Journal Journeys Challenge 10

Over on Journal Journeys Dawn gave us a recipe for our challenge this month - photograph of a person, stamps, design papers (DP's) and Glossy Accents.  I'm struggling with creativity at the moment and although I love this challenge I wanted to do something a bit different (of course!).  I knew which DP's I wanted to use - Artylicious ones I got as a free gift for joining the now defunct Graphicus Guild.  

Then inspiration hit after spending the day with Jo attempting to start and sort her new craft room out.  She had some Simply Stamping Magazines from 2006 / 2007.  I'd never seen these mags as I had real problems stamping when I first tried and was put off completely!  One of the mags had a tutorial on paper weaving and that was me inspired!

I used Mowed Lawn, Squeezed Lemonade, Peeled Paint and Crushed Olive DI's to cover the background of the page in my Moleskine.  I flicked water over page and mopped it up with kitchen towel before drying it with a heat tool.

I chose a script stamp and swirls in various shapes and over stamped them onto the page using Mowed Lawn and Crushed Olive DI's.  I just stamped them randomly cos I knew they'd be mostly covered by the other elements.

I cut the DP's into strips, some with a fancy edge and some with straight edges.  I then followed the instructions in the mag. 

Place the strips on to a Post it note sticky side up and secure them with another Post it on top.

Then its just a case of weaving more strips in and out of the vertical ones.  Continue til you get to the required size.  Now this is where the mag tutorial was a bit vague.  I discovered that the more strips you add the more strength it has when you turn it over to put some glue onto stick it to the background.  

Maybe I should of attached it to some paper before putting it in my journal but I just stuck it (with difficulty) straight in there!

The next stage was photos.  In 2011 some wonderful women in the North West on England decided to do a (tasteful) naked calender to raise funds for the MS Society.  The calendar was a very beautiful and a great success.  If I'd known about it before it was photographed I would quite happily have joined in too.  I wanted to use those images as they celebrate the female form and also (as my Mam said) you tend not to keep calendars but I'll always have my journal!


Now came the difficult part. Dawn had said to use Glossy Accents to highlight our fave bits.  Hmmmm......

I used two main images and then cut the thumbnail size prints from the back of the calendar and highlighted the girls in those photos with Glossy Accents.





I matted all of the photos to pieces of the same DP's I'd used for the weaving and stuck them all on.  And here is the finished page

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out ;)

Thanks for organising this again Dawn.  Please hop over to Journal Journeys to see some lovely journaling and maybe join in next month?

MS....hmmm (again)

I mentioned in my last post that MS had come to play doing my journal page, well I think its gonna be around a lot more for the next 4 months or so.

I saw my Neurologist in July and we've come to the decision to take me off the Tysabri that I've been on for close of 4 years.  I've been positive for the JC Virus for over a year now and we had previously decided for me to stay on Tysabri as the risk of developing PML were still quite low.  However new statistics have recently come out that show the risk as 1 in 200 which is just far too high.

However there is some good news.  My MRI scan showed no change again, which means my MRI has been the same since 2009!!  And my Neurologist is putting me on the new oral medication - Gilenya, but there is a downside.  I need to be 4 months free of Tysabri before I can start the Gilenya.  So for the next 4 months I will have no Disease Modifying Drug (medication for MS) but I will still have all of the pills I take to help combat the other symptoms.

My MS is aggressive and the only time I've been without an DMD's is the first 6 months after diagnosis and it was sheer hell.  All of the problems I have now with my legs were caused in that period, so I hope you can understand why I'm a tad scared at the moment.  I am determined to keep myself as healthy as possible, but I'm having to learn all over again what my body's limits are and try to stop before I hit them.  For those of you who know you know how hard that is for me ;)