Here at last is a picture of my 365 day challenge January page.
I chose what I thought was an excellent book from The PaperMill Shop for the challenge. It is A3 size with sturdy covers and quite thick pages, all spiral bound. How wrong I was!
Firstly, unless you have a physique like Naomi Campbell (very, very tall and long limbed and with no tummy) you can't work at the top of the page without getting a line of paint across the midriff and bits of jumper stuck in your work. I suppose those long pincer like tools on a long handle that rubbish collectors use might be a solution but the quality of work would be compromised.
Secondly, because the covers are completely blank I managed to start work upside down at the back of the book so it was really fiddly to open and close. If you check out the wire on a spiral bound you'll see what I mean. I was three backgrounds in before I discovered this and ended up having to take off the covers, take out all the pages and rebuild the book - hence the slightly lopside look it now has.
Thirdly, the size of the pages is just so big that none of my alphabet stamps comes near to the right scale for adding the months and it is very difficult (for me) to photograph such large pages. I must learn to think things through properly.
I knew doing the journalling was going to be difficult for me which is why I joined the challenge in the first place. I spent most of January slapping paint on backgrounds and cutting about 400 (well you need some spare in case..) 2" squares from all my part used sheets of patterned paper - I've got backgrounds upto August started already! I think I've just reached the point where I can accept that actually it doesn't matter to me - and certainly doesn't to anyone else - how mundane and repetitive activities and record of daily life is so I'm finding it a bit easier to get on with now.
I'm sure there are more embellishments to add before the page is finished but at least I've done the challenging bit.
And don't get me started on technology again. I'm using a morning off work to get out the camera manual, transfer the pictures and try to get them in the right place in this post as it's the only chance to have a long enough go on the computer.
On the upside, here's a peek at what Februry looks like so far.
