The West

 Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week already. I hope everyone is having a great week.

Today I want to share some pages from my latest travel journal project. I like to collect bits and pieces when I am away on a journey, and then when I come home  I like to make a travel journal with those items  as well as some things from my stash. 

This latest trip journal  will be bound between 2 old photo album covers. I found the old album when I was cleaning out supplies for the art room redo back in the winter.  The front cover has great detail; I'll show you that later. The size of the cover means the pages are perfect for 8.5x11 inch paper.  One thing I particularly like is that the finished journal will be tied together through those 2 holes you can see on the right side of my page. Since this isn't an already pre-bound book, I can work on individual pages in no particular order, and then, because they have punched holes, I can stack them and bind them once I am finished. 

I made a page on the inside of the front cover, and that page works for Elle's Fairytales, Folktales and Fables: Tell Me a Story challenge at Art Journal Journey. The cowboy of the American west has become a legend  and part of American folklore.

I believe the steer the cowboy is riding is a Texas Longhorn. I read but didn't know that longhorns had become half feral cattle after being brought to the Americas with the Spanish in the late 1400's as part of Columbus' second voyage to the new world. I also didn't know they almost went extinct but were saved by the US Forest Service when they created a small breeding area in Oklahoma in 1927.

Now even though I didn't visit Texas  nor did I see any longhorns, I did see a lot of cattle.

Including this guy who was standing right on the side of the road. I don't think he appreciated us stopping next to him.

These free ranging cattle were in the Colorado part of Dinosaur National Monument. 

I made my inner cover page starting with a piece of kraft paper. I stamped a wood grain image on it several times in brown ink. I also sponged on some copper ink and brown ink before I added the copper tape.  The title are letters I drew in and then fussy cut, and the images come from a couple of collage sheets I had in my stash. I finished off my inner cover page with a few other items from my stash.

Here's another page from my journal that I've completed. This  is my inner title page and will form a spread with the title page I've shown you.  I'm not usually happy with my penmanship, but I do like how these words came out. I cut them out after writing them on some off-white cardstock. The numbers are from a very very old sticker set. For my background I used a piece of vintage style  tissue paper as well as some black, copper and brown inks. I also added in the traffic signs and a bit of copper tape too.

You might also notice that these 2 pages work together to form my opening spread. 

And lastly today I want to share a fun postcard I received in the mail the other day from Elle. I didn't know it was International Postcard Day last week.

Horace Slughorn is a character from the Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts world. He was once head of of House Slytherin, which I guess I belong to, as twice in the last year I've worn a sorting hat and been told I'm a Slytherin. Hmm, When I took the test online I came out a Hufflepuff. Good thing it is all in fun.

That's all for me today. Hope your first week of October is going well.