As you may know my current journal is an altered atlas and it is in its final stages. I think it will be finished in two to three weeks. After that I will switch to my ROD2 journal, but since the last one was filled so quickly (a mere six weeks for an entire journal is pretty fast for me) I am already on the lookout for the one after that. Also it takes some time to prepare a book for journaling the way I do, which means gessoing the pages and putting color on them before I start using it, so it's ready to go. So off to the local thrift store I went. And look what I found:
It's two huge books! They are even bigger than the atlas! How cool is that? The red one is a family world atlas from the seventies and measures about 26.5 x 32.5 cm. The beige one is a huge book on ancient civilizations. It has some wonderful illustrations in it and since I will be tearing half the pages out (to leave room for collage), I will have some great collage fodder of it as well. This second book measures 26 x 35.5 cm.
These two books together set me back 5 euro's, which is next to nothing for such wonderful books, so I was very happy to find them.
Then the mailman came and brought this:
A big envelope from across the Atlantic. It was a generous offering by a fellow blogger, namely Pat from Art Kerfuffle. She has been showing off some incredible handmade books she and her friend Gaye are making with the use of security envelopes. It was Mary Ann Moss who put my attention to the amazing patterns that can be found in those envelopes, but...over here in the Netherlands they are mostly just bland grey or blue. I go through tons of mail at work and it's very rare to find anything interesting at all. I complained about this on Pats blog and wouldn't you know it: she offered to send me a selection of her collection of envies. Wow! Was I ever happy about that!
This is one of the most wonderful things of the internet and blogging: you get to 'meet' some really generous people who for no reason at all send you wonderful things.
Now let's open the envelope, shall we?
Two packages! Looks like there's more in here than just some security envelopes. Let me say up front that I'm already smitten with the popcorn bag. (Is that weird?). What could possibly be inside all this?
Oh my, it's generosity overload! ;-) Not only is there a ton of security envelopes in there, there's also a lovely piece of fabric, a sweet little book of tags, some sheets of braille paper (yay!) and some wonderful pens which are said to write on anything! And of course a nice note from Pat. I am just in heaven with this truck load of stuff. So...thank you so much Pat!
If you don't know Pat you should really check out her blog. Not only does she make wonderful things, especially books, but she also has an irresistible sense of humor. So hurry on over there and leave an admiring comment!
Now all that's left to do is wish you a wonderful artsy Wednesday!