A Perpetual Journal

Today, I'd like to talk about journaling.  Journaling is a hobby for me.  It's actually kind of a sickness, or an obsession of sorts.  My eyes widen with joy when I come across the journal and stationery section at Barnes and Noble. 

In Florida, inside Diagon Alley, there is a stationery store called Scribbulus (the turquoise colored store, below).

This amazing box was for display only.  Very cool!

Inside Scribbulus, there were journals, quill pens, ink wells, sealing waxes with stamps, so many wonderful things that I nearly went into overload!  I ended up buying (give you one guess) a beautiful Hogwarts journal that will soon be filled with memories from the trip.  We also purchased some sealing wax and a stamp, because one can never have too many Medieval inspired stationery items in one's stash.



 
 There's nothing like a blank book waiting to be filled with memories!

Yes, there are many different journals tucked away in various bookcases, around my house. 

My main journal is a daily planner type of journal where I keep track of events, and my everyday life, daycare happenings, lunch counts and attendance.  I write about the daily weather, what we do in the evenings, my mood, etc.
I've filled about 14 of these (don't judge me), one for each year of daycare, but most are packed away.
 

My Creativity Journal (some people call them smash books) is full of quotes, art, ideas and the artsy-craftsy type of projects in my life.  It is full of things I love, vintage items, art, music.
 

These kinds of journals are so much FUN to create and keep.

Here is a page with Autumn's b-day invitation and a page about Christmas and all the baking we did.

Here is a fun page about Old Time Radio Shows and Vintage Country Music.

 

My fiction journal is full of story ideas.  I am trying to write a story about a girl starting over in an old house, in a small town and the mystery of a found diary.  Writing fiction is a challenge!

My family history journal dives into my past, my grandparents, parents, and my childhood.  I'd like to record, on paper, more about my parents' lives, and what they remember from their early and middle years.  Those will be nice memories to have written down for future great-grandchildren.

I have my travel journals, in which I write about all of our travels.  These are usually small enough to fit into my purse.  Below is New York, Minneapolis and the gold and white is from our recent trip to Hogwarts.

 

My spiritual journal is full of prayers, scriptures, and some sermon notes.

And I have a Children's Book Journal (or binder) with information I've collected about children's books, authors, illustrators, etc.

I kept a separate pregnancy journal when I was expecting my daughter and I've kept up on her baby book, her preschool binder and elementary school keepsakes binder.
Not to mention the numerous photo scrapbooks I made during the great scrapbooking craze of 1998-2010.

Oh!  And I can't forget this blog, which in it's own, cyber-pixelated way, is somewhat like a journal. It's probably the only journal I have that glows in the dark....nope, wait, I have notes on my phone.  (Good grief, someone call the looney bin). 

Seriously, it's all a little weird, and I'm not quite sure why I'm so obsessed with organizing my thoughts by writing it all down in various books.  None of what I write is really all that interesting, but I just feel the need to write.  When I die, they'll find me buried by an avalanche of pretty paper with a pen in my hand, an ink smudge on my cheek, and stickers stuck in my hair.

 

And now, thanks to Pinterest, I found another type of journal I just had to make.  It's called a Perpetual Journal and they are SUPER easy and inexpensive to make!

First, you'll need a little box.  Some people use little wooden boxes from the craft store, some use a recipe box.  One person on Pinterest even used of those green strawberry baskets. (so head on over to Grandma's house and grab one out from under her kitchen sink...because don't all Grandmas have a few berry baskets hanging around?  Mine did).  As soon as she's done reading this, I'll bet my mother will go check her kitchen to see if she has a berry basket hanging around.

For the container, I decided to "go big or go home".  Shannan bought me this nifty little spinning box about 10 years ago.  It's been empty for awhile and I've been hoping to find a use for it again.  A perpetual journal seems to be the perfect fit!

One side is magnetic, so I attached magnets to some artistic tiles I made awhile back.  Maybe I could make a few more sometime. 

 

There are two picture frame cutouts, a strip of elastic for pens (I'm using my old Creative Memories pens that are at least 10 years old and they STILL WORK!)

I love the small drawer with removable dividers--it's perfect for washi tape storage. 

 

 

The opposite side features a larger drawer, perfect for my small sticker folio and extra scrap papers.

 

Next you'll need some note cards.  They can be 3x5, 4x6, or whatever size you want them to be.  Again, I went bigger (my journal entries tend to get a little wordy).  So I went to Office Max and bought these 5x8 index cards.  They came in packs of 300.  I'm not a math wiz, but last time I checked there are 365 days in a year, therefore, I had to buy two packs.  There are oodles of extra cards, but that's a good thing! I'll tell you why later.

 

 

We also went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some washi tape (on sale WooHoo!).  Now all we have to do is get the sleeping kitty out of the box and we can get started.

 

 

The first thing I had to do was cut 1/2 inch off of the end of each card.  I used my paper cutter and cut two at a time.  I watched Norma Rae while I did the cutting.  It seemed fitting.

 

That tedious task complete, the cards were now to the point where they would fit inside the top of the box, I wrote the date on each one.  Some people use a library type of date stamper on them, but I just wrote them by hand. You know what happens when you write the same word over and over and over again by hand?  It starts to look funny and you wonder if you're spelling it right. It happened to me with October, which, I think, is a weird word in the first place.  An Octopus has 8 legs, and Octagon has 8 sides, but October is the 10th month.  What's up with that?

 

 

 I don't put stickers on all of the cards, but this is the card I made for Valentines Day.

 

 

The next step was to make the colorful dividers for each month.  I've had this scrapbooking paper in my stash for quite awhile and I just love the bright, tropical colors!  This is where a person can really get creative with washi tape!  Later on, I might add some seasonal stickers to the dividers to dress them up even more.

 

 

And now, here it is all finished! 

 

 

I made a little book-marker that saves my spot, and have already caught up with some of my journaling.  The idea is to journal one or two lines every day, then go around again the next year and the next.  I figure, if I use the front and back of each card, I can journal for 10 years or more. When the cards are full, I will transfer them to a photo archive box and do it all again!  I also plan to tuck in a few photos here and there on special days.

 

 

Oh!  Some of the extra cards are being used for "journal prompts".  They are SO MUCH FUN!

There are hundreds of journal prompts on the internet, question like, "What are your favorite childhood memories?" or "List your top 10 favorite books and why you love them." or "What are your favorite smells?"  My favorite smells are my Mom's oatmeal cookies fresh from the oven, and that white lilac bush in the Bottineau Tommy Turtle park.  But not mixed together.  That would smell weird.  I also wrote down my daughter's hair, but she says, "Ew, Mom!  That's gross". Sigh, I guess that's just a mom thing.

 

 

This is one journal that will be fun to look back upon year after year!   That's all for today, thanks for visiting!  Until another time, have a happy day!

 

Fun Stuff-Universal Florida

Universal is huge, and there are "sections" in each park.  Below, are a few pictures from "Hollywood".  My husband and daughter liked to ride the rides and for about 1 1/2 hours I was left to explore Hollywood.  My first stop was Schwab's Pharmacy for a Coke.  I LOVED this place.  It was one of my favorite places in the whole park.

 

On this sunny, Sunday, there was only one other booth taken, so I bought my coke, sat down at a little corner table and took a bit of time to write in my travel journal.  I just loved the ambiance of the place, with it's jars of candy, vintage décor and photos of the great Hollywood movie stars up on the walls.

 

 

What a nice spot to take a breather.

 

 

On the corner of Hollywood there is this Ballroom/Radio Station.  Of course there's most likely nothing of the sorts actually in there, but it's fun to pretend.

 

 

Then we were off to New York City!  Another one of my favorite streets.  Autumn and I hung out here while darling husband went to ride a few rides.

 

 

 

 

We were even able to walk down this street at night!  I especially liked the Hackenburg building with the appliance store.  New York in the 1940s.

 



 

A real Italian restaurant in "New York".  By real, I mean not just a decorative store front.

 

A few other fun things were seeing the Back To The Future Car and Train.  Plus we got to see 

Doc Brown!

 

 

 

 

And we can't forget all of the fun Harry Potter get-togethers and seeing some of the cast in person!

 

Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies.

Evanna Lynch who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.

 

Well, that's only the tip of the iceberg, as far as pictures are concerned. But I hope ya'll enjoyed the posts.  Next up, a post about Journaling!  

Until another time, have a fun day!



Mel's Diner-Universal

Just a couple more vacation posts to go, then I promise I'll be back to regular, vintage loving and creative, blogging. 

 

While at Universal I was excited to eat at Mel's Diner from one of my favorite movies, American Graffiti.  Here are a few pictures from our visit.

 

 

I am a little disappointed that this photo has sun glare on it.  I really like this car!  It was like Bob Falfa's '55 Chevy.

 

The '56 T-bird.  This is the car Suzanne Somers drove as she flirted with Curt (Richard Dreyfuss).

Ahhh, my favorite!  The '32 Coupe HOT ROD!  John Milner's car.

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed in the restaurant part of Mel's Diner.  But, in their defense, my expectations were high.  I was hoping to be able to buy an American Graffiti t-shirt or some other souvenir. I was hoping for red and white checker food containers and maybe a special souvenir root beer mug (like A&W does) or even a plastic, souvenir cup.  The food was good.  The hamburger really did taste like a Whopper, and the chicken strips were pretty normal.  The 60s music they played was good, and the seats at the front of the restaurant had personal jukeboxes at the table, but ours did not. 

But the outside of the restaurant was cool, especially at night!

 

 

While I didn't grow up during the 50s and 60s and the golden age of crusin' main, I was fortunate enough to have been in  high school at the tail end of that age.  It was a time before cell phones and text messages, when a person had to burn a half a tank of gas and cruise up and down main a few times to find our friends.  There were no text messages to say "where you at?"  Nope, our way was much more fun!  We had to recognize people by their cars or trucks, and once you found someone you wanted to talk to, you'd flash your lights at them, then meet in the nearest parking lot.  We'd check our who was chatting in the Harmon Park parking lot, First Lutheran parking lot, or Pamida's parking lot, and we loved it!  And just as Milner says in American Graffiti, it really did seem like the strip was shrinking every year.  And even though we didn't have a Mel's Diner to stop at for milk shakes, we did have a Simonson's gas station, which had cokes, a Taco Johns for "real food" and a Dairy Queen for Sundaes. Ha!

 

Until next time, I'll leave you with the American Graffiti trailer.  Where were you in '62?