Fun weekend

This past weekend I took a watercolor journal making class on the coast.  It was great fun, learned lots, and will be making more journals here and there over the coming years. Many thanks to my instructor Mary who not only taught a great class but has also enabled me to spend some money on a couple books, tools, nice paper, leather, etc. etc.

Here is the outside of my journal - that's leather - pink leather!  I forgot to take a photo of the spine where it shows how I sewed the books (sections of watercolor paper) into the journal - I used a waxed linen in the same teal color as my leather tie closure. It was tempting to put a button closure on but I've decided I want to try embossing the leather with a rubber stamp, I thought a decorative button plus the embossing would be too much. Next journal will get a beautiful button closure.

Here's the inside of my journal.  I'm wondering if I could use handwoven fabric for a journal cover.....would have to back it and figure out something for the raw edges without creating too much bulk. I don't know if I have any suitable leftover scraps at the moment to sample with but I will give thought to weaving extra on a perfect warp in the future.

And here's the back page with the colophon which Mary said we should add to our books. I looked up a definition and it's "A statement at the end of a book, typically with a printer's emblem, giving information about it's authorship and printing. Mary said in artist's book they may include the type of paper used. Since I went totally out of my comfort zone with the pink leather I thought my colophon page should be colorful too. I only had a regular black pen and some colored pencils over there so this is what I came up with. I plan on doing some watercolor washes on other pages, maybe some stamping, need to put my name and contact info in the front of my journal but will wait until I do a little playing with the watercolors on that page.

Sunday morning we went blueberry picking again. Twin Creeks Farm south of Bandon has 5000 berry bushes and they're still loaded. We picked another 20+ pounds. I baked a blueberry cobbler for Sam since he said I've never baked him cobbler in the 33+ years we've been married and he loves cobbler and has fond memories of his grandmother's from down on the farm.  I'm a crisp or pie girl myself but I made the cobbler.  It's good but he had to admit maybe it tasted better when he was on the farm visiting his grandparents - looks like crisp and pie are next up.........