PRT062 – Not That Deep

Wow, ladies! Excellent show!! Two women that I really admire and am learning so much from!! Thank you, thank you!!

Great show! I loved the discussion about worrying about whether your creations are ‘good’ enough. I can understand that. While the majority of scrapbookers/artist types I have met have been very positive and nurturing, there are definitely some who turn up their noses at what they deem imperfect. I can say I don’t care what other people think until the cows come home, but the truth is, I am very sensitive and deep down I *do* care;so it hurts, especially if it is from someone I previously admired. Just wanted to say that you got me thinking and that is always good! Thanks again.

my link wasn’t working either yesterday – I got it to work was on my iphone by downloading it through “my podcasts” and then listened on my ipod – rather than streaming it through the site

Awesome show!!! I just love Julie & Donna, two of the gurus in the art journaling world.
I want to thank Noell and several of her guests to opening my eyes to being able to express yourselves in so many creative ways. Whatever way feeds your soul, makes you happy, rocks your world, do it cuz it is all good. That is so empowering & freeing, I just love it.

While listening to the episode, I was thinking, this is just like Ali’s December Daily. I was nodding my head when I heard it mentioned and then when you brought up the smash book, I started nodding my head again because I had asked Noell about why she would get one when she already does art journaling and it is just a fancy notebook that holds a pen. How’s that for a run-on sentence? lol
art journaling to me is more like a diary, recording daily things or trying something out. scrapbooking to me is doing a specific story and only one story where an art journal might have small tidbits that happened or your feelings that day. It has all crossed together with the hybrid’s of project life and dec daily and journal your christmas and those types of projects…..

P.S. My name will come up with vail-brown, but it is just brown. i sign in with facebook, so i used my maiden names so highschool friends could find me. ;)

Love, love, love this episode of PRT! I have already listened to it twice. I am certain to listen again as I will need to jot some notes down. The best lightbulb moment was when Donna talked about starting anywhere but the beginning of your journal and Julie talked about painting your pages so that they are not blank and therefore intimidating. Both Donna and Julie are great but I am a huge fan of Julie and gaze at her blog everyday. Wonderfully helpful show! BTW, I am a Paperclipping member and I couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of content and production in the tutorials. Thank you, Noell and Izzy.

I’m listening for a second time. I’m a huge fan of Donna Downey….her artwork is fab! I’ve had a major wish to attend Inspired. One day! I believe the suggestion to start somewhere in the book besides the beginning is excellent. I’m ready to jump in! And I do know that I’ve collected a variety of supplies to play and try out “new to me” techniques in art. My brother painted wonderful pictures that he would have framed and give as gifts to friends and family. When he passed away recently I was adamant about making sure all his artwork was saved. His family gave me all of his portfolios. There were a fair number of pictures that never saw the light of day for good reason. I had a good private laugh over that one. Art is a journey! Love Donna’s statement about learning by making mistakes…that’s how we grow. I’m excited to start practicing and will likely practice forever. Oh Noell….I think I will play in my art journal without looking at any other art journals! I don’t want to be influenced. Has anyone here ever been in a circle swap using a dictionary? You do the usual…create the cover and sign-in tags and then chose a word in your dictionary to create an artistic page around the word/definition. This is another form of an art journal except that you pass it around in a predetermined group. When I received my dictionary back I was amazed by the perceptions and techniques that were shared among a group of virtual strangers. Very cool!

Awesome! Thank you!

Great show! Love Julie’s and Donna’s points-of-view on the art journaling/scrapping topic. Cool cool cool! Thanks for an awesome hour of inspiration!

Great show, everyone! I haven’t tried art journalling yet, but I have been thinking about it for a while and after this episode I think I’ll just have to jump in. As usual I was walking the dog while listening to the show, and for once when I got home I actually remembered to write down some things I wanted to comment about, which is a first for me ;)

Firstly, for people who want to start an art journal but don’t know “how” to, there’s an online shop called Blue Bazaar here in Australia (my favourite online scrapbook store) which has been doing a fabulous Art Journal Challenge, giving step by step instructions… the site is: http://www.bluebazaar.com.au/blog/category/art-journal/

Secondly, the tip about not starting your journal on the first page was an “aha” moment for me. That fear of messing up the first page is probably the main reason I’ve never tried art journalling. Thanks so much. Being a linear, organised (CPA) type person, this would never have occurred to me, so thank you Julie & Donna!

Finally, I found myself nodding in agreement with Julie’s comments about Project Life. I bit the bullet and bought the kit this year (the exchange rate meant it only cost an arm instead of an arm & a leg) but soon ran into the problem of what to put in all those pockets–there are just so many of them! I simply can’t find enough “stuff” to put into them (obviously my life is too boring, lol). I’m still grappling with how to continue, but I think I might use the divided pages to record random weeks which I don’t want to scrapbook and then I’ll just put the pages into my normal albums. An expensive experiment, but oh well, it’s only money…

Thanks again for such an interesting discussion. I look forward to PRT every week. And btw I consider the money I’ve spent on my Paperclipping membership to be money very well spent :)

I am fascinated by all the talk, in this show and others, about rules and categories for scrapbooking, art journalling, project life, project 365 etc because I don’t feel that way at all. This is art and art is *anything you want it to be*. What fascinates me so much is I fell in love with scrapbooking when I realised that I am the only one who needs to like the result. I found that so freeing when my first creative love was quilting, which really does look awful when you get it wrong!

When my students ask questions that start with ‘does it matter if…’ or ‘can I….’.'put them crooked instead of straight?’ for example the answer is – I don’t know, does it matter to you? Which way do you like it? I tell them that if anyone looks at their album and complains that the photos are all crooked then they can slap them up the side of the head – or perhaps with less violence just smile and say ‘I know! Isn’t it artistic?’

My Project Life is a project LIFE, some weeks nothing happens, some weeks are chock a block and I am ok with that because that’s how life is. I LOVE it because I can record bits about those snap shots that I won’t scrapbook, so they are still recorded and I don’t feel pressured to scrap every photo I take. In ten years time it won’t matter that there is no photo for a particular day, what will be treasured is the days I did record, and the ones that are missing can just remain a happy mystery.

What it boils down to for me is I have such limited time to be creative that I refuse to spend any of it follow the stupid rules! This is art, and art is anything you want it to be. I have permission to ignore the rules, play and be who I am, do what I want and enjoy every second.

Hi everyone! Great show (so far) I haven’t finished yet but wanted to chime in and judging from the comments it looks like there is still a lot of great discussion to come.

I too had to laugh about “skipping the first page”. I have struggled with journaling over the years but have NEVER been able to start on the first page. I’m not sure why – I guess I haven’t wanted to see my handwriting immediately. I am currently in a written journaling mode as I am finding that some of what I want to say/purge/ express is not blog worthy. We’ll see how long that lasts. I am much better at typing!

My other thought (so far) came when Julie mentioned Ali Edwards and her December Daily . I recently borrowed Ali’s book Life Artist from the library and am working my way through it. Her opening page describes how she came to claim the term “Life Artist” vs being a scrapbooker. In her words, “A life artist, most simply is someone who captures life and creates art”. That totally resonated with me and I believe goes hand in hand with this episode. I scrapbook, blog, print pictures and post in creative ways and am finding that scrapping alone just isn’t cutting it. I don’t see myself as a doodler or being able to just “let loose” and yet this episode has really challenged me to reconsider. Maybe we just need to try.

Judging from the comments, Ali’s approach to project life may also be something for people to go take a look at. It certainly has a different take on the standard photo a day and includes “life” as a whole. Yet her album is definitly creative and I would consider it art as well.

Anyway, thanks again for the continued inspiration and great discussion. I’m off to listen and create!

Thank you so much for covering this subject! I had never really seen the reason people kept art journals … but your very in-depth conversation really made me think. I am starting my inspiration/art journal today, and am looking forward to having this great tool to aide in my inspiration! Your discussion reminded me of this favorite saying … “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep”.

Thank you all again for your wonderful podcast. I’m looking to the next one!

Kim Calloway, from Simi Valley, CA