Annefia's Wreck This Journal Blog

I'm taking a break now...

2009-10-27T18:54:00.003+01:00

I might have mentioned this elsewhere in the blog somewhere but I'm suffering from a chronic disease called ME/CFS. In my case I'm getting a lot worse at this time of the year (I guess the extreme lack of sunshine and daylight we get in Sweden at this time of the year has something to do with it) and I have A LOT less energy than I have in spring and summer. Because of this I feel that it's time to take a blog break for medical reasons until I'm feeling better again. At the moment the blog and the journal just feel like a stressful chore and not at all the creative and therapeutic experience it was when I begun and well, both I and the journal deserve better than this so I'm postponing the wrecking until I feel better again.

My other blogs will still remain active though (well, as active as a balcony blog will be in winter LOL), in case you miss me too much. LOL

Weekly Update 28-31

2009-10-09T18:13:00.005+02:00

Maybe I should call this a Monthly Update instead? Last month's been one of those months that's just been running away from me. I haven't had much time or inspiration for neither wrecking nor blogging but I'm slowly getting back in to my regular routines again (I hope/think) so I will hopefully do better than "Monthly updates" at least. (I said HOPEFULLY!)

The cover week 28

I had to use tape to get the sticker to stick

The cover today (week 31)

Weekly Update: 26+27 weeks

2009-09-12T02:52:00.002+02:00

This has been some crazy weeks!!! Last week I'd actually both taken the photos for the weekly update in time as well as prepare for a wrecking post that WASN'T part of a weekly update. But that week I ran in to a bunch of computer problems that postponed everything. And on the Sunday I all of a sudden got a new kitten! (Yes, pretty much that surprising) After that she's taken most of my time since (especially in the beginning since I had to introduce her to my older cats.)

So before we move on the wrecking, here is my little sweetie Smulan. As all kittens she's a fellow wrecker. LOL

Smulan! (14 weeks)

The onwards to the wrecking. The front cover is getting a bit full of fruit stickers now (there's a text sticker in the bottom left corner that you can hardly see) so I've started gluing them to the back now. And it's still just bananas that come with stickers right now. *sigh*

Week 26

The wrecking I did last week was actually a hard one. I can't do easy ones all the time can I? LOL It wasn't hard as in a lot of work but it was one of the challenges where I've had to force through once of my barriers. You just don't play with food or waste food!!! That's for spoiled and rich people. And it also felt REALLY yucky to smear food in the journal.

I've been given this one a lot of thoughts since I got the journal because i couldn't come up with a way to interpret it that felt okay to me but still was true to the challenge. Documenting the dinner with a photo felt like cheating and using something like fruit juice or jam (that felt like less yucky to stain the blog with) wasn't actually dinner. So what to do????

Then I boiled some of my home grown runner beans (that you're probably very familiar with if you follow my balcony blog) and saw that the water turned green and came up with a solution that felt both comfortable enough but also didn't feel like cheating. The beans WERE a major part of my dinner, but nothing got wasted, the journal didn't become yucky and it still made and interesting change to the paper. Yay!

Staining in hot water

Dinner

The result!

This week I haven't done any wrecking though, I've left that part to Smulan (so far she's only wrecked candle and one of her toys. LOL)

Week 27

Weekly Updates: 24 + 25 weeks

2009-08-29T02:23:00.003+02:00

Guess what? I've done some wrecking again!!! Not much but STILL!

Writing backwards (and mirrored)

Mirrored image to make it easier to read,
but still a bit weird. LOL

I'm NOT doing the translation backwards! LOL

Time to get some wrecking done again

Ooops i was only going to write backwards, this probably turned out mirrored as well

24 weeks

25 weeks

At the moment I'm adding a banana sticker/week to the cover. LOL Bananas are the only fruit that comes with stickers at the moment. And none of the fresh berries my mom has picked have any stickers either. LOL

The front cover is getting a bit full now (there's a sticker with text below the cat that doesn't show up very well on photos)

Weekly Updates: 22 + 23 weeks

2009-08-15T01:02:00.002+02:00

I guess I've gotten in to the habit of updating every other week right now. There's a lot of things going on IRL that eats away on my time and energy.

22 weeks

23 weeks

The really great news is that I've actually done some wrecking today! Yay! I felt that I need to get back to wrecking again so I decide to do a simple exercise.

First I picked up the journal with my arms from the table and then I picked it up from the floor with my feet and flung it on the couch next to me. (The little drawings are mine)

Pale, swollen feet. Yuck! But they're clean and odor free at least. LOL

A little hint to other wreckers that also suffers from pain and aches in feet and legs due to medical problems. Don't do this! It's really painful!

I'm still proud of myself for succeeding but the clever solution to this exercise would of course be to ask someone to pick it up with THEIR hands. That wouldn't have involved MY hands at all but it would have been less painful. (It would also have saved me from showing this embarrassing photo of my pale and swollen feet. LOL)

Yay! A fellow wrecker!

2009-08-09T14:14:00.003+02:00

I've really missed having a fellow wrecker to share this experience with, it's much more fun that way. But my old fellow wreckers have taken a lot longer breaks than I have (so I really SHOULDN'T feel guilty for only updating once a week, I AM still updating after all) so I've been a lone for a while now.

But recently a friend of mine has gotten brainwashed and she's both ordered a journal of her own and started a new blogg for it.

Felicity's Wreck This Journal

Weekly Updates: 20 + 21 weeks

2009-08-02T19:55:00.003+02:00

This time I'll have to do a combined update because I'm WAAAAYYYY behind as always. *blush* The balcony blog is taking up most of my blogging time at the moment (and I have less blogging time as it is during the summer)

20 weeks

21 weeks

This is what I do instead of journal wrecking these days!
(at least ONE of the things I do)

Crossword puzzles is a summer thing for me, just like jigsaw puzzles belong between Christmas and New Years. I guess the difference is that it's a lot easier to carry around the crossword puzzle and solve it outdoors as well. That's just a liiiitle bit tricky with jigsaw puzzles. LOL

Weekly Update - 19 weeks +

2009-07-23T01:59:00.002+02:00

*tiptoes in* *hopes no one notices that this weeks update is late*

Oh, are you here already? Late??? How? Me??? No! Never!!! Okay, maybe a little bit then... but it's not my fault it's the... eh... internet connect... eh maybe not... the weather... eh... well... someone else's... okay... maybe it IS my fault... SORRY!!!

Anyway, I have some sad news for you! It's the end of an era!!! The fruit sticker page is full! :o( I know you will all miss it badly!

Look! All full!

But the things is that I can't just stop collecting fruit stickers now so I decidde to use the idea I came up with last week; from now on the fruit stickers will be glued on the cover instead.

Look! Not full yet!

Plenty of space left and now the cover will actually change every week as well. Yay! This blog will all of a sudden be sooooo much more interesting. LOL

Time for some old stuff!

2009-07-19T19:32:00.003+02:00

Phew! It's a good thing that I have some "Old Stuff" to show you when I'm too lazy to take photos of the weekly update (I photographed all the olds stuff a log time ago). It's also good to use it as a "filler" when I'm to lazy (or busy) to do actual wrecking to show you. The summer just isn't the best wrecking time for me. I'm too busy at the moment. But don't worry, I haven't given up on the journal yet, you can just se it as a bit of vacation.

Anyway, this is the last old stuff I have to show you so I'd better get my act together later. LOL

These are some cats I panted with oil pastel crayons back in -93. Oil pastels aren't my kind of medium. I like things that are more precise like watercolor or pencils.

Weekly Update - 18 weeks

2009-07-11T21:39:00.003+02:00

Time for another ones of these. And yes, now my internet connection SHOULD be properly fixed!

As you can see the internet connection isn't the only thing that's been fixed, I've also fixed up the poor turquoise flower a bit.

LOTS of new green apple stickers! This page is soon full, I wonder what I will do then? I don't want to stop collecting fruit stickers until I've finished the journal (and at the speed I'm wrecking at the moment this will take quite some time). Maybe I should glue them to the cover instead? That should save up on photos I have to show in my weekly update. LOL

The stamp page is far from full though. I'm eating loads of fruits but I don't get as many mails with stamps (not even if I include the ugly not-really-stamp-looking ones)

BTW,I'm saving the post cards in the journal as well. They're a part of the history.

No English stamp!

2009-07-09T15:30:00.002+02:00

Nooooo! Look what the evil British post office has done! This isn't a stamp! Stamps are not supposed to look like THIS! *sob* LOL Of course I will still put it in the journal though. It might not LOOK like a stamp but it sure worked like one. And it will also fill up a lot of space. LOL

I'm as thrilled about the content as I was with the Danish stamps but it's way too off topic this time too.and this time you can't even take comfort in looking at pretty stamps. You poor things! I wonder if I will lose and readers because if this ugly non-stamp? *worried* LOL

Weekly Update - 17 weeks +

2009-07-08T14:28:00.009+02:00

At least it isn't MY fault this time that the weekly update is late, VERY late. In fact it's time for a new one again tomorrow. Ooops! LOL But since my camera and my internet connection are in no way related the photos were actually taken in time (besides the Danish stamp one that was taken this Monday but I'm sneaking it in here anyway LOL).

The poor turquoise flower is getting more and more messed up for every week now. Poor, poor flower! And even the ugly pink flower in the corner has gotten a touch of something since it's started to look a bit loop sided.

The beloved fruit sticker page has been updated with some new apple stickers (and maybe a banana sticker as well, I don't remember any more) And I've got some new stickers that I need to put in before the week 18 update as well.

Last week I got a post card from my mom with a new stamp. Isn't Sweden a beautiful country? I like that the stamp page is inspiring people to actually send post cards again. People (including myself) never do that anymore (at least not as long as you don't go abroad on vacation) Post cards and real snail mail letters are a dying form of communication, stamps are really expensive and e-mails are a lot faster. I used to send loads of post cars and looong letters before, but instead I send loadse-mails these days. In many ways a prefer e-mails, faster and cheaper is really good in this case, but real post cards are a lot prettier.

An talking about stamps, I've gotten my Danish stamps!!! I've gotten my Danish stamps!!! *dances around* Not I'm not completely crazy (only about 50%) I'm not THAT ecstatic over the stamps, I'm that ecstatic over the content they brought to me. Unfortunately for you that content is too off topic to belong in this blog, but at least you get to see the stamps LOL

BTW, my internet connection is far from fixed so I might disappear again because of it.

Internet problems and a new wrecker

2009-07-08T13:09:00.003+02:00

I've had problems with my internet for quite some time now. But of course it's just started to work in time BEFORE the technician will arrive.

I'm WAY behind with my weekly update because of this (as in almost a week late) but I'll try to post it today (as long as my internet connection will last)

I DO have SOME news though, my sister-in-law has started to wreck her own journal and has just opened a blog of her own Fay's Wreck Journal (in Swedish though so some of you might feel left out, but I promise to compensate you with fruit stickers and stamps LOL)

Sweet smelling flowers!

2009-07-02T02:51:00.002+02:00

Doesn't this page look pretty? It smells just as wonderful as well!

My original idea for this page (one of the first I planned when I got the journal in March) was to cover it with rose petals since I LOVE the smell of roses. But I changed my mind and used dried Mock-Oranges instead (Schersmin for Swedish readers).

These flowers are picked on a very wonderful family picnic last week and I wanted to keep them as a memory. My apartment have smelled absolutely wonderful for several days and even as dried they still smell lovely, just weaker.

The background is a lovely addition caused buy this page.

Weekly Update - 16 weeks +

2009-06-30T02:46:00.002+02:00

I'm a little bit late with the weekly update this time. It's summer! I've been busy doing summery things! You just have to live with it! LOL (As I'm sure you all though very well. I doubt many people's existences will be shaken to the core if this measly blog updates a bit late. LOL)

The poor turquoise flower is looking more and more mangled but I felt that we all needed a happy change to the cover as well so I've added a new fresh ant. After the other ants are a lot more mangled than the turquoise flower. Poor ants! LOL

And loooooook! More fruitstickers! Yay!!!!

Nothing new on the stamp page though. I'm still waiting for my Danish and English stamps.

Some quick cat sketches

2009-06-25T11:15:00.002+02:00

Time for some "Old Stuff" again. I did these quick ink sketches of my darling Ragdoll Elvira back in -96. She's the mother of my crazy bunch and I still miss her a lot (I lost her in 2006)

Stamps and stickers!

2009-06-23T23:44:00.003+02:00

I've started to feel sorry for you. It was a loooooong time since I showed you the fruit sticker page now, wasn't it? I'm sure you all miss it badly so here it is! LOL

One new banana sticker and a whole bunch of apple stickers!

This Monday I got a post card from Rome (It's Fontana di Trevi and a kittycat) and a new post card of course means a nice new ITALIAN stamp for my stamp page. *jumpsofjoy* LOL

Look! Now I've got TWO!!!

And I'm also expecting stamps from both Denmark and England that I'm looking VERY much forward too. Eh well, maybe it's not so much the actual stamps that I'm looking so much forward to but the contents of the packages the stamps in question will bring to me. LOL

A pile of leaves - part 2

2009-06-20T23:37:00.007+02:00

Now I'm finally done with the leaf gluing that I talked about earlier. I just had to wait for the yellow and maroon speckled flower to dry first. I really wanted to add that one to in to the mix since one of the speckles looks like cute little heart.

See the heart?

Those of you that read my Balcony Blog
might recognize the freckled violet.

I also did this page today and no, it's not a happy page. I almost scribbled through the paper even. Moodwise I could have continued for quite a while but I didn't want to ruin the colored stripes on the next page.

Weekly Update - 15 weeks

2009-06-19T01:51:00.002+02:00

I guess I've been a bit busy with other blogs this week, like my Balcony blog and today helping a friend creating her blog (no, not a "WTJ-blog" unfortunately) But other things like waiting for a particular flower to dry for the dried leaves page and a bit of health issues have also kept me from wrecking. And I don't even have a fruit sticker page to show you this week! Will you ever forgive me? LOL

But anyway, this is how the journal looks right now. The flowers have been a bit mangled and the paper chain is getting more and more flat, otherwise it looks the same as last week.

My Balcony Blog!

2009-06-17T03:41:00.004+02:00

See my personal description up in the right corner, I've already told you that I'm crazy. LOL As if one blog wasn't enough, now I've started a second blog. This time about my balcony. I've got to do SOMETHING with all the balcony photos I take, don't I? LOL

Welcome!

More cat sketches

2009-06-14T18:29:00.003+02:00

I thought is was time for some of my old sketches again. I hope you haven't grown tired of cat sketches by now! But if you have you can skip right to the last image since that ISN'T a cat. *faint* LOL

-94

-95

-95

-95

-95

-95

The view from my kitchen window in -95
(I've move 4 times since)

Weekly Update - 14 weeks

2009-06-11T20:56:00.005+02:00

Yay, this week the journal is at home again for the weekly update. I can't believe it's been 14 weeks already, that's more than three months! (I got the journal March 5th) And while I don't wreck as much as I did in the beginning when I sometimes updated the blog several times a day I still enjoy this experience very much. It's given me a lot and the journal is very dear to me (ackkk, I still have some destructive stuff left to do to it. *shudder*)

The cover of the journal hasn't changed much since last time you saw it, the paper chain is a bit flatter and the ant that still has a head is about to lose it. (Eh, if you're new to this blog, those black "thingies" next to the title once looked like ants. LOL) But then again it looks A LOT different since last week's kind of invisible update. LOL

And lookie, lookie, I've finally been able to start on the stamp page. Yay! With ONE entire stamp! LOL This page will be really hard to do since it's supposed to be stamps that I've actually gotten on mails and I want it to be stamps I've actually gotten during the wrecking period. So far I've gotten this stamp, and this stamp only. After all these days you mostly get e-mails instead of snail-mails and the only thing that arrives in my physical mail box are bills and the paper version of spam, both of these come with out stamps. I think I might have to puppyeye more people in to sending me postcards with stamps for this page. *tilts my head and tries to look really cute with large, begging doggy eyes*

Oh, on a side note, my washing machine all of a sudden decided to start working again last weeek, I mean in case you've woried about it. LOL

Fruit stickers and journal golf!

2009-06-10T14:08:00.008+02:00

Aaaah, finally time for some fruit stickers again! :o) I just KNOW how much you've missed them. LOL But since the stickers needed to spill over to the left side now I first needed to finish the journal golf challenge on the other side of that page.

I started off with putting the journal on the table and tried to flick the ball through with my fingers. That worked after a couple of tries (it takes quite bit of force to make it go all the way through actually) But kicking the ball through the journal with my foot was just impossible. The journal kept sliding and there's no way to get enough force to make the ball go all the way through without missing the narrow opening. I've never been that much a of ball person and socks on a slippery floor didn't help much either. But the finger-flicking could still be considered "hitting" so that will have to do for this challenge.

A failed finger flicking attempt, but it still made for a cool photo

Yes, I have striped socks. LOL And you would wear thick socks too if you had to endure this cold, rainy, misty so called "summer". *shudder*

I glued the page back in to the journal afterwards.

And FINALLY, the much awaited fruit sticker page - now on the left side as well. And guess what, it seems like the cheap store could afford to put stickers on some of their fruits as well now. Way to go cheap store! (I just hope it doesn't increase their prices)

Home Sweet Home!

2009-06-09T23:54:00.002+02:00

Yay! My journal is home again! I've missed it (and not JUST because I had to put the fruit stickers on my desk lamp while waiting for the journal LOL)

It was really exciting to see the public drawing page. I don't feel like it's 100% done yet though since for some reason neither my mom nor her friend drew in it, only the other women at the weaving class. I will have to convince them to add their contributions as well later on.

Time to finally start to glue some things in to the journal again, like stamps, fruit stickers and leaves.

I got a postcard today!

2009-06-08T23:43:00.000+02:00

Cute isn't it? I got it from my mom. What's important with the postcard (and what makes in on topic for this blog) isn't the cute kitties on the front though, it's the stamp on the back.

Since I'm desperate for stamps to the journal stamp page my mom decided to send me a card so I would at least have ONE stamp (you're supposed to used stamps you've actually gotten on mails/cards and I don't want to cheat and use old stamps or someone else's stamps) Now I just need to remove it without destroying the card and get my journal back as well.

Weekly Update - 13 weeks

2009-06-04T23:42:00.003+02:00

I guess It'll have to post a blank photo now when the journal is gone. LOL I need SOMETHING to post for week 13 in my weekly update list after all. So here it is, a photo of my empty living room table. LOL

The journal has gone to live with my mom for a week. One of the exercises is to hang the journal in a public place and invite people to draw in it. Since I'm retired due to my health problems I don't have access to any good public place like a work place or anything like that and it wouldn't feel right just to hang to journal outside as a fragile victim to weather and complete (and unreliable) strangers.

Instead I've asked my mom to take the journal with her to her weaving class today and ask her fellow weavers to draw something for me. They're still strangers to me but the journal will be in safe hands so I know it will not be completely ruined or stolen. Phew!

So no cover photo today and no fruit sticker photo either. Sad, so sad! LOL I DO have some new fruit stickers to glue in the the journal when I get it back though (and of course the leaves from yesterday as well) I know you're all looking forward to seeing them. LOL

A pile of leaves!

2009-06-03T17:58:00.002+02:00

A pile of leaves, that's all that's left of my dear, old journal!

No, don't worry, it's not gone for good. My journal has just taken a week long vacation from me to search it's own adventures. It's in safe hands and will return to me next week at the latest. Where it is? Nooo, that's a secret, at least until my weekly update tomorrow. I've got to have SOMETHING to use to tempt you with so you'll return to the blog even with the journal on vacation. LOL

A bit tied up

2009-05-31T23:45:00.004+02:00

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

2009-05-30T11:52:00.003+02:00

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

2009-05-29T13:32:00.003+02:00

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!!!

2009-05-28T15:37:00.003+02:00

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

2009-05-23T01:53:00.007+02:00

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

2009-05-16T01:28:00.003+02:00

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

2009-05-11T12:24:00.006+02:00

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...

2009-05-10T22:07:00.002+02:00

... 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 +

2009-05-09T16:29:00.001+02:00

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!!!

2009-05-08T00:34:00.002+02:00

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

2009-05-06T01:06:00.003+02:00

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!

2009-05-04T23:39:00.004+02:00

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

2009-05-03T16:51:00.003+02:00

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!

2009-05-01T23:27:00.004+02:00

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!

2009-05-01T23:08:00.003+02:00

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

2009-05-01T00:52:00.003+02:00

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

Watercolors and Vacations

2009-04-30T15:10:00.002+02:00

For about 20 years ago (Eeeek! I'm OLD!!!) my mom and I used to go on vacations together evere summer, just the two of us. We packed everything we needed in the car and then we just drove around in Sweden, rented a new cabin each night, talked, cried, laughed, argued, had an absolutely wonderful time and grew really, really close. I think those vacations are the reason I these day consider my mom to be my very best friend and soul mate. (That and the fact that I DO have the best mom in the world, as yes, she DOES read this blog so what else can I say? LOL)

Anyway, this particular summer (probably the summer of -91) I brought my watercolors and we spent some time painting together.

In this particular case we'd placed some food items between us on the table and were painting the same objects, just from different angles.

We also did the same thing with some rocks and an elder flower.

Afterwards we held our on private art exhibition on the cottage couch. LOL Unfortunately it was quite dark in that end of the cottage and this photo is scanned more than ten years ago on a really crappy scanner (the original photo is packed away in a box somewhere where I can't reach it ) so the image quality is REALLY bad, but still...

The ~~two~~ 1½ paintings on the left are mine and the ~~two~~ 1½ on the right are my mom's (the very right one is the view through our window)

And here is a close up of the vegetable from both sides.

Beware of Cats and TV!!!

2009-04-28T17:57:00.005+02:00

The instruction says "This page is a sign. What do you want it to say?" and well in my case it's not so much want I WANT a sign to say, I NEED a sign like this. LOL

And *faint* it's painted with non-sparkly water color! LOL

There really should have been three cats though, or even five. :o( I've lost three of my fur babies within the last 6 year (the last two within 2½ years). I miss them all badly!!!

The two I've still got are crazy enough to still require a sign like this though. And BTW, the text is supposed to be lopsided (like it's been knocked over by the crazy kitties).

And while I had my water colors out I couldn't resist doodling on the flowers on the cover. Bad idea! The red/turquoise flower looked kind of okay until I added the stupid red lines but well, the pink felt one turned out bad from the start and then just got worse. LOL

Well, what can I say, I was watching TV, one of the main characters died in a fire while trying to rescue a child (and his wife had just found out that she was pregnant). It was sad, I got distracted and you really shouldn't try to paint on fuzzy fabric materials anyway. LOL

But the cats sign still looks nice (no one died in that episode. LOL)

Faded Ink

2009-04-28T12:52:00.002+02:00

For this page I choose to sample my ink pads. The idea was probably to sample substances you usually don't use on papers but ink is a substance too and I really WANTED to sample all my ink pads. Originally I had intended to sample my make up as well but the ink samples took up to much space and I like how the page looks now so I don't want to mess with it.

Unfortunately the pads themselves are a bit to soft to work really well as stamps, bBut I kind of like the old, faded look you'll get from this. SOME inks like "Faded Lavender" (second one on the first row) is a little bit TOO faded for my taste though. I think it's gone dry.

I particularly like my Distress Inks (the three, non-black, ones to the right) They're mostly used to make things look old, vintage and worn. I feel a bit tempted to use them for something now.

I'm also quite fond of my good silver ink pad even if the flowers I stamped on the cover of the journal didn't stick. (I blame that on the cover, not on the ink)

The journal has landed!

2009-04-26T00:47:00.002+02:00

Remember I promised to show the photo my brother took of the flying journal with his cell phone?

Here it is! Now my own photo from the balcony is actually better than this one but that doesn't really matter. This is still a documentation of the journal throwing process.

(And I'm not going to be more longwinded than this, just to shock you. LOL)

REALLY Old Stuff!

2009-04-25T13:53:00.004+02:00

Talk about OLD stuff! These drawings are from 1980 when yours truly were just eleven years. I still thought they would be fun to share here though.

I'm not just from the land of Abba, I'm from the land of the Sámi people and their reindeers too. Although, to tell the truth I live a lot further down south than they do (or rather where they originate from, these days the Sámi people of course live wherever they want and I actually believe the majority live in our capital, Stockholm, and I don't live a lot further south from Stockholm, just a tiny bit.) and I don't have any Sámi connection what so ever (I AM however the queen of long parenthesizes and longwinded explanations) that explains this drawing.

*phew* I need to catch my breath for a while now. LOL

Sweden also happens to be the land of the little red cottages with white corners. The very characteristic red color called Falu rödfärg/Falu red is made from pigments from a copper mine in the town Falun (hence the name) and it's very commonly used since it's both cheap and conserves the wood well.

*phew* Did I say longwinded explanations? LOL I hadn't planned for this update to turn in to a lesson about Sweden. LOL What I had INTENDED to write was that it looks like I'd started to use things like perspective when I was eleven, I just hadn't fully got the grasp of how it worked yet. But it seems like my brain accidentally slipped today and caused this unnecessary long post. Oooops! Sorry! LOL

Money, money, money...

2009-04-24T23:16:00.002+02:00

... must be funny
in the rich man's world
Money, money, money
always sunny
in the rich man's world
Aha-aaaa
All the things I could do
if I had a little money
It's a rich man's world

(after all, I DO come from the land of Abba. LOL)

Since I don't have a lot of money, money, money I thought I should try to make some of my own, just as I did as a kid. Maybe this wasn't the best method? I'm not sure the stores will accept these (especially not the Danish coins. LOL) Next time I will have to try my scanner instead. LOL

Weekly Update - 7 weeks

2009-04-23T23:21:00.003+02:00

Is it just me or do the weeks go SUPER fast at the moment? I feel like I'm doing one of these weekly updates every other day or so.

Not much has happened to the front of the cover since ~~the day before yesterday~~... eh... I mean last week. The chain is still intact, the flower is a bit damaged but both ants are actually still alive. *shock*

Even less has happened to the test page and the fruit sticker page so I promise not to bore you with those. LOL None of the fruits I bought yesterday had any stickers.

I've still done some wrecking today though, even of the destructive kind, it just doesn't show on the outside of the journal.

You know these days it doesn't bother me at all to poke holes in a page, and that EVEN if I've painted on the other size. I've changed! LOL It WOULD still bother me if it would have been one of my favorite pages though.

And actually I HAVE changed some, even outside the actual journal wrecking. I've made two decisions this week (VERY tiny to most people but still important to me) based on some of the insights I've gotten during this process. Nothing I feel like sharing in the journal though. And well one of the reasons is that you have to know me and my background story and current situation REALLY well for it to make any sense what so ever. LOL

Just playing with colors

2009-04-23T14:01:00.002+02:00

I just HAD to experiment a bit more with my sparkly watercolors, but now on a better paper. I love how the colors turned out but I'm less pleased with the doodles.

I really like how the black frame looks though. From certain angles it's completely opaque and black and from other angles you can see the underlying colors sparkle through.

Besides from being sparkly and shimmery this painting is also covered with tiny splashes of gold. You just have to take my world for how pretty the colors are IRL.

And speaking of doodles. I made another one of these while watching TV last night. Perhaps I should do some wrecking instead? LOL

Old Stuff

2009-04-23T02:27:00.004+02:00

I've decided to start a new category in the blog; "Old Stuff". I've been going through some of my old sketches and paintings (while looking for paper to use for doodles and color experiments and such.) And I thought it could be fun to take pictures of everything and show here on the blog.

Now keep in mind that the perspective might be a bit skewed because of the angle I've taken the photos in and some of the subtle hues in the sketches might not photograph very well. Also the sizes of the original varies which means some of the images have been shrunken a lot.

In an effort to be nice and not overwhelm you completely I will not show everything at once but there will be an "Old Stuff" update every now and then. Nothing will be shown in chronological order though, it's just in the order which I've taken the photos, to make things easier for me.

So should I stop taking and actually post some pictures then ? LOL

Cat -95

Quick doodle of one of my guinea pigs "Lillgisen" -97

Cat -95

Domherre/Bullfinch (undated)

Kitten -95

Cat -95

Yes, I like cats. Didn't you know that by now? LOL

Explosion of colors!

2009-04-21T00:36:00.010+02:00

I LOVE this page! Unfortunately it's one of those pages you really can't photograph very well. You just can't capture the hues of these colors or how they shimmer and sparkle. It looks absolutely amazing IRL.

with flash

lamplight only

For those of you that don't have your own copy of the journal, the circle and the text are printed, the rest of the black shapes are painted by me. And the ant-holes are of course from when I when I were supposed to cut through several pages.

It looks really good with the chain, doesn't it?

I really loved working with all these colors. I'm one of those color-matching people that are really picky with colors and I have beautifully color-matched home in white, pink, green and roses (yes, roses is a colors, didn't you know? LOL). I also have very color-sensitive eyes that can pick out very tiny differences in hues and sometimes I even find mismatched colors stressful. (It's like a good music ear but with eyes and color instead) But because of this it's really fun and liberating to mix colors a bit wild and crazily in the journal. This is something I have to practice a bit more.

The downside with my twinklies (that's what those shimmering colors are called) is that they bleed through the journal paper. On the other hand, sometimes that can create fantastic looking backsides. (I haven't actually started to work on this page yet, but I still had to show how it looks)

The colors bled through to this side as well but this one I decided to finish tonight. I started it the bottom left corner and I think I did fairly okay. (In case you can't read it because of the ant-hole, the first word is "close".

Weekly update - 6 weeks

2009-04-16T23:45:00.000+02:00

Yay! This time I've actually DONE some wrecking since the last weekly update. April has been a bit slow when it comes to wrecking (at least compared to the very, very busy March). On the other hand April has been busy when it comes to a lot of other, non WTJ-related, stuff.

Anyway...

Remember that I promised you to finish the paper chain after I'd sent the journal flying? Here it is!

I've seen people tuck their chains in to little plastic pockets to keep them safe (but flat) but I decide to firmly chain it (silly pun actually intended LOL) to the journal and let it dangle loose, a fragile victim to future adventures. (And how many of you believe that the chain will end up in a little protective pocket before next weekly update? LOL)

This is how the journal looks today, chain and all. (note the poor ant)

I realized that it was a long time since I showed to the progress of the fruitpage. I still eat just as much fruit (I will grab a couple of persimmons and maybe a pear after I'm done blogging) but unfortunately most fruits come without stickers, only two new stickers in the last three weeks (and one of them I found at my mom's during Easter) I wonder if a fellow wrecker is nicking all the fruit stickers in the store? LOL

And since I've forced the fruit sticker page upon you I can just as well bore you with the test page as well. After all, this IS the weekly update (not that I show it EVERY week, I don't want to bore you TOO much, just a little bit. LOL)

Spring has sprung!

2009-04-15T21:59:00.006+02:00

I've had a hard time deciding which word to use for this exercise. At first I had planned to use the word "katt" (cat), which of course is a word with a lot of meaning to me. I had even planned to create a painting made from the word cat in different colors.

Then I started to think that maybe the word "frihet" (freedom) would be interesting to use,. Maybe it would make me think about all of those things freedom means to me.

And these last days "trött" (tired) have been the only word on my mind. *yawn* (One of the ~~funny~~ things in life when you're suffering from CFS.)

But today my mom and I went on a wonderful trip looking for spring flowers and then I decided that I wanted to dedicate this page to trying to capture this day and use the word "vår" (spring), my favorite season of them all.

The flowers I've used for the border are the first spring flowers here in Sweden. First comes the yellow Tussilago ( Tussilago farfara). The next one to follow is the blue Blåsippa (Anemone hepatica or Hepatica nobilis) and then last of the three, that we just saw a few of today, the Vitsippa (Anemone nemorosa). As you can see the names Blådsippa and Vitsippa are quite similar, the only thing that differs are the colors "blå" and "vit". (I think you're all clever enough to understand those colors without translation. LOL)

Maybe I SHOULD have used the word cat instead? LOL My cats love to participate every time I take photos. In their minds nothing can be as important to take a photo of as a cat. LOL This little lady, almost crawling in to the camera, is the same furball that wanted to take a shower with me and the journal earlier.

Killer penguins!!!

2009-04-13T02:10:00.001+02:00

This weekend I took the chance to get some help to do the "Ask a friend to do something destructive to this page" challenge. Both my sister-in-law and her niece were VERY willing to help be out with that one. LOL And they both took their chances to draw some really destructive stuff.

The niece, Vanja, started by drawing a really destructive guy and lots of other destrucicve stuff like a rope, a gun, drugs and a razorblade (and a teddybear! LOL). I've seen a photo of the guy in question and the resemblance is actually VERY good (besides the fact that the tattoo is on the wrong side which is why she turned the page in to a mirror LOL) And before you start to worry, "niece" doesn't mean that she's child, she's 22. LOL

Vanja found it very therapeutic to work with my journal (yes, she's pretty tempted to get one of her own now. I'm good at brainwashing people LOL)

And that sister-in-law of mine has a REALLY destructive imagination. LOL I mean what else can you say when someone draws an Easter painting with killer penguins???? (Maybe that I start to fear for the safety of brother. LMAO)

As I said before "Glad Påsk" means Happy Easter but when it's painted with dripping blood I'm not sure that the Easter will be very happy. *shudder*

There's an emo angel in the upper left corner looking down at the scene where a carnivorous penguin called "Slaktarn (The killer) is flying away (Eeek!" Killer penguins can fly!) with a chicken crying for help, a vegan penguin is just a about to kill a Daffodil and a third one has just killed the Easter bunny.

I'm not sure if my sister-in-law found it therapeutic or not but she's ordered her own journal the same day. LOL

After they drew this Vanja wondered if I STILL thought I had the most wonderful friends (as I mentioned a few posts ago) and my mom said that well, I might have wonderful friends but I didn't get to pic my relatives. LOL But destructive paintings or not, I still think both these girls are quite wonderful (and I'm not saying this JUST because I've invited them to read the blog LOL)

Flying Easter wreckings

2009-04-13T02:08:00.000+02:00

Yay, I know you've all been waiting for it! The journal throwing!!!

It was fast and pretty uncomplicated. A fall form a second story balcony didn't do that much harm to the book. And no, that's NOT my sister-in-law, that's my brother. LOL Hopefully he'll remember to send me the photo he took with his cellphone so I can add it to the blog later.

A few of the pages got a bit crumpled but the biggest "damage" was that a button fell off from the "white stuff page". I guess I can live with that, and if not I can always glue it back. LOL

And talking about damage, the ants on the front page are starting to look a bit tired. LOL

On my way over to my mom's this Friday I borrowed a pen from my brother and did the "Lines while in motion" page (No, I wasn't the one driving. LOL) A drawing IS still made of lines, isn't it? LOL To the left a chicken and to the right a "påskris" ("Easter-twigs" = birch twigs with colorful feathers attached) both typical Swedish Easter decorations. "Glad Påsk" means "Happy Easter".

This isn't the prettiest page I've ever made. LOL But I was too busy discussing journal wrecking with my brother and his wife. (The blue stuff is paint on the back of my "sea of circles")

Ghost visitors?

2009-04-12T23:45:00.002+02:00

It seems like I've gotten a whole bunch of "ghost visitors" (most likely URL-spamming bots) lately. They're showing up in my Live Traffic Feed but not on my stat counter so there's something iffy about them. And I find it highly unlikely that sites with counterstrike hack are linking to my blog. LMAO "Visitors" like this are so annoying! I prefer real people, thank you! And people that are actually interested in the blog as well. I hope they'll stop coming her soon! (Well, one can at least HOPE!)

Okay, now I'm done ranting, now I'll go back to preparing the latest wrecking photos. LOL

Happy Easter!

2009-04-10T12:17:00.001+02:00

I'll spend my Easter with my family and I'll try to see if I can convince someone (my Sister-in-law most likely) to help me out with the journal throwing. I just wanted to wish you a Happy Easter first!

Wreckly update - 5 weeks

2009-04-09T17:08:00.013+02:00

I've been on an unplanned, involuntarily and not fun at all break for a couple of days more. One of my cats got really ill and I had to put him to sleep yesterday. He was 15 years old and had been on medications for a year already so I guess this was kind of expected but it's still just as painful. :o( But well, this is not a personal diary kind of blog so I'll prefer to focus on the journal wrecking instead. It keeps me from thinking too much as well. (Or well, journal wrecking DOES of course make me think but not the sad kitty thoughts)

This is how the journal looks after 5 weeks. Today I decided to put a cat sticker on the cover in honor of my Bissen. Now he was a blue color point Ragdoll so he doesn't look at all like this cat but his style was still the same. There's also a sticker below that says "To err is human, to purr, feline".

As you can tell, the journal is looking less and less flat these days (and I still haven't had a chance to do the journal throwing or anything else very destructive)

A couple of days ago (Monday???) I did this list of 12 more ways to wreck the journal. It's me though so don't expect things to be REALLY destructive. LOL Still some of them might be quite hard (at least to me).

1. Cut borders along the edges of some pages

2. Wash a page with soap and water (since the washing machine ruined the page a bit too much. LOL)

3. Wash a decorated page with soap and water (Now things are getting more difficult)

4. Doodle on all pages (This one I like more LOL)

5. Decorate a page with words and objects that starts with the same letter

6. Paint a page with make up

7. Create a painting made of dots

8. Decorate the journal with ribbons (I have PLENTY of ribbons! LOL)

9. Paint/decorate in orange/brown and 70's (Just the thought of this one makes me cringe - A LOT. I HATE those colors and that style. Most of the people that love style today didn't have to grow up during the 70's. LOL Even writing in orange is really yucky)

10. Dedicate a page to friendship (I have the most wonderful friends)

11. Fill a page with Quick Kutz cutouts (like the ants, not the holes but the actual ants)

12. Distress a page with Distress Ink

I kind of wish there were 12 blank pages to actually DO all of these. LOL

This is today's wrecking. Can you spot a VERY faint hint of turquoise inside the circle. IRL, you can at least KIND OF see it in the right light.

I knew from the first time I saw this one that this one would be really hard. We don't exactly have that much of color staining candy in Sweden and if we do I wouldn't know what it was anyway. It's not the kind of candy I eat a lot of. LOL On the rare occasions I DO eat sweets I prefer chocolate.

Anyway, yesterday I discovered that my mom had found some really suspicious looking candy for the Easter eggs and I was right, those awful, scary looking turquoise eyes really DID stain my tongue a bit. It wasn't enough to actually stain the journal a lot though but at least I tried.

To continue the theme I decorated the page with awful turquoise eyes (they're not SUPPOSED to look pretty). I had planned to save the last candy eye to use in the photo but I accidental ate half of it. LOL They didn't taste as awful as they look (even though I really felt like brushing my teeth afterwards. LOL) so you have to settle for half an eye. LOL

Now I have to go edit my personal description. Not fun at all. :o(

Weekly update - 4 weeks +

2009-04-06T14:49:00.003+02:00

I'm baaaaaack!!!

As you can tell the journal looks pretty much the same as it did last time I showed you the cover. Exactly the same actually, but at least it's a new photo. LOL And at least it looks different from what it did at the 3 week update.

I know it's gone 4½ week now but this IS how the journal looked last Thursday, and actually how it looks today as well.

I've had an absolutely wonderful time with my friend (lots and lots of chatting) but we just didn't have enough time for journal wrecking. We thought about it for several times (I know she even had plans for the friend-wrecking page involving a Stanley knife and a cutting board) but we'll time ran away from us. And since she'll move back to Australia now I will have to find some other friend to do the wrecking for me.

And nooo journal throwing either were done, both because of lack of time and the fact that I got a lumbago which messed up our plans.

Eeeek! I haven't done any wrecking for a loooooong time. I'd better do something about it! If not my journal might start to feel too safe. LOL

I'm taking a break now

2009-03-31T22:24:00.003+02:00

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!

2009-03-30T23:06:00.003+02:00

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

2009-03-29T03:05:00.001+02:00

Flames of destruction

2009-03-27T14:41:00.002+01:00

*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

2009-03-27T01:42:00.004+01:00

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

2009-03-27T01:35:00.004+01:00

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)

2009-03-26T02:09:00.010+01:00

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...

2009-03-24T21:47:00.005+01:00

... 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!

2009-03-23T18:08:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-23T02:52:00.003+01:00

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)

2009-03-21T04:16:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-21T00:14:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-20T23:45:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-20T01:32:00.003+01:00

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

2009-03-19T18:07:00.004+01:00

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

2009-03-19T01:28:00.015+01:00

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

2009-03-17T01:17:00.011+01:00

"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

2009-03-16T13:37:00.010+01:00

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!

2009-03-14T13:34:00.002+01:00

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????

2009-03-13T22:19:00.004+01:00

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

Delight in colors!

2009-03-13T13:07:00.003+01:00

It really makes me happy to paint with all this bright, bold, sometimes even mismatching (that's a huuuge change for me) colors. And well, some pages makes me more happy than others.

We're starting off with black & white though because I really want to post these in the order I've made them. I used a large needle for my scratching and this page actually makes me happy too, even without colors. It's kind of interesting, that out of the work I've made so far the one that most closely resemble things I paint and draw outside this journal is something scratched with a needle. LOL

Some pages makes me happier than others and this is one of those. I really like this page for a reason I can't even explain to myself. It's just a happy page!

All of the stripes symbolizes something. First we have water followed by stone/rock. The rainbow symbolizes dream, fantasy and the inner spirit. Next comes fire followed by flowers for the nature, air and finally earth (with small tufts of grass). And above them all, love of course!

It didn't actually bother me to rip this page up, even if it's happy page. I guess one reason is that even though the things the symbolizes might be ripped apart from time to time love still ties them together.

And of course, having this page as the next one in the journal also helped, since I knew I would be able to fix what was broken.

I kept the edges still loose since I wanted to keep the ripped feeling and they're just fastened with glue dots to give a less than permanent touch to it as well (even thought the glue dots are the permanent kind)

This page I like just for the pretty and matching colors. LOL I'm sucker for matching colors.

I have a very sensitive color eye which means that I can tell very vague hues apart. This makes me sensitive to mismatching colors even down to hue level and I REALLY hate being surrounded by ugly or boring colors . So working with bright, bold, mismatching colors and actually LIKING it IS a big thing to me.

One week update

2009-03-12T14:44:00.016+01:00

Time for the weekly update of the wrecking progress. I'm planning to post a photo of the cover for each week *points to the right side of the screen* to show what happens to the over all look of the journal.

It's no longer as flat, neat and pristine as it was a week ago. But it's more MINE now, more personalized and still in a pretty good shape.

The latest addition to the inside of my journal is my grocery list. Grocery lists are always boring but I tried to spice it up with sparkly pens and little stars. Not that it helped much. LOL I've also kept the receipt. In 10 years from now it can be interesting (read: tragic) to go bad to see how much the prices have gone up. Or well, I'm pretty sure I will be able to see a huuuge change even within a year. :o(

Liquid washing soap *
Baby oil
Fruit yoghurt
Kitty litter
Soured Milk **
Toilet paper
~~Salami~~ Meatballs
Tuna (cat food)
Muesli
Melon
Chicken wings
Läkerol ***
Crème Fraiche
Green cheese
Mango
Milk
Egg
Spareribs
Potato wedges
Oranges****

* more environmental friendly than detergent
** A bit similar to yoghurt, you eat it with cereal
*** throat pastilles (kind of)
**** Added after the photo was taken

Phew! Writing grocery lists in English is hard since I'm not sure all products even exist in English speaking countries. The Filmjölk/Soured milk is a typical Swedish thing and so is Läkerol (even though we've exported those to some countries)

Anyway, newly bought fruit also means new fruit stickers. Yummmmm!!! Fruit!!! 2 melon stickers (I really like the big one but the second on looks just like the old banana sticker), 4 mango stickers and some more orange stickers (not much stickers for all the oranges I've bought though but I didn't actually buy them for the stickers. LOL)

Thoughts and insights

2009-03-11T00:10:00.007+01:00

To the outsider journal wrecking might look just like a fun, a bit meaningless, creative project but that's far from true. Yes, it's both fun and creative but it's far from meaningless. It's actually quite the opposite!

When you do all these exercises they make you THINK. Sometimes you think about the exercises, maybe wonder why some tings feel harder to do than others, question your boundaries or wonder about what inspires you. But they also wake memories and thoughts that seemingly have nothing to do with the task you have at hand. The act of sleeping with the journal itself didn't give me anything but it DID make me sing a lullaby to the journal and that on the other hand woke a memory in me that symbolizes a lot more than I feel like sharing in a public blogg (it would also take me ages and thousands of words to summon up, you KNOW I'm longwinded. LOL)

A friend of mine *waves to Dustbunnie* talked about "free writing", a couple of days ago, as a way to connect with your unconscious and figure out what you REALLY think and feel about some things. I would like to add that "free playful creativity" also have the same effect.

I had hoped for this project to give me a deeper experience than the one you can see with your eyes and even this early in to the process (not yet a full week) I can already see that it's begun. And what's even more interesting is that it's already spilling over to my mom as well even though she's not participating in the project

Some of my thoughts and insights I will share in this blog but far from all of them. I DO however share all of them with my soul sister, my mom. And me discussing this project has given her insights about her self thoughts and creativity as well. Interesting!

I REALLY look forward to what I will learn from this project!

The first cut is the deepest...

2009-03-10T14:24:00.003+01:00

After all, that one went through five layers and the second one only went through the front page. (Okay, that's probably NOT what the song is about but give me some creative freedom here. LOL)

Nothing said I HAD to use a scissor to cut, did it? *completely ignores the image if a scissor*

The two ants in the bottom right corner are the holes, the other ones are the cut outs glued back.

I liked this so much that I decide to be brave enough to cut a hole in the cover as well. We're supposed to doodle on the cover but since the cover is black (and my white pen has dried out) I'm decoration it in other ways instead.

Yesterday's wrecking!

2009-03-09T16:20:00.006+01:00

Most of yesterday's wrecking to place in from of Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix (some of it took place in front of an episode of Bones though)

First I started with the page where I was supposed to draw thin and fat lines. For the first pink lines I started out with two different pens stuck together but I didn't like that much how that turned outs so I changed technique.

Then I continued with the left hand exercise. I started by drawing myself and my family (min familj=my family) The fluffy thing above the journal is the little light faced fluff called Duttis. LOL My cats LIKE to be involved with everything I do.

I also tried writing a bit which of course wasn't very easy.

Sigh! To write and draw with the left hand is difficult and my arm is starting to hurt. Writing is absolutely the most difficult.

I feel sorry for all left handed children that was forced to learn to write with the right hand back in the old days. I'm thinking about my grandmother that could write with both hands. I miss her!!!

Ouch my arm hurts! It's a good thing I've run out of paper.

(Just so you know, that last word does NOT mean what you think. LOL It's the Swedish word for end/over/finished)

By now I'd started to feel hungry so it was time for a little snack. Yum!!! LOL

I had dreaded this page a bit since everybody have said that it was so bitter but I just thought it tasted like paper and not much at all so I guess I've been lucky to get a tasteful book. LOL

Finally I ended with painting the edges. I STRONGLY recommend that you start off with this one while the journal is still nice and flat. Here I'm trying to keep it as flat as possible with the help of my twinklings (the shimmering watercolors)

I also thought it could be fun to show how my test-page look so far. I'm actually using to test colors for real.

And last of all a little bonus shot of Duttis. It looks like she's tried to eat a bite of a really bitter book bust she's actually just started to yawn.

A sea of circles

2009-03-08T18:49:00.003+01:00

This is the "Fill this page with circles" page and I really like it, messy lines, bleeding colors, wrinkled and buckled paper and all. I really like the idea and I really like all those shimmering blue and green colors. This is even an idea I might carry through to proper paper later on. I just whish I could show it to you for real because all this shimmering, sparkliness and semi transparency is more than my old camera can handle. But still, even the bad camera can't stop me from really liking this page.

När trollmor har lagt de elva små trollen...

2009-03-07T21:19:00.010+01:00

När trollmor har lagt de elva små trollen
och bundit fast dom i svansen,
då sjunger hon sakta för elva små trollen
de vackraste ord hon känner;

Ho aj aj aj aj buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff

When the troll mother has put the eleven little trolls to bed
and tied them down by their tails
she's singing slowly to eleven little trolls
the most beautiful words she knows;

Ho aj aj aj aj buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff buff
Ho aj aj aj aj buff

Yes, I did take the journal with it to bed last night and yes, I even sung my favorite Swedish lullaby to it; The troll mother's lullaby. I've tried to translate it to you but it takes a lot more words to say the same things in English so I doubt it would be possible to sing the translation (not that you know the melody anyway LOL) And part of the song is in trollish which I'm not able to translate. LOL

I've used color pencils and a very soft lead pencils (more suitable for shading while drawing for real then for outlines and writing) for this page to try to capture the soft and fleeting feeling of dreams (it will most likely become more messy and blurry after a while but so do dreams when you wake up)

On the right side I tried to "describe the experience" as requested. More Swedish for you to learn. LOL Or you can stick to reading the translation instead.

It felt a little bit odd to sleep with a book

Even more odd to sing a lullaby to it, but I miss singing

It was a bit bumpy and messy until I had found the right place for the book

Besides from that I didn't notice it at all and slept well

No special journal related dreams

I know, not a very exciting description but I have had more exciting company in my bed before. There just wasn't much to describe. LOL

I think the most important thing I've gotten from this is the realization that I miss singing. I use to sing a lot while younger but life sort of took that away from me. Maybe I should bring out my song books again?

Good night, don't let the bed book bite

2009-03-07T02:01:00.002+01:00

I'm a little bit too tired tonight to finish that page I started on earlier this evening. But since I am tired, the colors have dried and the book still isn't yucky and smelly I though it could be a good idea to do the "Sleep with the Journal (describe the experience here)" page instead.

I wonder if I should tell the Journal a good night story or maybe sing a lullaby before we go to sleep?

Grumble...

2009-03-06T21:14:00.003+01:00

The paper in the book doesn't agree at all with my colors. The felt tipped pens bleed through (can you hear the perfectionist in my crying about this? *giggle*) and it was REALLY hard to create the light washed watercolor background that I had in my mind. As soon as I put the tip of the brush to the paper it said schloooorp and all the water and paint got sucked in to the paper. *arghhhhh* *frustration*

On the other hand, without this problem I would never had invented the "toilet paper painting technique". LOL And without this problem I wouldn't feel tempted to bring out my proper watercolor paper to be able to better carry through my vision. I haven't actually brought it out YET but I'm tempted and I haven't felt tempted to paint with my watercolors for many, many, many years now.

We'll see how this will end. First I need (and WANT) to finish my idea in the journal, I just need the colors to dry completely first before I can continue. Curious? You SHOULD be! LOL

The wrecking has started!

2009-03-06T01:20:00.009+01:00

Let's take the most important thing first; This is fun, REALLY fun!

I began with and easy task, cracking the spine. This was just needed to be able to work with the other exercises.

Then I continued with the name page (I've blurred my address and phonenumber of course) The thing I'm most happy with on this page is "my name in white". I've used a shimmering watercolor called "Iridescent Violet". It looks white most of the time but shifts to iridescent, shimmering purple at the right angle. (Unfortunately it looks boringly grayish in this photo)

This page IS still blank, but the tiny rebel in me enhanced the letters a bit with the same iridescent violet (that didn't photograph very well here either)

I've also started my fruit sticker collection. This page will take quite some time to fill. I DO eat a lot of fruit but way too much of it comes without stickers.

So far I have three orange stickers at the top, one banana sticker and then an apple sticker at the bottom.

And talking about stickers... they ARE after all sticky, VERY sticky even. But unlike things like honey, gum and glue and things like that, stickers are more well behaved and only sticky on one side. They also look a lot prettier. And well, the author SAID that the instructions were open to interpretations. LOL

A lot of the stickers are sparkly (like the fishes and the small round stickers with flowers) or metallic (like the frogs) but that doesn't show very well in the photos. Others, like the big pink, white and grey flowers are thick and soft and makes the journal a bit bulky. But I'm pretty sure that in a couple of days the journal will be too wrecked to notice this. LOL

I became so inspired that I decided to put some stickers on the front as well. Again, the frog is metallic and iridescent IRL. I guess that the first thing the perfectionist in me has to let go of is the thought of perfect photos. LOL

Instructions

2009-03-05T23:08:00.002+01:00

1. Carry this with you everywhere you go

2. Follow the instructions on every page.

3. Order is not important.

4. Instructions are open to interpretation.

5. Experiment (Work against your better judgment)

I think I'll like rule number 4 the most. I like to do things MY way and it will also give me a chance to interpret some of the challenges I might not like in ways that makes me like them better. *sneeeeaky* LOL

This is really fun though! I've got lots of photos to show you in a little while.

It's here! It's here!!!

2009-03-05T13:18:00.005+01:00

Yay! My journal arrived today! :o)

Look at it! Look how brand new, shiny and pristine it looks! Unharmed, unused, undamaged, unpainted, UNWRECKED, pretty much un-everything! And yes, it actually IS all of these since I didn't allow myself to start the wrecking until I'd updated the blog. I really want to document this properly so when I say that it's still pristine, it really IS. But not for long though! Muahahaha!

I actually feel sorry for the poor thing... well almost at least. It could have ended up in far worse hands than mine. LOL I will even be nice to it (and myself) and start off with some of the less harmful wrecking exercises. I will rather put my pens to it than sink my teeth in to it (lets face it, people that have done so already say that it tastes bitter and yucky. LOL) But I sooo look forward to this!

LET THE WRECKING BEGIN!!!

Followers???

2009-03-03T00:06:00.004+01:00

I can't make up my mind if I like the "Followers" gadget or not... The main reason is that it DOESN'T WORK. *sigh* It worked for a little while yesterday when I added it but that's about it. *sigh again*

Sorry for boring posts about the blog, but well, what can I do when I haven't gotten my book yet. LOL *waiting, waiting* Also I want my newly created blog to be as perfect as possible so I need to whine a bit when it doesn't work.

Yes, I know, I AM a perfectionist. I think I might actually NEED this wrecking project to let go of at least a BIT of my perfectionism. LOL

It's black! It's black!

2009-03-02T03:47:00.001+01:00

I can't believe it's BLACK!

I'm talking about the layout of course. LOL

I've created countless of homepages, blogs and forums since I made my first home page 11 years ago and this is the first time I've done what I promised myself then that I would NEVER do. I've just created a BLACK layout!

*taking a short break to allowing people that know me to recover from fainting*

Black just isn't my color at all and black layouts are usually both dark, boring and hard to read. And not to mention all kind of weird black homepages I ran in to back in 1998. (I promise, there will at least not be any animated flags or spinning skulls here LOL)

The thing is that the Journal it self is black and will be filled with all the colors of the rainbows, hence the layout theme. And the purpose with Wreck This Journal is to challenge myself to do new and different things creatively so why not take the challenge even further?

So here I am now with a black layout that still manages to be both fun, colorful and easy to read. What can I say, it's never to late to change. LOL I hope you'll like it!

And so it all begins...

2009-02-28T15:49:00.003+01:00

Welcome to my brand new blog!

This blog is created as a way to document my journal wrecking. Who knows, I might decide to add other creative projects as well, but the journal wrecking will be the main focus.

So what IS "Wreck This Journal" you might ask? Well, it's both a book and a creative and artistic challenge.

To explain things as basic as possible, you buy this book (not very expensive luckily) and then you destroy it, in various creative ways. LOL Yes, I know it sounds insane but if your read the links below or just follow this blog it will make more sense after a while.

Official Homepage
Not very explanatory but you should check out the gallery!

A review of the "book"
Explains things a lot better

Wreck this Journal at Amazon.com
Explanations, photos and reviews

It will still take some days before my book arrives though. Waiting, waiting! But if you're really curious you can visit my friend Uniflame's blog.

BTW, even though I'm Swedish I will only blog in English but you will probably notice a Swedish word or two in my journal and if you prefer to comment in Swedish (or Danish or Norwegian) that's okay too.