While others are twittering away Christmas tutorials and doing December Crafts, I’m planning a trip to the sun. And with that I’m going to create my very first Travel Journal - can’t really decide what I’m most excited about. The going away or the journaling and documenting the going away…

I’ve dug through my big paper stash and taken out the papers I want to use in my Travel Journal, a kind of Art Journal for writing a lot while away - or at least that’s what I’m thinking now. If you have any ideas or suggestions for how to go about this please let me know, I’ve never had (or made!) a Travel Journal before!

I found these images torn from a science magazine in my stash of papers, they will go great in the travel journal!

I am very inspired by Mary Ann Moss of the blog Dispatch from LA (see links below to her own Travel Journal and classes), so I’m going to sew my pages together in some fashion. That’s my plan so far, and to add in lots of pages for writing. I’m not taking my ordinary Art Journal - or my diary! I’m just taking this and hoping to add lots to it during the week I’m away.

Spreading out all the images, scrapbook papers and painted papers to sew together the pages. But that is another post coming soon.

While planning these are some links that have inspired me to create a Travel Journal…

• Tips and Techniques to Bring Your Travel Journal Alive - an article where Kelly writes about the difference of a travel blog and a notebook to tuck things in and jot down quotes in. Interesting and inspiring read with quite a few fun traveling prompts for journaling.
• Pure Experimentation online class with Mary Ann, where she teaches people how to make a book much like her own travel journals with stitching and paper. I haven’t taken a class with her but I sure want to. Just looking at her photos of papers and journals is inspiration to me!
• Lisabon Travel Journal images by Mary Ann Moss. Lots of fun pages!
• Italy Travel Journal images by Mary Ann Moss, another travel journal shared online. Yay!
• Crazy Quilt paper - at Rambeling Rose blog, it’’s about how to emptying your scrap box and sewing papers together to make lager sheets, also see her Happy n’ scrappy post. Sewing papers is so much fun!
• I was watching Traci Bautista using her decoupage glue and making a very neat little journal on these videos below the other day. Oh my goodness, these videos are So Darn Inspiring to watch! I’m drooling over here, wanting to Create at Once!
• Not journal inspiration, but still worth checking out: My friend Maria has created a cute monster and the most amazing wood carved Christmas candle holders. They are simply beautiful.

And some videos you just have to watch;

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It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance.
It is the one who won’t be taken who cannot seem to give.
And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live…
/Bette Midler

I’m posting my Dia de los Muertos celebration photos a month to late, but a Swedish saying is “better later than never” and I will try that approach for now. I wanted to post these photos because they are so colorful and fun, and very unSwedish of course…

Just look, isn’t this table inspiration per se?

When I read in the paper that there would be a celebration of this holiday close by I just had to go and see it for myself. I’ve known about Day of the Dead for a few years now, and I read about it on many cool blogs each year. This year I experienced it myself at the Ethnographic Museum (Etnografiska museet) in Stockholm. Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. At the museeum they had put up a colorful table (ofrenda) with sugar skulls, flowers, beautifully cut paper flags and photos. The ofrendas are left out as a welcoming gesture for the deceased, like a offering of food, drinks and decorations for joy.

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This transparent make up bag is a great holder of my embroidery floss - I don’t need to empty it out to find the color I’m looking for - love that! Though maybe I need to organize my threads it a bit better some day…

This summer I have been doing some free form embroidery, as I mentioned earlier. I think of the sewing that I’m doing right now as experimenting and learning. No matter how much you read or look in great books sooner or later you have to dip your toes to really learn something. When doing a stitch you copy it to your brain and then you can make your own progress. It won’t be perfect, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m not aiming for perfect when sewing (or doing anything) - I always love that what comes out is so much me; imperfect but colorful and bright. I think that’s what I like most about evolving crafting into art, it mirrors my inside very well no matter how I feel. Giving yourself permission to try new techniques is a must. Sometimes we call that “play”. Experimenting with no end result in my mind makes us free (to play), to make mistakes and not worry about the finished piece.

Free form embroidery is very much a new art form for me, and I’m loving it more and more.

I love when the art I do is about the process not the end result, and I’ve been thinking about it since I started reading Michele Cassou and Steward Cubley’s book Life, Paint and Passion (reclaiming the magic of spontaneous expression) earlier this year. It’s a great book about painting without a plan, and the thoughts can be applied to any art form (for example embroidery).

When your art is about the process, the act of creating, you feel that you are not influenced by other peoples art too much and you don’t have to think about where the piece will be used or where it will end up hanging.
- Will anybody like this? becomes an unnecessary question. When you only concentrate on the process you will not get caught in those thoughts. You will keep going from one strand of embroidery floss to the next. To me, that is flow. And through my creative flow my true art is born.

I’ve been sewing layers of different fabrics to the background, using different loose stitches to attach the material to the background fabric. It feels like doing collage but without the speed and ease of a glue stick. Embroidery, is as I’ve talked about before, a slow process. A meditation where you can not hurry for results. This is good for me because I often feel a longing when I craft for The Finished Product. The End. But I know that it’s the road that makes the trip worth while, not the end of the journey, so slow is good.

Slow is not stressful or productive. It just is. It is mindfulness for sure, and after a while you might feel the “flow” of non-thinking and “just doing”. Not much planning is needed here. When you finish you might want to hurry on to the next thing, to start up a new project quickly - but when you are in the midst of the project you should really enjoy it.

At night I sometimes lay out my work by the bed so I see it first thing when I wake up. It makes for a nice start of that day.

Paint some pages in your Art Journal black and come over to the dark side with me!

Gee, my black paint was starting to dry in the tube, it was about time I got around to using some black. But what to do with the page now, it’s so… dark… You dig through your stash of art materials and papers to see what would show up on such a black background.

These are my favorite finds in my own stash of pens, plus that white lace tape, some glitter glue and shiny stickers stars that “pop” against all thtat black. Journaling on black is difficult without “the right kind” of pens. When I started doing black backgrounds after Michelle Ward’s prompt Come over to the Dark Side in Crusade #34 I didn’t think I would have any pens that would work on black, but after some digging I found out I had quite a few. Gelly roll pens from Sakura for journaling, white and metallic colors are great! I did a page that was kind of a test page for all the pens but also a celebration of Dia de los Muertos:

Art Journal spread with black background: Dia de los Muertos 2009 by iHanna.

View some close ups below and read the details…
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Sketch from April this year.

I’ve mentioned the TED Talks to a few friends recently and to my surprise found that one didn’t know what it was and the other thought the talks were only about technologies and therefore not interesting. So I thought that I would write a post to inform anyone who might have missed this eminent information and inspiration site what it is, and list some of the videos I think you should not miss!

Ted.com is a video site where “talks” by interesting people are posted, ideas worth spreading filmed at yearly conferences and spread through the internet to the whole wide world. You can download the talks as mp3 podcasts, subscribe to the RSS, view them online as video (sometimes texted in your own language!) or read/print the transcription of some talks!

These are my recommendations, let’s have a TED-moment:

* Chimamanda Adichie The danger of a single story
Writer Chimanada Adichie talks about how our world view is formed by many different stories, and how important it is to embrace diversity and to listen to both good and bad about a country - and not judge the world from “a single story”. I too believe in the power of stories, and loved this talk found in TED theme Master Storytellers! Lots more there to see.

* Karen Armstrong - the Charter for Compassion
Karen Armstrong is an author with provocative, original thoughts on the role of religion in the modern world. I recently read her book about Buddha’s life (it’s called just Buddha, and it’s a great read, I truly recommend it!).

* Bob Thurman - says we can all be buddhas
The first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama, Robert A.F. Thurman is talking about compassion and happiness. Among many smart things he says: “With all of us knowing everything, we’re kind of forced by technology to become Buddhas or something, to become enlightened.”

* Richard Dawkins - on militant atheism
Oxford professor Richard Dawkins urges all atheists to openly state their position - and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. A fiery, funny, powerful talk, not for the faint of heart - maybe only for the open minded? ;-)

* David Griffin - photography connects us
Photo director for National Geographic David Griffin knows the power of photography to connect us to our world. In his talk he shows images and talks about how we all use photos to tell our stories. Interesting!

* Dan Pink - on the surprising science of motivation
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories - and maybe, a way forward. I love how he talks about how motivational freedom is, and how important to creativity and new ideas it is!

* Alain de Botton - A kinder, gentler philosophy of success
de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure - and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He urges us all to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.

Many timed linked from other blogs, but if you have missed these are must-see:
Elizabeth Gilbert - on creative genious

What is a moment? -a video about moments found via molskinerie [via radiolab]

* Piano Escalator in Stockholm, more fun at Swedish rolighetsteorin.se or English the fun theory.com - because fun is more fun - and motivational obviously!

* My day yesterday - inspirational short clip video that I would want to make a version of my own some time… How about you?

Which is your favorite video?

Wallpapers could go on the wall, but nah… that’s not what I’m talking about here! There are many fun things to do with ye’ ol’ wallpapers. For example, instead of using ugly envelopes I sometimes wrap things that I’m sending in the mail in wallpaper, like this:

Sending stuff is much more fun when you have flowery wallpapers and lacy deco tape! These went out last week.

Wallpapers are thick and durable, and often decorative. I have a neat little collection of wallpapers going, one of my favorites is this yellow tulip wallpaper, but in my collection I have nothing vintage or luxurious - yet. I would be thrilled to stumble upon pink roses or medallion patterns (like these) in flea market barn sometime. That’s my wallpaper dream. Mmm….

It’s pretty papers, right? In a roll you get plenty and it’s often über cheap, or free. What I like to do with mine are for example:
1. Make pretty envelopes
2. Paint on top of them, to personalizing your projects even more
3. Use them in my collages and art journals
4. Make mini notebooks with the scraps
5. Wrap tin cans for storing pens in
6. Make new art journals

What do you do with your stash of wallpapers if you have one?

And what about this wallpaper, ugly or cool?

First I thought it was really ugly and boring, horrible color and boring plain pattern - but it’s growing on me…

I used it as a cover for this blue notebook and now I like it even more;

This is a notebook I’m using for interview questions and article notes. All it needs now is a red label!

Today I’m listening to the podcast Kelly’s korner while editing photos in Photoshop. Kelly recorded a talk with Suzi Blu and they talk about art combined with family, bew love and a lifelong passion for painting and creating art.

I’m also reading (again) back in Malin’s overflowingly creative blog noodles and tea. You simply must check it out if you want some inspiration for painting or art journaling! I love Malin’s fun invention to combine the styles of Teesha Moore and Suzi Blu into what she calls Petit Zetti!

Oh, my brother just sent me this stop motion art movie that is quite impressive. I would love to make some stop motion some day. Wouldn’t it be cool for an art journal spread for example? to just see it move around and grow? Anyone tried this?

Art Journal spread:

Smilla love - on a page with a clear sense of autumn orange and autumn leaf inspiration. I used both pressed leaves collected on one of my walks, and half transparent stickers with leafs!

To view this spread in more detail and leave a comment click on…

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