Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

It's hard to believe it is the first day of 2024. 2024! Wow.

2024 is a scary thought in many ways because the world is a scary place right now. Here's wishing it will be a wonderful year for everyone and that the world might become a less scary place in the next 12 months. 

Before I move onto the rest of my post, I want to once again thank Wendy for hosting at Art Journal Journey last month. I really enjoyed looking up and thinking about the sky. I also want to say thanks to everyone who joined Wendy's challenge. Now it's time for another year of art journaling to begin. 

This month I am your host at Art Journal Journey 

 If you're like me, in January I like to think a bit about the year ahead.  One way I do that is to set up a new calendar, adding in not only appointments but the start of the new seasons, holidays, birthdays, etc. I'm guessing that at least some of you are or have been getting your calendars organized. 

Because I think about an actual  calendar more in January than any other time of the year,  my theme this month is

It's On The Calendar

What am I looking for this month in art journal pages? Anything that has to do with  calendars. You could use part or all of an actual calendar. Perhaps there's a picture on a calendar you'd like to use. Plus there's months, weeks, days, dates and even numbers will work.

Perhaps you have a big event planned for the new year. Or perhaps you want to make a page about a celebration, a holiday, a trip or something else you put on the calendar.  Even appointments would work. 😏

No, you don't need to include any piece or part of an actual calendar on your page.

And if you prefer vintage, the calendar doesn't have to be for 2024 either. Nor does your art journal page have to actually be about your personal calendar. If you think about it, there's 365 days of ideas-grin.

My first page this year/month is my take on a woman sitting at her desk with a cup of tea and planning out her January calendar.  Maybe she's not modern with a  cell phone and a computerized calendar, and maybe there's no ball point pens yet so she has a dip in the ink pen. (And perhaps if she could get a ball point pen she should as she has blobbed a lot of ink-smile.) 

My page went through a few incarnations as I worked my way to finish it. Sometimes pages make themselves quickly, but this one kept throwing curve balls at me.

I knew I wanted to use this piece of a January 2024 calendar that was in the back of a 2023 calendar I was given. The phone image was sitting in my work table mess; the ink bottle and the pen were stamped and fussy cut. The same is true for the hands; one was just a hand and one had the card in it. I wrote in the details that you see on the card.

 In this version everything is just floating on the page.

Then I added a few more details by using things which might be on this woman's desk. I tried to anchor them to a desktop by adding the velvet ribbon across the bottom.

I added the doily die cuts. I took the ink bottle top off and spilled a little more ink.  I made arms for the hands.

I was still not happy so I went with my tried and true fix it. I used a scrunched up and dried out baby wipe and some gesso.  Here's my finished page once again.

  I sat down one day and came up with some things you might say regarding a calendar. I  typed and printed them. They even got a little bit snarky too. 😏

And then it felt finished, and I even liked it. 

Just a reminder of our AJJ dreaded rules. Please, we only accept journal pages. They can be any type or size of journal pages. No cards, tags, ATC's or other types of art are accepted. And also please be aware that if link up through other forms of social media rather than blogging we might not be able to comment or thank you for your page.

I hope you're inspired by the calendar and will join us at AJJ this January.

And I also hope you have a wonderful new year with lots of smiles, love, good health and happiness.