. Some of them show up a lot less than others though.

BTW, remember this nice, silvery flowers I had stamped on the front cover? You can forget them now because they show up even less. It appears that the ink didn't stick to the cover. They got all smudged out when I handled the journal even after drying for several hours and I was able to wipe them all off with a piece of paper.

It's really hard to doodle on the cover as requested since nothing shows up on black and the colors don't even stick to the surface. The poor ants have fallen off a couple if time as well so even glue has a problem to stick to the surface. So, so much for the 2 weeks update photo to the right, that is NOT how the journal actually looks any more. LOL But still, it WAS how it look for a couple of hours today.

Weekly update - 2 weeks

Time for another weekly update!





This is how the front cover looks right now. I would love to add my name in silver just to match the look of the music binder but my silver pen have gone dry so I decide to stamp silver flowers on the cover and "chalk" the edges instead.





And since I'm pestering your with the progress of the fruit page I thought I would show how the test page changes as well.

After two weeks of wrecking this is still just as fun and it's also given me a lot more than just the fun and creativity. Yes, I've run in to some blocks (sharing too much about myself on this blog is a tough block to work with actually, which is why I do it. It might not be much in your eyes but some of it is huge for someone as online-private as me. Like this parenthesis for instance LOL) But even the "side effects" have mostly been very inspiring and I've felt that I've really learned things during these two weeks. I've gotten back lost parts of myself. Yay!

I've also managed to brainwash... I mean inspire... 1½ friend in to journal wrecking. No, friend number two isn't a half friend but she's only half brainw inspired so far. LOL The more people that discover journal wrecking the happier I'll become. I just hope the 1½ of you will like it as much as I do!

Lots of stuff this time

My evil internet/phone/TV provider has been giving me a lot of problems (and a lot less of internet/phone/TV) the last couple of days (not ALL the time, only when I have time to blog) so I'm a bit behind with things now so this update will be a big one.







I started yesterday (Tuesday) with a more destructive challenge. Now, I'm usually one of those people that have a hard time throwing things away (not to the point where it's a problem though) but this one was actually quite easy. After all, this page was created to throw away. It was it's purpose with life (if pages can have a life. LOL) I decide to keep the raw ripped edge after this page though as a reminder of it's existence.





After ripping out this page it felt natural to continue with the four letter words page behind it. I know that in English this page can be interpreted in two ways but for me as a Swede there's only one interpretation since bad words are not called four-letter words in Swedish (and since I curse extremely seldom I don't know enough bad words to fill up this page LOL)

Originally I had though to translate all these words in to English but I'm leaving this out since this update is big enough anyway. If you miss the translations BADLY, let me know and I'll add them later. LOL

What I've learned form this page? Well, I accidentally wrote some 5 letter words that I had to cross over, and thanks to the work I've done with this journal so far, this didn't actually bother me. It would have done so 2 weeks ago. Yay for journal wrecking!





Next I doodled on the title page and decided to us only blue and yellow sparkly pens. That in itself is a challenge since even though it's the Swedish colors, it's a color combination I very rarely use. I don't like it very much and since patriotism is pretty much considered a bad thing in Sweden I don't use it often for patriotic reasons either. Anyway, I still like how this page turned out. I guess all the white helped balance the colors. (Note the cut out ants)












I then realized that this page was almost done so I decided to finish it. I had already doodled on the cover (I plan to do more to it later), the title page (see above) and the instructions. All that was left was the copyright page and folding the corners, which I did today (Wednesday)





This is how the copyright page turned out. I used the sparkly pens this time too and I couldn't resist doing one of my stars/flowers.





Folding the corners was NOT fun though. I hate when people borrow my books and fold corners in them and these were my favorite pages on top of everything. I picked the ripped stripes, the circle of seas, the traced hand and the doodled star on top of text as my favorites because of how they look. And then I added the sleep/troll lullaby page because of the side effects. Poor pages, now they all have (small!) "dog ears" (that's what the folded corners are called in Swedish).





And finally I've added to more melon stickers today too (the rest of the fruit came without stickers this time) This is a kind of boring page to show you all the time but I want to document the entire journal wrecking as truthfully as possible. If I don't leave out pages because they're boring I will have less excuse to leave out pages that are hard to show.

In my magical handbag

"Trace the things in your bag and let the lines overlap" Eeeeh. would it even be possible to do this with out letting the lines overlap.... A LOT???? Is there ANY woman that's got so little in her hand bag that she could do this without letting the lines overlap??? LOL I need bigger pages!!!

So here it is, lots of line and lots of overlapping. LOL





This is what I have in my handbag (From bottom down, left to right..sort of)

Left Page
Nezeril tändstickor Panodil astmaspray bläckpenna solfjäder nagelfil låsolja plånbok mobil * Citodon örhänge Savett		nasal spray matches over the counter painkillers asthma spray ballpoint pen fan nail file car lock defroster wallet cellphone* strong prescribed painkillers earring wet wipe
Right Page
örhänge nr 2 tändare ** läppglans hårspänne Läkerolask mer Citodon handkräm kvitto *** kompass more Panodil Läkerol (2st)		earring number 2 lighter ** lip-gloss hairpin box of Läkerol throat pastilles more strong prescribed painkillers hand lotion receipt*** compass more over the counter painkillers Läkerol 2 pastilles
* with cellphone charm ** No I don't smoke, never done, never will *** for new fishes bought today

So why is it that my handbag is magical? Whell, my last year in school (when I've moved away from home to study in another town) my friends suspected that my handbag was magical because no matter what they needed I would always have it in my handbag. And when I say always i mean ALWAYS. LOL

One day we were in need of a pair of cutting pliers (I no longer remember why). And this time they were a bit disappointed (and probably a tiny bit gloating) when they pointed out that THIS would at least be something I wouldn't be able to pull out of my magical handbag. Well I was!!! LOL

The thing was that I had borrow my brother's cutting pliers and since it was Friday and I was going home to my mom and brother later that day I had put the pliers in my bag to make sure I didn't forget them. Talk about perfect timing!!! LOL

This is, as far as I can remember, the only time I've ever worn cutting pliers in my handbag but it's also the only time it's been needed. So well it seems that I actually CAN pull out everything needed from my magical handbag. LOL

Hands on - Hands off

I guess you can call this a hands-on exercise. For some reason that I haven't discovered yet this was actually one of the exercises I looked forward to the most while waiting for the blog (It could be as simple as that it was easy to remember and easy to interpret)

So what can you learn about me from looking at this image? Well, besides from the obvious (that I like doodling and using a lot of colors) I've got small hands and very thin wrists (I'm not SURE you can tell this but I really do), I don't bite my nails and I usually don't wear nailpolish anymore (only when I'm dressing up for some reason) I've got a silver ring in the shape of a rose that I call my "divorce ring" and consider as important as a marriage ring. I got it from my mom, my brother and my sister-in-law the day I moved in to my own apartment after the divorce and it symbolizes A LOT to me, strength in myself, the people that still love me, freedom, a commitment to stand up for myself and never do the same mistaken again (at least next time I will invent some new mistakes LOL) and much, much more. And yes, my hands DO have black outlines... at least they did after doing this drawing. LOL





If the former was a hands-on exercise the later is just the opposite, It can't be more hands-off than writing with your mouth. LOL And since there wasn't much room for the red, pink and purple colors on the first drawing I decided to only use these colors this time.

On the right side it says "Fia" and "Det här är svårt" meaning "This is hard" (which it really, really was!) And the left side says:

Att skriva så här gör att jag känner mig väldigt tacksam över att kunna använda mina händer och beundra dom som inte kan och ändå är k r e a t i v a

To write like this makes me feel very grateful to be able to use my hands and admire those who can't and still are c r e a t i ve

Even while it's a strange sentence grammatically (even in Swedish) it's very true.

I have a quite limiting disease called CFS and even though I learned to live with it many years ago it's still good to be able to feel grateful for the things I CAN do instead of missing the things I can't.

And I truly admire everybody that no matter what life throws at them not only manages to go on with their lives but can actually remain creative as well (for me creativity is one if the big differences between "surviving" and "living")

This also reminds me of a girl I got to know back in 98. She was paralyzed but was able to type, very slowly, with the help of a stick she held in her mouth. To speed this up she wrote what I use to call "chat speak". This is always hard to read if your first language isn't English and since this was during first year online my English REALLY wasn't what it is today so it was VERY hard for me to read what she wrote. But I decide that if she could use as much time and energy as she did to write something I should at least be able to put as much time and energy in to reading it.

Now, we were never THAT close, forum friends mostly that also exchanged some mails and I no longer remember why we lost touch. But writing with my mouth makes me remember both her and my other friends at that forum.

Doodles!

I'm absolutely a doodler. I love to doodle on anything I can get my hands on so these exercises were really fun and easy for me.





The text on the "stamp" says: "Pretend you are doodling in the back of an envelope while on the phone.

I did this one while talking to my friend Dustbunnie *waves to Dustbunnie* and I plan to doodle on the opposite page as well, but only while I'm on the phone.





Doodling on top of text was a piece of cake for me as well. While I didn't doodle in my schoolbooks (only in my notebooks) this is not one of my blocks.

I love to doodle these kind of stars/flowers (they actually started back in those notebooks in school maaaaaaany years ago. LOL) but this is actually the first time I've made on in color. I HAD originally planned to use one and the same pen but I just couldn't stop myself. LOL

BTW, in spite of what some teachers and lecturers might think, doodling in the notebooks is actually a GOOD thing. It helps you keep you mind focused on what you're listening to and they also work a bit like taking notes because you can often remember what someone said when you're looking at a particular doodle. Luckily this is something that's been more acknowledged these days.

The journal on steroids????

No, I promise! This ISN'T the journal on steroids even though it might look like it. LOL It's my old binder full of the lyrics I've collected over the years (nothing new added for MANY years though)

I've actually brought it out now and started to sing. But as my mom said when we discussed this, I'm still singing with my voice only and not with my heart. I need to ground the singing in my body to get in touch with a lot off stuff. But at the same time I know it will be painful because there's so many people and memories hidden in between the lyrics and so much sorrow for friends and other things that I've lost. But luckily there's also a lot of joy and strength involved with singing and not all memories are sad.

I've also printed some of the lyrics I've kept on my computer and I've decided to start adding them to the binder again. It IS a good way to keep track of them and it's also a way to connect with the one I was back then and to move forward again.

I kind of LIKE the similarities between this binder and my journal. It seems like both the old me and then current me like shiny, reflective and "hard to photograph" stickers and none of us are/were afraid to doodle and decorate. LOL Now I just need to add my name in silver to the journal as well to make things complete. LOL