I've been AWOL again!!!!!

You know, we already have 4 grandchildren:  2 boys and 2 girls and #5 (a girl) is due to arrive...ANY DAY NOW!  Phew!  We have been busy babysitting the 1 year old grandson while his 4 year old sister was taking swim lessons.  Mom decided she couldn't be in the pool with the 4 year old AND watch the little man, so we babysat for 2 weeks.  Swim lessons are now over (thankfully), but now #5 is due.

I've been busy creating journals.  I REALLY enjoy this!  I even got my sewing machine out and stitched around some of my photos and attached either scrapbook paper to them or writing paper!  I put ruffles on pages.  I'm having quite a good time.  I HAVE to have a creative outlet, you see!

We're heading over to Arizona in a couple of weeks...going up to Heber/Overgaard for a few nights.  Hopefully we will get a couple of storms up there.  We found a cabin that is pet friendly, so Ripley will come with us.

OH...AND BIG NEWS>>>

Hubby traded in his Nissan X TERRA for a Nisson Rogue hybrid!  We are LOVING it and we usually get anywhere from 33 to 39 MPG!  What a difference!  In fact, we both forget to look and see whether or not it needs gas!  HA!!!!!

Here are some recent pics:

Sewing zig zag stitches around my photos and attaching either writing paper OR scrapbook paper to the back of them.  Now I can insert them into my journals!

These were journals #3 and #4.  I am now on #15...I'll TRY to remember to get some more pics of them.  I did one from a Sunset Western garden book (hardcover) and it nearly did me in!  I actually THREW IT across the room!  I couldn't get the pages sewn in because the spine was so stiff!  I even ripped my stitches out and redid it TWICE!  It is finished now and it is my go-to journal!  I LOVE its "bigness" and will take it with me on our vacation because it has a TON of envelopes in it!  Oh, and I'm experimenting with painting leaves and then using a roller on them onto muslin.  I have GOT to post photos!

THIS is what I'm doing with Home Depot paint samples!!!  I'm going next week to get more samples!

 I finished these 7 back in early July...One is a Western one!  I LOVE it!  (the tall, skinny one in the back row...)

 3 more done in July...

 My hardcover ones.  The others were made from a 9x12 inch envelope.  These are NOT.  The green one on the right is a Reader's Digest book, pages removed, and I sewed in my own.  I haven't sewn the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, which I'm still adding pages to, or the second Western Garden book, on the left.  It is another hard cover book, just like BIG BERTHA (below)...

 THIS is my BIG journal!  I messed up the spine.  I didn't get my sewing holes lined up correctly, so I had to redo them and I made a REAL MESS!  Oh, well...I dearly LOVE this one!

 140 pages!  Can you believe it?  4 sewn in signatures.  A signature is a group of pages.  I think each signature has 15 or so pages...

 I used Dollar Tree bags at the beginning of each signature.  TOO STIFF!  DO NOT attempt this!

Inside front cover.  I kept the original inside cover and back inside cover pages, then added all the other pages.  This one was a REALLY HARD ONE to do because of the stiffness of the Dollar Tree bags.  However, I just couldn't let them sit around and the colors blended so well with the book...live & learn...sigh...At one point I was so frustrated I threw it across the room!  I put it to bed, got up the next morning, and finished her.  Phew!