I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I just realized I didn’t tell you about some of the fun gifts I received over Christmas. My husband gave me the latest Flow Book For Paper Lovers. I love this chunky book. It is filled with pretty papers, stickers, postcards, pull outs, tags… It is so much fun to play with it. I’ve been collecting these yearly publications and I really enjoy them.

He also got me the Persephone Notebook. It has the same smooth, creamy paper as found in all of their books. I can’t wait to use it. Persephone also sent along a bookmark and the Persephone Biannually publication so I’m sure I’ll want more books for my collection.

Not pictured, is a beautiful Faber Castell fountain pen. I’ve really become addicted to fountain pens. You can’t help but feel all fancy when you pull out your journal and pen to write.

My dear friend Christine sent me a gorgeous gift package from Box Fox. If you need to gift someone with a special gift, check out this company. My gift came in a gorgeous box and was packaged beautifully. Oh and there was also some chocolate – yum! Inside my box there were several goodies and these wonderful Rifle Paper notebooks and two Le Pens.

So lots of pens and paper for me this year which is very welcome.

Believe it or not, no books this year but that’s ok, it’s not like I don’t have plenty of reading material. Speaking of reading material though, I will try to give you some quick reviews of a couple of books I finished around the holiday so watch for those soon. Alright now off to play with some paper.

Over the Christmas holidays I’m happy to report that I started making creative time a priority. Too often I get caught up with reading crafty magazines or watching new techniques on YouTube but then I don’t end up following up and trying things out myself.

One of the things I’m trying to do is book time for myself in the studio. If I see that time on my calendar maybe that means I will spend time crafting. Or if I’m not in the mood to craft, I can clean up or organize. I want to try out being more aware of where my time goes.

One new form of creative play I’ve been trying out lately is keeping a Glue Book. A what? Basically a journal where you glue in stuff. Phrases, pictures, receipts, junk mail, whatever you can get your hands on. The purpose is to play making collages. They can tell a story or not.

There are no rules and no expectations. I like that already.

I think a glue book will be good for me because this is something I could actually do in quick time segments and feel like I’ve finished something. Unlike a bookbinding project which will usually take me a lot longer. So I’m making a commitment to complete a glue book this year.

I’ve already started using a 5 x 7 spiral sketchbook and I’ve already completed three pages. For the page shown here, I used a vintage book page with some machinery diagrams, a calligraphy piece my husband discarded, a paint chip, a butterfly sticker and a very cool quote. In case you can’t read it, it says:

“I am indebted to my notebook for the happiness of my whole life.” ~ Ben Franklin.

I thought that was a perfect way to begin this journey. I’ll keep you posted on how my glue book goes and hope you’ll enjoy reading about it.

If you are trying out a new hobby this year or going back to something you’ve enjoyed let me know. It’s wonderful to talk about books but I also enjoy hearing about other things you enjoy doing. So have a wonderful weekend everyone and more book talk soon!