My Favourite Painting (so far)

Gimme My Movies!

CJ and I (mostly CJ) have a rather large movie collection as you may know... you might even call it a library. We seem to treat it like a library too. Many of you have probably borrowed a DVD or two and some of you may have even returned them.

Enter the "Movie Library Lending Journal". This journal was really fun (and frustrating to make) but I am pleased with the results. This is a soft cover custom journal where Ceej and I can track who has our movies and when they were borrowed. Hopefully this way we'll be able to keep track of them. If Wakas is reading this (though it seems unlikely) take a look at the first two entries in the journal!

The cover is the Entertainment Weekly Pop Culture Quiz. I already filled in the answers though... sorry.

The journal is set up like a screenplay by CJ and Ali Keddy...aww.

This is the first of hopefully many purpose-specific spreadsheet journals.

"The Jewellery Tree Sales Journal" is in the works and I'll post it when it's finished. Jess's business (www.thejewellerytree.ca coming soon!) is taking off and she needs a sales and receipt tracking system, so why not make it beautiful?

I'm also going to be printing and binding a short story that CJ is finishing up. If you have written a story and you'd like a professional hard-bound copy done up, let me know! The possibilities are endless (as is my cheesiness).

Sue's 50th Birthday Journal

I am particularly fond of this journal as it is the first one I have made as a gift. If you know Sue (my lovely MIL) you will know that she lives for denim. Now this is not normally my style, but I am happy to say I think I found a way to satisfy Sue's denim fetish and give it the Ali stamp at the same time.

This journal is a first in many ways. It's my first fabric-covered journal (I have the glue gun burns to prove it), my first journal with a closure (velcro!), my first journal with a customized cover page (this will prove useful I think) and my first journal with pockets (notes in the front, and pen in the back). I'm quite proud of it and hopefully they will just keep getting better.

journalez-vous?

I have finally gotten around to uploading some of my journals! How exciting! Making these journals is one of my favourite pass-times (I'm the coolest) and they are surprisingly easy to make. Take a look and if you like one enough to order your own, send me an e-mail or leave me a comment (you can always just e-mail me for fun too). Below are some pictures of the actual making itself.

Sew the Pretty Pages Together

Press them in a vise (aka my french grammar textbook...finally useful!)


Cut the Cover Board

And voila! A beautiful, 100% hand made, custom, hard cover journal!

So I may have oversimplified the process a tad, but it can be done at home, I swear! More photos of completed journals to come.

Is This Really My Life?

I'm sure you've had these moments where something causes you to step outside yourself and say "What the hell?" Yesterday afternoon near the end of a mind-numbing work day I heard myself ask a caller: "Did he throw the knife at someone, or did he just throw the knife?" What series off odd decisions led me to a place where this is a perfectly mundane thing to say at work? Whatever these decisions were, I am happy to be replacing them with some fresh "I just washed them...five days ago" new ones. (Sorry for the completely random '90s Bounty commercial quote. It just came out.)

I officially have 25 work days and 35 actual days left until I take my leave of absence. It's really starting to hit me now that my life is about to change. The strangest part is how simple it all really is. I got myself into this cubicle with a series of small decisions (and a few big ones) and I'm getting myself out the same way. I, of course, had to make the big decision to take a leave of absense from work and spend the majority of our savings on tuition, but that in itself won't change anything.

In September it will all be over and the daily small decisions that will really make a difference will just be beginning. I'll be back in this cubicle having completely run out of excuses for not doing what I really love. I will be forced to face my insecurities and control issues and start peddling my wares on my own. I will be very interested to read what my September-self has to say, because right now I can't even imagine it. And that is very exciting.