Some Faces in my Iceland Journal

 Hi everyone. Happy almost the weekend to you. 

And before I go further, thank you for all your stories about my journal page yesterday, I loved everything that happened to Marnie. And I especially loved how everyone had their own stories, which makes the post so much more interesting. I hope Marnie ate a lot of yummy treats, didn't spill tea on her gown, successfully delivered the baby and saved the mother too.  And if she is waiting, I hope the time flies by for her, but that she does have enough time to drink her tea.

Today for Nicole's Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break .   I have some pages from my Iceland travel journal for you. I always bring home bits and pieces that I pick up along the way during any trip I take.  Then when I get home I make a junk style journal with those bits and pieces. It's a lot of fun to do, and I also find it helps me not only firm up the highlights from the trip, but keys in on some details that can easily  be overlooked in my memories of a  journey.

Here are some pages with faces for you. This first page commemorates me finally being able to see wild reindeer/caribou. I say finally because when I've been to places where reindeer/caribou are found, I've never managed to see any. Until Iceland that is.

I'm  a knitter, and  Iceland is known for a particular sweater style.  Of course I had to make a page about that. 😏The pieces of yarn stapled in the right hand corner are the colors of the skeins I bought and which I am knitting with now.  

On this next page is a piece of a photo I took that I used in the background, as well as a  vintage woman in National costume. This lady was cut out of a postcard I bought.

Just to show you how I use all kinds of ephemera to make a page, this page has a lot of paper "junk" that I picked up in various places, not just on my trip back in June.

It started with a postcard that was made to announce a class in paper marbling  that I picked up  after my trip. I also added a bit of painted tissue, but it's hard to see the silver paint on it in this photo. The colors  reminded me of Iceland; these were the first things I put down on my page. I then added the hotel room key holder from Iceland.  I put all the blue paint pen dots on it. I also glued down  the metal number one because this was my favorite hotel during the trip. I added a Tim Holtz craft supply person sitting on the top of the hotel key holder.

The photo below shows  the inside when you open up the hotel key holder. I added a little journal card note in the key holder, and I also glued down a piece of a map from a travel brochure to show where we were. Finally I used some thin  washi tape along the top. To the right you can see a card I picked up at a different hotel, but I haven't yet completed that page in my journal.

I have made a  few trip photo books with some photos I took, and one of the books arrived defective. I called the company where I had them made, and they sent me a new book. Now I have my defective book that I can  chop up.  That's where the photos on this next page come from.

And finally, here's a page I am not sure is finished or not. I finished the background, and then I added this cool sheep postcard I picked up. Underneath I added some Bingo pieces that came from a game my daughter had as a child. These pieces were still attached to their plastic strip holder, but I like how they look.

What else I'll do with this page, I'm not certain. Perhaps I'll just leave it as it is. 

That's probably more than enough for today. Enjoy the start to your weekend.

Tea for the Road

 Hi everyone.  Yesterday was one of those days that wasn't exactly a bad day but a day where nothing went as planned. I just gave into that early before the day sent my frustration levels over the top.  We also had some storms, and our humidity, which has been really tropical all week, finally, supposedly has broken. As I haven't yet been outside today (as when this post went live), I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that is true. 

The other weather talk going on in my area is the hurricane (Hurricane Lee). They're still not sure of the final track and where within the cone  it will hit land ; right now they're saying anywhere between Downeast Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. Any which way, there will be rain, wind and some tropical storm effects at my house, but we'll have to see what happens. (And wherever it hits, let's hope people stay safe.)

Today. I'm sharing another spread from my Iceland journal as well as some more Iceland photos. 

My spread is made by first using a writing designed stencil and some paint. Then I used a black Sharpie and a number stencil to add the numbers on the inner parts of both pages.  Once I finished my background, I attached the labels from 2 to-go sandwich wrappers. I also attached 3 (what we in the US would call) Coke Zero bottle labels.  I pulled all of these labels  off the bottles and with the 2 sandwich labels I cut away the rest of the wrappers.

I then added some stickers  that had something to do with other foods we had while on our Ring Road Drive.  There were a couple of donuts that made it into my belly, and the cookie represents some other sweets we tried. And finally, my cup of tea with a big smile on it.

That  tea cup makes my page eligible for Elle's Books, Cat and Tea challenge at Art Journal Journey.

And let me share a few more photos that go along with the scenery I shared this past Sunday. If you're interested  where we were in these photos (besides the obvious Iceland), we are on the northwest side of the island, south of the Western Fjords, and on the north side of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. We were heading towards Snaefellsnes National Park which is off of the Ring Road. 

I'll start off with this traffic jam, Iceland style. It also shows some cars and trucks which is the theme this week at Rain's Art and Dinner Date. 

This bus had gone off the side of the road. into the little ditch you find along most Icelandic roads. And yes, the road is gravel, but this is not considered a back road. Many of the roads in Iceland are not paved. Everyone who was stuck in this backup, maybe 15 cars, got out and went up to watch what was going on. We were stopped maybe for an hour, and some people turned around and left, but, as we were told, to backtrack around would take close to 2 hours, so it was better off to wait.

Plus this was real life and interesting to watch. At a few points it even looked like the bus might flip on its side, but luckily, it didn't.

These next 2 photos are a little dark (sorry), but we also had to stop so my husband (who's a civil engineer) could stop and inspect how they were building this new bridge. As he said they were building it with pre-cast parts, whereas at home, they are built piece by piece on site.

Although I appreciate bridges, I much more enjoyed watching the Icelandic horses in the meadows.

I love finding all the little churches in seemingly the middle of nowhere although obviously there are people living in the area who use them.

And an afternoon snack for the road is never a bad idea.

And as you drive through town, it's good to not speed.

As we moved closer to the park, the cloudier and wetter it became. Clouds and fog make cool photos, but they also let you not see as much either.

That's all for today. I'm slowly making my way through my trip photos, even though it is now September and we traveled back in (mostly) June.  Next time I share photos from the trip I'll show you some wet and cloudy views from the park.

Have a great day.

More from Iceland

Hi everyone. Happy Sunday to you. I'm having a quiet low-key weekend. How about you?

Today I have a spread from my Iceland travel journal to share.  I actually photographed this spread in 2 separate images,  because for one thing, these pages in my journal don't want to lay flat. I also thought because the second page needs a bit of explaining it would be better to show the pages separately.

The overall general theme is birds. This first page mostly uses some old postage stamps that I had from 2016 when I went on my first Iceland trip. The stamp down on the bottom right is one I picked up on my most recent trip. 

The next page ties in with birds, sort of. I added the white candy wrapper image because not only did I enjoy that candy but they reminded me of bird's eggs.  Well maybe not if you broke them open. grin. The red-throated loon (or diver) is  cut out of a brochure and was a new-to-me bird that I saw.

I also added in a little journaling tag. This tag is taped in between the 2 pages. On the back I wrote about some of the birds I saw but did not have stamps to share. The bird on that taped-in-tag is NOT a bird I saw in Iceland but I liked it and it's size so I added it.

You can see the book paper (Icelandic writing) on both pages. I attached the gas receipt because it was interesting with all the different numbers that showed up on it, and also because the paper was so thick compared to what we usually get in my area. Does it fit in with birds? Not really, but whenever we made a snack purchase we did get receipts so it does tie into my page. And even if it doesn't  tie in, it looks good on the page. grin

I also added the girl. She was  on a brochure I picked up on my trip to Charleston, SC in May, but I thought she looked like she could be in Iceland with that scarf she is wearing.

Since I have those book pages, I am linking up to Elle's Books, Cat and Tea challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Today I also have some more Iceland photos to share. Sorry for you ornithologists out there, these are not bird photos. But  if you like stunning vistas along the ocean, these photos are probably for you.

I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

That's all for me today. Have a great rest of your weekend. 

Waterfalls in Iceland

Hi everyone.  Happy Wednesday to you.

August is winding down way too fast, but since I can't stop time, let me  post another page for Chris' challenge over at Art Journal Journey.  Chris’ challenge runs through this Thursday. Waterfalls are all over the world, but this page is in my Iceland journal because we saw a lot of waterfalls in that country.

 I  have already shared photos  of many of the big waterfalls we saw in Iceland,  including this one on my journal page. To make my page I used a napkin I received on the plane, added a postcard I picked up at some point in the trip and also included the parking ticket to this particular waterfall's parking lot. This lot was  crowded; you can tell this is a popular waterfall to visit. (Probably because you can walk behind it.)

I'll be back with one more page for Chris' challenge before August wraps up.

To go along with this page, let me share a few more photos from Iceland. These are some "small" waterfalls we came across. (Along with a few other views also.)

And I'll add a turfhouse that was "next to" one of the small waterfalls.

Even these small waterfalls can have deceptively strong flows. This next one had a trail you could walk up to the base  (not the top) of the falls.

I still have a lot of photos to share from my June trip, but this is all for me today. I hope your week is going well.

 

Iceland

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. I hope your week is going well.

Today I have a page for Chris' Where in the World challenge at Art Journal Journey and I also have a few Iceland photos to share.

I've started filling in pages in an Iceland travel journal I made.  I haven't finished the cover yet, but here's what I've done so far. (And the tape on the left is not that crooked, it's the angle I took the photo.)

I'm not sure what I'll do to finish the cover, but you will probably see it once I finish it.

My page for AJJ today is the inside cover page.

I had this 8x8 piece of map paper. And because it's the arctic, Iceland just happened to be on it. 👍 I added a scrap of tan paper to the top to finish covering my base page.  Then I rubbed an ink pad over parts of my page. I recently picked up a couple of the new Lisa Horton Interference ink pads. They ink one color on light paper and another on dark paper. 

You can see how the ink is green on the tan paper and blue on the lighter map paper.

The tab on the right side is from my boarding pass which I laid horizontally across the back side of this paper.

I added several items from a brochure I picked up on last month's trip to the  Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Those items include the cut out troll, the lines of circles and the title of my page. I stamped the circles that are directly on the background paper, the big circle around the island of Iceland as well as the little plane flying there. And I die cut the black arrow.

Trolls, little folks and fairies are all part of Iceland's history. I've even read that a lot of people still believe they live on the island.  I'm glad I had this brochure image and title words because they work so well in this journal, even if I didn't see them in Iceland.

 I've shared some photos from across the south of Iceland and also along the Eastern Fjords. Now we're going to be heading into the Northeast part of the country, into a section of Iceland where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is active. Wherever the mid-Atlantic Ridge crosses the island, you have lots of volcanoes and lava fields.

I just love how you travel a few hundred kilometers and the scenery changes so drastically.

Sorry for the dark photos, but it was quite overcast that day. If I lightened them up, then the atmosphere we experienced changed too much. 

Next stop is a couple of waterfalls, but I'll save them for another post. I still have a lot more photos, and I'm sharing them as I go through them. 

Thanks so much for visiting my blog.