Perpetual Journal and Journal Keeping

For most of my life, I've wanted to keep a journal. I think I like the idea itself more than the practice. Even when there have been times that I've been faithful to journal-keeping, I tend to ramble on the blank pages and/or write things that I go back to read and find morose. For example, for years, when my husband worked days, six days a week, and I worked nights and weekends, including at least one overnight a week, we kept notebooks writing back and forth to one another. It was a tough time for both of us. The writing sustained us. I kept the journals as I thought we'd love to look back and read "how we made it through" and that it would be this romantic thing that we treasured. As each was finished, it was stored safely to avoid water damage. Fast forward a few years and we were planning a major move. I looked through everything we were keeping, deciding just what was crucial to keep and what was taking up space or should just be given away or tossed. I came across those notebooks and opened them thinking I'd be uplifted, or at the very least proud of what we were able to accomplish: raising our children, working hard, still remaining committed to one another, or any other variety of positive, wonderful things.

However, as I read the entries, it was like a time warp. Suddenly, I was transported via mental and emotional TARDIS to that time. It was incredibly painful. It was like a PTSD-style flashback, and I do not mean that lightly or to sound funny. I mean it quite seriously. I was devastated by what I read. I was brought back to those feelings of loneliness, desperation, exhaustion and frustration. It hurt to read those pages. I immediately placed the notebook I had opened in the trash along with all the rest of the notebooks in the box without a further glance or thought. It was like finding a video or photographs or some other minute-by-minute replay of a life-altering and really negative event, like a car crash. I still don't regret doing it. I don't need any memory of those depressing, stressful times. Yes, the notebooks got us through. They may have even saved our marriage, and definitely saved our sanity. However, like an old bandage, there was nothing appealing about revisiting them.

Q&A A Day Journal

While not as powerfully repelling as those notebooks, I have found journals to be somewhat mundane or otherwise less-than-thrilling to look back upon over time. Since I belong to the New England ATC+ Meetup Group, I make hand-bound journals and art books/journals all the time. I have also actually been keeping a five-year "couple lines a day" journal for over a year. What I LOVE about the Q&A a day journal is not only the limitations of space for each day, but also the fact that each year, I get to see what was going on the year before. This is the best part of the perpetual journal and I plan to keep one for the rest of my life, in some fashion or another. I have the Q&A style now, and I have a "Happiness Project" 5-year-journal once this one is finished.

Because I've made so many art journals, I went searching for ways to inspire using them. They look amazing just as they are. However, all those Cloth, Paper, Scissors eye-candy magazines feature publications specific to art journals. Some of their other publications have articles and features about art journals, as well. I also took a Strathmore brand art journal course online, complete with materials lists and videos on using and altering your art journal. I love the work I see done by other artists! I cannot seem to somehow get that curly lettering style down, or even a more utilitarian block print. Besides, what do I say? Even if I write about something inspiring, or that was newsworthy or otherwise journal-worthy, I find that once I finish the journal, I don't necessarily want to keep it. (This is related to my purge-cycle self who refuses to store things for the sake of them. A pack rat, I am not!) I end up unceremoniously tossing the journal into the garbage or recycling it in the bin. Sometimes, if we're having a fire, I might toss it in as kindling. That's as reverent as I get about it. Sure, they're pretty to look at. However, will I ever go back and re-read them? It's not likely. It's not exciting to do so. This brings me full-circle to the compact tidiness of the "line a day" style multiple year/perpetual journal.

Imagine my delight then when I searched for "art journal" and found a home-made version of the line-a-day, perpetual journal/calendar! I just had to make one! I spoke with a friend, Melissa Delorenzo (check out her blog!) and asked if she had heard of this kind of thing before. Her sister, also a friend, has one that a friend made her. Since Melissa doesn't have one, and I was dying to make one, Melissa is the lucky recipient of the project pictured here. If you Google "perpetual journal" under Google images, you will find a lot of variations on the project. Most credit Design Sponge with the idea and format, and so here is a link to Kate Pruitt's page that depicts the her version of the project: http://www.designsponge.com/2010/12/diy-project-vintage-postcard-calendar-journal.html.

My next may involve purchasing library book check-out cards and using those since they have a line already for the date and then a space already for a phrase that sums up the day or some aspect of it. We'll have to see though since I already bought hundreds of index cards and have a date to make more of these with another friend mid-July. I also saw websites with ideas about decorating the card for your birthday and/or marking other birthdays, anniversaries and/or significant dates and holidays in your life. (Wait 'til Melissa sees the tiny top border of gold stars I put on her birthday!) Since my version is slightly different from the Design Sponge idea, here is a suggested list of supplies/ideas to inspire your own:

THE CARDS:
*Use whatever size cards or card stock you want. I used 4x6 index cards and cut them in half. You will need enough to make 366 cards (because, yes, Leap Year is important to some of us).
*If you like your handwriting (I've already judged my own above) then hand-date each set of cards. Otherwise, you will need a stamp pad and date stamp. You do not use the year part of the stamp, so you will either have to cover it or if you buy one with years on it already, just use a razor blade like I did to scrape off one of the years so you have a "blank" that won't print.
*I found it easiest to do a month at a time, adjusting just the numbers as I went along. Since some months have 30 days and some have 31...and one has 28 or 29, depending on the year, it's easier to stamp by month to remember which is what. The old saying helps: 30 days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31...except February.
*I also let some of the less-than-perfect stamps that were lighter in areas or a bit smudged just be part of the charm and only re-stamped those that were really a mess or I did too close to the edge so the date was cut off.

THE DIVIDERS:
*I used card stock of several types. Some is decorated on both sides, some was plain and some patterned/printed.
*I cut these to be 3" wide, since cutting a 4x6 index card in 1/2 the short way makes 4x3 sized cards. The card stock was then cut to a size of 4.25" so that a little edge became the decorative divider.
*For some of the plainer card stock, I used rubber stamps to give them a little "more" decorative presence and also some washi tape (essentially this is decorated masking tape, something of which I am deeply enamored).

THE CONTAINER:
There are lots of ways of finding and/or creating a container for the cards. The way to accommodate 12 card stock dividers and 366 index cards is to make sure that the container's depth (front to back) measurement is at least 3.25". I cut the one shown in cardboard in the picture at the top of this blog entry using a template from a container for cube notes and so the dimensions are definitely not "accurate" yet are close enough to being about that size.