WholeLife Mastery

Black History Month Envelope Book and Tag

Today I found Lisa Vollrath's instructions for a Recycled Envelope Book on Go Make Something and today's Make It Monday Challenge was to use postage.  Watching the Oscars and the PBS documentary, American Stamps, last night was really inspiring.  I pulled these together and made a Black History Month envelope book and a postage stamp tag featuring journalist Ida B. Wells.  I also did the first spread in the envelope book using Black Heritage Stamps I've been collecting, including Oscar Winner Hattie McDaniel. 

Get Cultured: The Traditional Healthy Mediterranean Diet

I've been trying to bring some order to my recipe collection, so when today's Gluebook prompt showed up in my e-mailbox I was in a culinary mood.  In addition to being very healthy, the Mediterranean diet, which is a modern construction of North American and Western European food writers, is as varied as the dozen or so countries around the region.  From the popular  Provencal and Tuscan to the less widely known -- in the U.S.-- Moroccan and Tunisian cuisines, this region has a lot to teach us about enjoying good food.

Scanner Daybook Spreads

Susan asked to see some of the pages in my Scanner Daybook.  The left two pages are notes for a "Journaling with Your Personality Workshop"  idea I toyed with almost two years ago.  The third page is a large vellum envelope (recycled from the post office) filled with clippings for a DaVinci spread I have yet to get around to. 

And to answer Susan's question about the table of contents for my journal: when I start a new journal volume I skip about the first ten pages for a title page, a running list of dreams, books read, and the table of contents.  The table of contents is a large post-it note running list of key concepts that keep popping up in my journals and the dates, so I can find them easily later.  When I've filled that volume I go back and alphabetize the list and enter it on that volume's table of contents.  Thanks for asking Susan.  

What do you journal?

In a blog tour interview about her new book The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder on Zura Ledbetter's Creative Clown blog, author Jill Badonsky describes journaling as "practicing, self-talk that nurtures and motivates, play, test driving ideas, doodling, reflecting, centering, grounding, complaining, revising, mind-mapping, listing, thanking, acknowledging, and inventing. It is essential to my sanity and to the progression of ideas to reality." 

Love and Live Deliciously

I've been hunting for an authentically Southern, i.e. with cocoa and without artificial red food coloring, Red Velvet cake for a few weeks now. The closest I've found so far are at Freed's Bakery, which was featured on $40 a Day with Rachel Ray. It's that neither chocolate nor vanilla flavor without the artificial taste and the velvety ruby color I remember from rainbow teas at church that's driving my search. That nostalgic longing along with today's Gluebook Yahoo Group prompt came together in this Valentine's Day journal page.  I probably won't try the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies pictured in my spread (free registration required to access recipe), but let me know how they turn out if you do. 

Valentine Serendipity Kits

I made these mail art Serendipity kits for two crafty friends.  I recycled the packages from tea I found on sale at Tuesday Morning and the tea actually tasted pretty good.  The packaging was Inspired by Lisa Vollrath's Plastic Bottle Mailgrams and the contents were inspired by Stampington's Serendipity Kits. Mailing them reminded me that half the fun of mailart is the pleasantly surprised reaction of postal workers.  After two coats of gesso and two coats of heavy bodied acrylic I stamped the canisters with white chalk paint, which I then heat set.