repurpose

When my journal matches my moods

| Sheree
Current Squeeze

March is nearly over. I spent a lot of it getting ready for a trip that didn’t happen. I’m still sore around the wound but will share here at some point.

The journal above which I share is the journal I created for my travels. It’s an Elle Decorating Magazine which I’ve repurposed. I pulled out the images and text I wanted to use in my visual journaling and then painted over the remaining pages.

It’s rough and ready. Messy and grungy and in the process I didn’t realise how much it has reflected my mood.

It’s not perfect.

I’ve been all over the place in terms of my moods these past few weeks. Serene and blissed out to stressed and anxious and angry.

And this messy, at times ugly, journal has captured it all. And I am grateful for its space and non-judgmental welcome.

I’ll be back here over the coming days to share the spreads that have been created in this journal. Just so you can see a bit more of my process and practice.

One more thing. The back of this journal was converted into a mini guide book to take on my travels with me. Since I didn’t make that trip, I haven’t been back into the back of the journal. I was also contemplated chucking the whole thing and start a new journal as I felt it would be painful and annoying to continue to use the journal as its purpose was for my time away.

But instead of avoiding the pain and frustrations and disappointments, continuing to use the journal has meant I haven’t run away from the feels but have allowed myself to sit with the feels.

I’m not sure if that means I’m a glutton for punishment or if I’m just all in with this life, my life of attempting to thrive rather than just survive.

Still showing up in this journal, just created from a magazine man, has given me the time and space to work through my feelings and come through feeling grateful for my life and the people I have around me who care about me and love me.

Visual journaling, it kills me in how it’s such a powerful tool for staying present and connecting with the self. Amazeballs!

My Last Journal of 2024

| Sheree

In the lead up to Christmas ( I started in October), we were getting a few deliveries and within each box there would be some brown paper. Padding, for safety and probably there to be discarded. But I loved the feel and sound of it. So I started to keep it and before long I got myself a nice little pile of brown paper.
I started by tearing the large sheets into A4ish sized single sheet of brown paper. Of course sometimes my tearing went awry. But no matter, it made that piece more unique and raw. Once I got a pile of sheets, I proceeded to apply acrylic paint to both sides. The colours my heart desired. I loved the mix and the new colours that were created through the process. I threw some white copy paper in the mix too, adding colour, smearing it with my trusty Costa card. Once dry, I folded each sheet and created a book with them all.

The cover and the middle section of this journal, are not my own artwork. This was gift wrap I received some goodies from across the pond a few years again from a friend. This friend, Jo, made the wrapping paper herself. She was a follower of Earth Sea Love and for a while there I had these pieces on my bedroom wall. After the decorating of my room, these piece never got back onto the wall but I wanted to use them still . And not let them go to waste, as I do cherish them.

With the book constructed, I just started writing in it for my morning pages. Not really sequentially either, but drawn to each page by the colours or the feel or the jagged edges. I loved working in this journal through December. I loved the feel of the pages and the sound as the pen scrawled across it, the rustle as I’d turned the pages. LUSH.
That’s what I do now, now that I’ve moved on to my new journal for 2025, I’ve been just sitting and turning the pages, and smiling at how this has made me feel.

I share this joy with you now, as I share my last journal of 2024.

Let’s Go Outside

| Sheree
Visual journaling 04/05

At the moment, I’m using an altered (romance) book as my visual journal. I go with my moods when it comes to deciding what to use next for my visual journal. I listen to my gut and what she’s calling for in terms of size, shape, texture of page, of journal she needs in order to show up daily for the next month or so.

So with an altered book as my journal I was calling for space to explore colours but also layering, composition and found text.

There will be pages that are heavy with colour and my handwriting while others I’ll crave colour with space and some text cut ups applied.

I’m using Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye at the moment to create found poetry for double page spreads. The Bluest Eye was the first book I read in which I found someone who looked like me and who felt the same self-hate I was experiencing around growing up in a predominately white society being within a Black body. It was revolutionary for me and my personal development to find this book when I did.

I suppose using a copy of the book now to cut up and repurpose is saying something about how I’m feeling at the moment and how I want to see myself on the page. How I want to take back the space, take up space and be validated. But on my own terms.

I love how powerful visual journaling is to my psyche and how I move my body through this world but does so through such a simple process. It never ceases to amaze me what comes to light and fruition through this practice.