Creating Masterboards and What to Do with Them

Paper Outpost uses "ugly" scrapbook paper, covers it up with papers, then stencils and stamps on it to create a really cool masterboard/background!  Check it out here.

My Favorite Junk Journalers

49Dragonflies - Barbara from Vienna, Austria

Her YouTube Channel

Annette Green

Her YouTube Channel

Cathy's Garden

Her YouTube Channel

Cindy A. Lewis - Inspiring You to Create

Her YouTube Channel

       She usually gets right down to business and her ideas are wonderful.  Lots of ideas on masterboards.

Hither and Yon

Her YouTube Channel

This is one of my favorites she thinks like I do and is not particularly "neat."  Lots and lotsand LOTS of page and ephemera ideas.  Her videos tend to go a little long, but all the talking is meaningful and she doesn't drone on and on about stupid stuff. 

Kathleen Mower : Be Again Books, Creative Junk Journals and Inspiration

Her YouTube Channel

     No excess talking.  GREAT ideas, usually easy.  Videos aren't incredibly lengthy.

         Using old book pages to make journaling cards & spots.

Margarete Miller

Her YouTube Channel

Loves stamps, seems to be a collector.

The Paper Outpost

She talks fast (and a lot) and always has a mess on her desk. She cracks me up. She does stick her stupid, fluffy little dog into the screen at the end of each video and have it pretend-talk.  That's obnoxious. Part of her quirky personality.

Her YouTube Channel

Pink Monarch Prints

Her YouTube Channel

     I love that she preps all her papers ahead of time (cutting, ink around the edges) so that she just shows how she puts it together and you miss the tedium of all the tie-consuming stuff!  She makes most of her stuff from kits that she sells.

Root Pursuit

Her YouTube Channel

Septeria18 - young woman from Sydney, Australia

Her YouTube Channel

She uses the scoring board tool to great effectiveness

Vicky Papaioannou

A gal from Greece(?) with a very Greek-ish accent.  No nonsense, great, easy directions, doesn't seem to waste time!

Her YouTube Channel

Creating Pockets for Junk Journals

 Cindy  A. Lewis has three folded multi-pockets that are QUICK and work really well!

Hither and Yon uses 6 x 6 and 6 x 8 double-sided papers to make a cool, easy double-pocket to either glue onto the page or clip on. They''re also perfect for mailing fun stuff in a card.  Love this one.  

Using Playing Cards in Junk Journals

Annette Green photocopies a playing card so that it's a bit bigger (and white on the other side) to create a decorated pocket that a regular size playing card can tuck into as a tag. She also shows how to create a frame with kings, queens, jacks..... Find that video here.  

Here's the video that shows gluing tiny bits of book pages to playing cards and turning them really vintage-y.  Fun, easy process!  Find it here.  #Treasure Books

Week 3 - Playing Card Tags | Summer Fun Ephemera Challenge - Let's make Ephemera Series

Here's the YouTube video

Sweet Bee Designs Co.  (22:10)

One Page Wonders Using 12 x 12 Paper

You can do so much using a 12 x 12 piece of paper!  Here's my first attempt, guided by #cathysgardenyoutubechannel. She's title it "One Page Wonder - Mini Journal - Journal Making":

find it here.

Misc. Junk Journal Ideas

Mini file tab pocket folder using one 6 x 6 single-sided sheet of paper

Find it here.  #Septeria18  (really great for gift card holder)

Junk Journaling - My Current Obsession

My Favorite Junk Journalers

Masterboards and What to Do with Them

One Page Wonders (using 12 x 12 paper)

Creating Pockets for Junk Journals

Using Playing Cards in Junk Journals

Misc. Junk Journal Ideas

Marigold Blanket with Larksfoot Crochet Stitch

 Marigold Blanket - I Like Crochet

Looks like a great pattern to try for my next Homeless Blanket!

I've saved the printed pattern on my home computer under "Patterns."

75. A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

listened on Libby

370 pgs.

2014
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 10/9/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 2.5
Setting: NYC 1911 & 9/11

My comments: Not a huge fan of this book, for a couple of reasons.  Told in two voices, one of a nurse, Clara, who survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 to "hide" on Ellis Island and a quilt shop fabric-lover, Taryn, who lost her husband on 9/11.  The majority of the story is told by nurse Clara ... whom I didn't like.  At all.  Her inconsistent personality (she flip-flops between a mamby-pamby-scared-everything watcher-of-the-world to a brazen in-your-face do-gooder) drove me nuts. A minority of the story was told by Taryn, ten years after 9/11, still bruised and barely living, which was more powerful and believable.  But not enough!  And the connection of this scarf was feeble, to say the least.  I didn't rate it lower because I enjoyed the history it shared and the 9/11 portion, but the 1911 lengthy section didn't work for me at all.

Goodreads synopsis:  A beautiful scarf, passed down through the generations, connects two women who learn that the weight of the world is made bearable by the love we give away....

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers …the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?

Homeless Blanket Project #33 - Groovy Gert

 

Tired of hand sewing, I started this blanket on a whim to use up some of my bits and pieces of leftover yarn in a mindless manner.  I love the way the triple crochet/single crochet rows work up, I decided to crochet a set of variegated and then a set of solid.  While working on it I decided it was REALLY ugly, but once all lain out it doesn't insult my eye the way I thought it might!

74. The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

listened on Libby when I FINALLY got it from TPPL

336 pgs.

2024
Adult RomCom
Finished 10/6/24
Goodreads rating: 4.14
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary LA (with some Houston)

My comments: I love Katherin Center's writing.  And this novel about writers writing together is a winner for me!  A completely clean romance with ups and downs and two funny, clever protagonists is a surefire hit.  Highly recommend for a feel-good story with an HEA.

Goodreads synopsis:  She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?

Homeless Blanket Project #32 - Finicky Freddy

I know this looks like gray, but it's not.  I'm using three big skeins of medium sage worsted with two shorter strands of various, multi-colored yarns that have been tied between each green.  I'm using the same crocheting pattern of one row of triple crochets followed by one row of single crochets.

73. Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

listened on Libby

384 pgs.

2024
Adult spicy romance
Finished 9/28/2024
Goodreads rating:  3.67
My rating: 2
Setting: Contemporary Austin, TX

My comments: Bleh.  Disappointing.  Tried and tried to like the female protagonist, Rue, but we were only given snippets of her inner self, and many didn't come until later on in the book.  Ice skating was a life changing event for both protagonists, and it should have been a bigger part of the book.  Rue was fighting with her brother about a cottage left in a will, but why?  Only because it was needed to move/change the plot a few times.  Not well done.  A disappointment from this author.

Goodreads synopsis:  Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.

Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through - and he's a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can't stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.

Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business - one that plays for keeps.

September 2024 Handwork

Completed Projects:

Exuberant Ellsworth Afghan

for Homeless Blanket Project

Finished afghan:  124 sts. in each row and 54 sets of tc/sc in length

On-going projects:

 Indigo Hexie Flower Quilt

39 appliqued onto indigo (that's +16)

3 pinned on, ready to applique

10 flowers ready for pinning

42 other hexies complete & ready to form into flowers

total flowers: 52 (up 15)     total hexies: 406 (up 107)

Grey Hexie Quilt

23 rows (x28) all sewn together = 644 hexies

1 row ready to add = 28 hexies

25 triples,  18 doubles,  86 single hexies waiting

841 HEXIES TOTAL (that's up 75 hexies)

Finnicky Freddy

Homeless Blanket #32

two row pattern - one row of triple crochet, next row of single crochet

pre-wound yarn of 2 short bursts of color, then longer burst of mediium sage

166 sts. per row

30 (set of 2: tc & sc) rows

72. Storm Child by Michael Robotham

listened on Libby

336 pgs.

2024
Adult Contemporary Mystery/Thriller
Finished 9/21/24
Goodreads rating: 4.26
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Nottingham, England, and the coast of Scotland

My comments: Back and forth between two points of view: Cyrus and Evie, detailing how Evie slowly gets her memories back and discovers what had happened to her, her sister, and her mother.  The first half of the book takes place in their hometown of Nottingham, the second half in Scotland, where the fishing families that continue to be involved in the movement of illegal aliens into Great Britain are still hiding their participation from ten years before....as well as currently.  Good story.  Very well narrated.

Goodreads synopsis:  The mystery of Evie Cormac’s background has followed her into adulthood. As a child, she was discovered hiding in a secret room where a man had been tortured to death. Many of her captors and abusers escaped justice, unseen but not forgotten. Now, on a hot summer’s day, the past drags Evie back as she watches the bodies of seventeen migrants wash up on a Lincolnshire beach.

There is only one survivor, a teenage boy, who tells police their small boat was deliberately rammed and sunk. Psychologist Cyrus Haven is recruited by the police to investigate the murders—but recognizes immediately that Evie has some link to the tragedy. By solving this crime, he could finally unlock the secrets of her past. But what dark forces will he set loose? And who will pay the price?