Back to School Journal Pages have arrived!

This sweet bundle showed up on my door step this afternoon!  There are lots of pictures - enjoy!

 This Vintage Back to School Journal Page Swap was hosted by Michelle Geller of Hold Dear.  Look at that adorable cover!

 The first page was created by Jan Clem. Do you see that yellow ruler tab on the side?  When you pull on it, the readin', writin' and rithmetic pages flip open.  It is so cool!

 I need to learn how to do that!

 The page with the apple is the back of Jan's page.  The page with the medal was made by Sheila Earhart.

 The page on the left is the back of Sheila's page.  On the right is the page made by Cynthia Fawcett.  Cynthia made a pocket out of a protractor.  Love it!

 Lots of cool "tucked in" items throughout this book.  So neat.  On the right is from Michelle Geller.

 Back of Michelle's page;  Jan LaFollette's page on the right.

 The back of Jan's page; Beth Leintz cloth page on the right.

 The back of Beth's page; Rachel McGough's page on the right.

 The back of Rachel's page and bonus division tag for a page.

 On the right is Mollie Morrison's page

 The back of Mollie's page; Lorraine Peltier's page on the right.

 The back of Lorraine's page, Heidi Redfield's page on the right.

 The back of Heidi's page; Barb Rickard's page on the right,

 This is the inside of Barb's page.

 The left is the back of Barb's page; on the right is Jessica Rodarte's page.

 The back of Jessica's page; Jill Sibbald's page on the right;

 The back of Jill's page; My page on the right;

 The back of my page; a cute "lunch money" envelope.

 The back of the journal.

Isn't this fabulous!  I wish I could show you all the fabulous little bonus pages, tab pulls, notebooks, chalkboard pages, tuck-ins and everything else included in these amazing pages.  This was so much fun and I'm so happy that I participated in this swap.  Thanks Michelle!  :)

Back from Handmade U!

What a fun weekend! We arrived on Thursday night at Minglewood Cabin in Gretna, Nebraska. After settling in and seeing old friends and meeting new friends we sat down for dinner. We had a wonderful home made meal. Rachel's dad prepared smoked chicken and Rachel's mom made baked beans.
The first evening was spent getting to know each other by talking and filling out cute little notebooks with answers to a bunch of questions.

On Friday, Michelle Geller of Hold Dear taught us how to make beautiful journals. Her class kits were over the top with beautiful vintage papers. This is a picture of my crafting spot with the kit.
You wouldn't even believe how generous these kits were - the pictures do not do them justice. Not to even mention all the yummy supplies we had access to in addition to the kits!
We worked all day on Friday on our covers and creating our pages to make our journals. The time just flew by and after working all day and most of the night, this is what I came up with:

I love, love, love my journal. Below is a picture of a few of the "spines" of our journals. I embroidered my name on the spine of my journal.

On Saturday, we shifted gears and Rachel taught us to create a "quilt" panel on a canvas. She instructed us on various techniques to use and let us put our own spin on the project. It is amazing to see the different quilt panels. Here is mine:

Here is a collage of all of our panels:

Here is a picture of all of our journals:

Rachel's mom Sara made these beautiful treat bags with our names embroidered on them. Check out Sara's blog for awesome pictures of the the retreat and the cabin we stayed in.

On our final evening we took a field trip to Rachel's parent's home. Her parents cooked a wonderful meal for all of us and we got a "lesson" about Sara's long arm quilting machine. It was quite an evening!
Finally, all the treats!
Hope Ellington made beautiful Handmade U necklaces for all of us, Nora and Lindy made beautiful flower decorations for each attendee and the sponsor gifts were very generous.
Can't wait for Spring semester!

Packing for Handmade U!

Packing my bags to head to Gretna, Nebraska first thing tomorrow morning to attend Rachel's event: Handmade U!
Rachel will be teaching one class and Michelle Geller will be teaching another. Can't even wait!
I'll take lots of pictures and share next week.
I'm really trying to focus but I'm exhausted from the Flaming Lips Show last night at the Historical Brady Theatre in downtown Tulsa.


Doug is at the second performance tonight and he is backstage with Wayne Coyne putting together laser pointers. :)

Free Art Journal Workshop

So, in my blog-hopping adventures I've come across the opportunity for a Free Workshop on Art Journaling. If you are at all interested, you should check out this link: http://effyswild.blogspot.com/p/why-not-free-art-journaling-workshop.html and consider participating with me. Let me know if you do - I think it will be an amazing and transformative process.