Playing with scissors...

...and grosgrain ribbon...and grommets...and rickrack...and...and
My birds are wee lumps of polished cotton ticking and scraps of disgarded fabric and lay partly stuffed waiting to realize some sort of life. I learned that they need to be much larger as the smaller size is unwieldly for construction engineering.
But wouldn't you know it. The muse stepped in! You know when you have something in your hands that you are working on and the hands start to fashion something entirely different? Well I have learned to go with the flow and once I did, I couldn't stop until the thing was fully realized (in prototype form) and had a definitive direction. It is not a bird. It is a 'beribboned and begrommeted journal de idees' (working title), and will be my personal journal to catch all of the ideas that will make up the journal itself. I have begun to design a journal! The first that could be said is that it is based on an altered book. Journal sections are tied into the spine with ribbon threaded through grommets attached to grosgrain ribbon. My (working) journal is tied with a scrap of pink ribbon that had been wrapped around french milled soap that my swap partner sent to me recently in a very vintage valentine swap. So the journal smells like french lavender.
Don't you love the notion of reusing ribbon. Of saving ribbon in one special spot. And of ironing the ribbon and maybe tying up your hair, or a special gift for a loved one? I do!
I am going to use my journal as a place to catch things that I need to hold on to. To address. To claim. To face.
The tea pot is steeping and it's time for a cup of chai. With chocolate today! Talk to you soon, Norma.