A bit tied up

I was visiting my mom yesterday and I thought it was a great opportunity to pic some leaves and flowers for the "dried leaves"-page (After all, she's got a woodland garden and I've only got a balcony). I decided to put the leaves inside the journal to keep them nice, flat and undamaged on the way home and to keep them from falling out I tied up the journal a bit. Now it looks like a tied up pork roast, poor thing. LOL





I almost wish I could keep the journal tied up until the ned of the week because it would be a great photo for the weekly update but I've got other plans for the journal for this week that requires that I untie it. More about those plans later though.

BTW, my mom and I sang a bit together yesterday. I really DO sing a lot more these days thanks to this journal wrecking. It might be a small change to others but it means a lot to me since I'm finding pieces of myself that got lost during my marriage. Yay for journal wrecking!!!

Portraits of Ragdolls

Time for some Old Stuff again!

I used to be a Ragdoll breeder back in the 90's (We're talking Ragdoll CATS, not rag DOLLS) so of course some of my cat drawings were of Ragdolls.



Unknown bi-color Ragdoll, -92


"Bissen", blue colorpoint Ragdoll, 1 year, -95


The first picture i most likely painted from a photo and I no longer remember the name of the cat, even if I have my guesses. (It's not one of mine) The second picture is drawn of a live (but sleeping) model, Bissen, a kitten from my very first litter and the cat I lost a month ago. I miss him BADLY! I'm sad that this drawing have been so smudged, maybe I should try to clean it up.



Duttis, blue colorpoint Ragdoll, 14 years, -2009


Duttis is Bissen's younger sister and like all my cats she craves to be involved when I take photos. LOL A lot of the wrecking photos includes a gray paw or a brown tail somewhere in the corner. LOL

Weekly Update - 12 weeks

This week it's my unfortunate duty to inform you that it will be no photo of the much loved fruit sticker page. Sad, soooo sad! Neither the cheap nor the expensive shop found Persimmons suitable to put fruit stickers on. And since Persimmons is one of my favorite fruits it was MY happiness (of eating tasty fruits) against YOUR happiness (of seeing and updated fruit sticker page) and I was egoistical enough to set my own happiness above yours. I hope you will forgive me and hold out until next week when the beloved fruit sticker page might be back again. LOL







On a much happier note the over all look of the journal has finally changed a bit. It looks a lot floofier now, don't you think? Yes, floofy is absolutely the world I would use to describe it. LOL

Other than the party page there hasn't been much wrecking this week (at least not of journals. LOL) I've started to save material for the dried leaves and flower page but I don't plan to take pictures of that page until it's done. I don't want to turn that one too in to a longwinded serial page, it's enough with the fruit sticker page don't you think? LOL

Happy Birthday to me!!!

This Monday was my 40th birthday (I think we're already established in the posts about my "Old Stuff" that yes, I AM that old. LOL I don't FEEL old though so it doesn't matter)

My mom threw me an absolutely wonderful surprise party on the Saturday that probably is the best birthday party I've ever had (the one where I turned 10 was quite okay too) and I've decide to dedicate a page in the journal to honor this party. I thought the page where I was supposed to glue random items would suit this very well.





Isn't the kitty-card in the middle the cutest card ever? It's made by my step brother's 6 year old daughter (and possibly her younger brother as well). I plan to save grownup's cards too but this one is the only one that gets to be in the journal.

The color theme for the party was actually pink, green and white (which make TOTAL sense if you know me. LOL) but I'm somehow managed to collect only items that didn't fit the theme. But who cares, it was fun, it was fantastic and now it's been captured forever in my journal.

Thank you mom!!!!

Weekly Update - 11 weeks

Ooooookay! Didn't I just write one of these weekly posts??? Where did last week go? *confused* I guess I've spent too much time sewing clothes and too little time wrecking. LOL

But prepare to be chocked because I HAVE done some wrecking today *waits for everybody to recover after fainting* but I'm saving the best for last.





First the boring cover photo. It's looked the same for quite some tome now. The only thing that changes is the decreasing of the ants and the placement of the paper chain. LOL





And of course, everybody's favorite, the fruit sticker page!!! LOL Now with five more apple stickers.





And now for the fun part, or less fun depending in how you see it, since it's the anger page and being angry isn't exactly fun, at east not for me.

It's the same idea as I got last week but a different source of anger and frustration. Last week it was the water pump in my aquarium that was broken and today it's the washing machine instead. Luckily I had a spare pump but unfortunately I don't have a spare washing machine. But I'm still hoping the problem will solve itself like it did the last time, almost a year ago, because I really don't have a lot of money for things like disobedient washing machines. I have absolutely no clue what the error message means (that's the "d 17" on the drawing) because it's not in the manual but it was the same one a year ago. Fingers crossed, please!

Anyway, the text below says "Die! Die! Die you evil washing machine monster! No, change that, live, live, live!!! WORK!!!!"

Weekly Update - 10 weeks

Sooo, another week has passed and the cover still looks the same. I haven't even removed the ugly flower. I'm such a good girl! LOL





I'm torturing you with the fruit page this week as well though since this week's fruit shopping was done in the expensive shop (where they can afford stickers on their fruit) 6 new apple stickers and 2 mango stickers. (I guess it's a lucky thing that they don't put stickers on the grapes. LOL)

The fruit page is starting to get quite full. It's a lot easier to fill this one than the stamp page. I haven't gotten a single mail with stamps since I started this project (they don't put stamps on bills in Sweden and my snail mail mostly consists of bills and the snail mail version of spam)

I have an idea for the angry page now though (I don't get angry very often so I really haven't had any use for that page) I know, I was supposed to do the page WHILE angry but at that time I was busy trying to fix what caused the anger and at least I got the idea that time.

Sweet sixteen

Time for some more "old stuff". I've already shown you things I made when I was 11, now it's time for some things I did back in -85 when I was 16.



(watercolor on paper)


(watercolor on paper)


During this period I loved to paint flowers. Well, flowers have always been a favorite (along with cats) but at this time I pretty much was a walking flora since I only painted realistic flowers and I knew them all by name.

These are unfortunately not my best flower paintings but I gave a lot of them away and the rest are still hidden somewhere in my boxes and cupboards.







As I said, cats have always been a favorite as well.





But wait, doesn't this cat look very strange?



(oil on canvas)


The last one I did when I was 17 but I think it's okay to cheate a bit. LOL

Worm Food - Part 3...

... or maybe not... LOL

I've been visiting my mom today and the page is no longer to be found in the compost. All gone! So no more photos. But I'm sure the worms enjoyed it. LOL

Weekly Update - 9 weeks +

I know, I know, I'm a little bit late with this update. But the photos are taken the right day and I've managed to finish the birthday "things" which is what matters. I also doubt that no one else, other than me, REALLY cares what day I post the weekly update. LOL (I even doubt that most people care IF I post it or not. LOL)

The last week have actually felt pretty long though. Maybe because I'm two days late? LOL I still haven't done much wrecking (other than the composting which Mother Nature and the worms take care of themselves) but I HAVE been able to do things that I consider to be "side effects" even though it's not of the kind of things I can post in the blog. But let's just say that I've started to act on some of the insights the journal wrecking have given me.







Anyway, here is how the journal looks now. Notice the poor headless ant! LOL





And look!!! I've updated the fruit sticker page!!! I was lucky enough to find five blue apple stickers this week. (And the apples are really good as well! LOL) So this week I don't have to show you my fruit basket. (On the other hand that might be a pity since it looks a lot more esthetically interesting than last week when both the mangos and the papaya looked liked pears. LOL)

As a little side note: Where IS everybody these days? Less visitors, A LOT less comments and my fellow wreckers have been way too silent. You're not out enjoying the sun and the spring are you??? LOL

Busy, busy, busy!!!

It's my mom's birthday on Sunday and I'm busy creating... eh... "things" for her. I will try to squeeze in a weekly update tomorrow but I doubt there will be much wrecking done until I've finished all the... things. And there's a lot of them! LOL

Worm food - Part 2

My mom has sent me some composting photos to show in the blog. After all, I'm supposed to "watch it deteriorate" and by the time I visit my mom the next time (which will be as soon as her birthdays on Sunday) it will most likely be gone already (It's an active, well used compost filled with, busy, hungry worms) so this is the only way I (and you ) can follow the composting process.











Note the carefully posed worm! As I've said, my mom reads this blog. LOL

Here fishie, fishie!

I've already shown you some of my pencil/brush on paper work, now it's time to show something I've painted on the computer as well, especially since this image fits so well today.

About ten years a go I worked at a place where they had a small aquarium. This was before I got my own tank but I've always been drawn to aquariums and this was no exception. I was particularly found of some blue, marbled fishes.

Since one of my friends is very in to aquariums I tried to describe my favorites to her to see if she could help me find out which breed they were. Now this was when digital cameras still were considered exotic and very expensive and when cell phones were just PHONES (and scanners were crappy, see crappy scanned photo in a previous post) so the best way I could think of to show her how the fishes looked was to draw one (we didn't live in the same town so e-mail was a must)

I wasn't sitting near the aquarium so I had to go back and forth SEVERAL times to look at the fish and then draw from memory so it took me quite some time to get it right. Also the fish wash shy and hid most of the time I came to look it and every now and then I actually had to work as well. LOL





It's mouse drawn in Psp and while the perfectionist in me isn't completely satisfied with some of the details (the shape of the mouth isn't 100% correct and neither is the bodyshape or the curve of the feelers) I must admit that the likeness is still quite good and my friend had no problem to identify it as an Opaline Gourami (hope I got the English name right now).

I decided that one day, if I ever got an aquarium of my own, I should get Opaline Gouramis. Today is that day!!! :o) I now have 4 gorgeous Gouramis swimming in my tank (or mostly hiding in the corner, they're a bit shy. LOL) and it "only" took me three years as anquarist to finally get them. LOL Sorry, no photos if the real fishies yet, they REALLY didn't like when I brought out the camera. (It seems like painting them still is the easiest way to portrait Opaline Gouramis. LOL)

Contemplating the future of the blog

Don't worry, this isn't one of those "taking a break" or "closing down the blog" messages. It's just me thinking out load about what to do with the blog once I've finished the journal.

The thing is that when I started this blog I decided to close it again when I'd finished wrecking the journal, since this is a very limited theme blog (even if I'm sneaking in a few other things as well) Now there's still plenty of "wrexercises" to do (and one of the involved rose petals which I'll not be able to get my hands on for quite a while yet) and there's also still a lot of "old stuff" to add so there's no immediate threat to the blog yet. But at the same time, I've started to see how more and more of the pages in the journal are getting finished so I know we're getting there in a while and this have made me think.

This IS a limited theme blog so it WILL have fulfilled it's purpose when I'm done with the journal. But at the same time I feel that even to I might be done with the journal I might not be done with the blog at the same time. I LIKE this blog! It's fun and inspiring to work with and hopefully it's also inspiring to the reader. I know this isn't the most visited blog around, but I've never aimed for it to be (after all, I haven't actually advertised it a lot or done anything particular top attract readers) but I still have a group of people reading it, and most of all, I'm doing this for myself, as a way to document my wrecking and maybe a bit of the creative journey I'm going through (and maybe even a bit about the rest of the stuff the journal wrecking awakens in me). Everyone else reading the blog is just a big bonus (and it helps me feeling less crazy than I would do if I were JUST talking to myself. LOL)

Sooo, the way I feel about the blog right now I'm not sure I WANT to close it down in a couple of months when the journal wrecking is over and all the old stuff is posted. But the problem is that I don't know what to use if for afterwards... Getting another journal? Come up with another creative project that fits this blog? Or change the blog completely to fit some of my other hobbies? (In that case it's probably better to start a brand new blog and leave this one untouched though) I don't know yet but hopefully I will come up with some answers before I've finished the journal.

Sad news!

I forgot to mention that one of the ants on the cover lost it's head completely when I was visiting my mom. I found the little head on her dining table after taking the first photo below. I now keep it in my wallet. Poor little ant! *giggle*

Worm food!

Since I live in an apartment these days I don't have a compost of my own any more (Oh how I miss my garden at this time of the year) so I decided to borrow one of my mom's compost bins for the composting challenge.





I only ripped out the left page (the back side of the right page will be used in another challenge). Note the worm on the right (bottom) page.





Here's the page is the compost bin. Can you see the worm? My mom thought that since it was a worm on the other page it was important to have one on this page as well. My mom is proud of her worms! *giggle*





Bye, bye little page!

Before we left my mom had made sure to hide the worms again from the blackbird that was watching hungrily at them from a nearby tree. My mom really cares about her little worms! (And yes, as a former garden owner I DO know that worms are very useful both in the compost and in the rest of the garden. But I never fuzzed QUITE as much over my worms. LOL)

I've asked my mom to continue to take pictures of this page before it's completely turned in to worm food. I wonder if the worms will think it tastes bitter too?

Weekly Update - 8 weeks

The weeks are still going way too fast. But his week I feel like I've actually got some wrecking done at least.





This is how the journal looks now, with the painted flowers. The ugly one is still there. Good me for not removing it!!! LOL





And since I never update the fruit sticker page any more I just wanted to prove to you that I still eat A LOT of fruit. I'm just buying them from a cheaper store that seems to cut down on their costs by not having any fruit stickers. LOL