At 9 a.m., the day starts ‘for real’…

… so, what did I find on my desk at nine this morning when I wandered into my atelier with my mug of coffee?

WOYWW #493

There’s my Chronicles. I finished another spread yesterday which I photographed and then I turned the page and smeared some paint on the new-to-start ‘week.’ I’ll probably work on this spread today.

I realize that I did not visit any of you ‘deskers’ last week, I appologize. My days were filled with all kinds of activities which left me with few time at the computer. One of those activities was, as I stated last week, to sort out my books and HELL, was that some job to do! I ended up with four boxes of books that didn’t make it onto the shelves and my beloved got rid of some/a lot of his books too. Yes, after 20 years of living together we somehow still have seperate shelves: ‘my books’ and ‘his books’… the case on the left is ‘mine’ and the one to the right is ‘his.’ The middle part is filled with art books and reference books (is that the right word? Like dictionaries and atlasses and such.)

See that? We even got space left to put file folders/administration or… well, whatever. I guess that space on the shelves will be filled in no-time.

The rest of the week flew by as I put all my time and concentration in creating a new “Chronicles” art journal for next year. I showed you the fabric cover I was working on last week and look what happened after that…

I finished the cover!

I finished the back!

… and I bound the book stringing beads to the binding thread.

Its a big journal (21 x 29,8 cm – 8.27 × 11.69 inch) and it will be lovely to work on another size and shape next year.

You must know last year I bound a square-shaped journal (which make the spreads to work on rectangle of course) and the moment I started working in it I realized I didn’t like this shape at all! I even considered binding another journal, but it was a matter of honour to not do that and work with it all year. Now that we’re in week 46, I am kinda used to its size and shape but to be honest, I still don’t like it and I never, ever will work in a square shaped journal again… uhrmmmm… probably!

Anyway, here’s two spreads of former (October) weeks.

The Chronicles of Marit 2018 – Week 42

The Chronicles of Marit 2018 – Week 43

Before I move on with my day, there’s this thing I want to point out to you, because you want to join Book of Days 2019, right?

Especially because I am a BONUS TEACHER next year and you know a YES to this e-course is a YES to inspiration, encouragement, artistic grow, creativity, tutorials and a whole lotta love!

If you are thinking about joining, you better register while the price is right: early bird pricing is $99 until December 31st ($120 thereafter.) I really look forward to present a tutorial in Book of Days and I really hope to see some familiar names and faces there!

“St Pancras, perhaps best known in Britain as a railway terminus, is a member of a trio known as the Ice Saints. The others are St Servatius and St Mamertus. Their chilly collective name comes from the traditional belief that their days, 11, 12 and 13 May, bring cold weather and the last frost of the year. Some gardeners in France will not plant until the Ice Saints have gone. They are well known in Germany, Poland, Austria and Switzerland.” (The Guardian)

I also need to clean the apartment, the so called ‘Spring cleaning.’  I keep postponing that because cleaning is not something I like to do. I rather spend my days in my atelier..

Speaking about my atelier; it’s Wednesday, the day that I take a photo of my workdesk for “What’s On My Workdesk Wednesday”.

WOYWW #408

As you can see on my desk, I’m working on a tiny journal and in the window sill there is an even smaller journal (2,3 x 2,3 cm – 0.9 x 0.9 inch) titled “Daylight Saving Time.” I created it last weekend and yes, we changed the clock on Saturday.

I won’t create journals this tiny again though, I didn’t like working thát small. The minimum for me seems to be approximately 4 cm (2 inch.)

And that’s it for today sweeties, fact is….

(art journal spread/drawing made in February)

Have a nice and creative week, see ya!

Today, my desk looks quite different than what you are used to: it’s full of stuff!
I am working on some (yes, more than one) new art journals that gets collage on the cover. For that, I took out all the magazine pictures, old postcards, magazines and clippings that I could find and it looks like this:

WOYWW #400

Not only WOYWW celebrates an anniversary, my dad did too last weekend! It was  his birthday and since he likes to draw and sketch I made him a sketch book.

Giving him this sketch book was also in my own interest because my dad has a car and I have not…. my parents like to take their camper and drive to a nice spot when the weather is good. My mum sits and reads or writes while my dad sketches the scenery… and hey, I like to go with them and do the same! So making him this book increases my chances to go on nice little day trips with them when the weather gets better 🙂

While thinking out the way this book should look and how I should bind it, the idea came to me to add elastic bands so the sketch book could carry a pencil… it turned out great don’t you think?

So now I want such a sketch book myself too (or, as they say in Zeeland: “Moek-ok-hè”)

I hope you all have a great week.
Create someting,
anything.
Bind a book.
Make a collage.
Be happy.

My desk, for WOYWW #386

The ‘King’ from the title, you ask? He’s on my desk… He appeared on the page for a reason but it’s quite a long explanation and I know our woyww-hostess Julia doesn’t want us to write long blog posts on Wednesday so I’ll save the story for some other time (I bet Jenny has an idea though 😉 )

New art materials

And there’s more happiness on my side desk! As you may (or may not) know, I am a member of Jessica Sporn Designs Creative Team (you can find the first video-tutorial that I made as a team member HERE) Being a team member is not only fun, it also comes with benefits. Of course there are Jessica’s beautiful stencils and stamps that I got to work with, but all team members also received a mixed media starter set of DecoArt products last week.

There were some products in the package that I only heard of but never worked with before, like crackle paste, and I got to say: I am in love with that stuff! I will show the results soon.

New Art Journal

As I said, I bound a new journal. I finished my “Zeeuwse Ziel” (Soul from Zeeland) last year and I started to miss it. So here’s the sequel: De Zeeuwse Ziel II

Front / cover:

Back / cover

Photographed from the side / the spine

Detail photo: binding

The size of this journal is 15,5 x 26,5 cm (6.1 x 10.4 inch) and it also contains fold-out pages. I added beads to the binding and I like how it turned out.

Oops… is this blogpost too long for the woyww-desk hoppers?
I won’t add more words then…

…

only a few more…
to wish you a wonderful week!

The Chronicles of Marit 2014 – front

The Chronicles of Marit 2014 – back

The Chronicles of Marit 2014 – spine

And here’s the journal in all its glory!

I really love to work in my ‘Zeeuwse Ziel’ journal lately and I noticed that this has (partly) to do with the size of that particular book, so I choose the same size for this journal. The pages are 17 x 29,7 cm (6.7 x 11.7 inch) and that makes that the weekly spreads will be sized 13.4 x 11.7 inch.

It has become a tradition to write about my ‘OLW’ (“One Little Word”) on that first (single) page of the Chronicles journal. However, I have not yet chosen a new word that will accompany me the next year. In former years, a word usually ‘came to me’ in November or December… not this time though. I have a few words in mind but doubt them all. There is still time though… I’m sure it will get clear before the end of the year.

And here’s the latest spread in this year’s Chronicles: Week 49

I realized only later, when I started to write about what had happened in that week, that I’d used the colours of the African flag in the background. Subconsciously, the death of Nelson Mandela must have been on my mind.

And that is it for today…  I will be writing only two more ‘regular posts’ this year (on Wednesday and Friday) because it is the last week before the official Top 2000 list will be announced on the radio and on the internet! Next Monday (December 23) I will post the link to this year’s list and the info on how to join the Top 2000 blogparty on my blog. We can all start creating to the songs from that moment on… I’m looking forward to this event! Are you?

(If you have no idea what the TOP 2000 MUSICAL BLOG PARTY is, read last years post HERE ’cause YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN!)

Yep, that’s right. I teach a live workshop in Eindhoven
on December 6.

So DUTCHIES: go to the website HERE to find all the information.

If you’re English speaking and want to join, email me at live@maritspaperworld.com

See ya!

A disappointing number of three (yes, 3!) people registered for the
‘workshop by the sea’.

As the date approached – and no new registrations were added – I had to
make a decision: cancel the workshop weekend or – despite the small group –
go for it and transform the weekend into something even more creative…
I choose the latter.

I informed the women about it and one lady withdrew, but the other two
got all enthusiastic when they heard it would be a more intimate weekend.
After all, with such a small ‘group’ they would have the opportunity to learn
more complicated techniques.

The workshop weekend finally came.
I met Elvy and Margot – two friends that were my ‘students’ last weekend
– and we had a blast!

We made a small book with a ‘secret folded spine’ (similar to the one I show
in the video in this post), we carved stamps, the poet Johanna Kruit taught
a haiku workshop, we did some more bookbinding, we transferred magazine
images, we worked on different art journal pages and ofcourse we went for
a long walk on the dunes and beach.

This photo impression tells it all
(photos taken by me, Johanna, Elvy and Margot)

Here’s a book I made to show Elvy and Margot how to bind the pages.

(Size: 13 x 17 cm - 5.12 x 6.7 inch)

The pages in this book are alternately made out of blank paper and
scrapbook paper. Margot had brought some acrylic paint in marvelous
colours with her, and I tried all the colours in different combinations
on the blank pages.

It turned out to be one happy, colourful book!
It will be so much fun working in it!

I didn’t manage to work on my ‘chronicles page’ in the weekend…
so I made this spread today! (that’s why I’m blogging late)

The Chronicles of Marit – Week 45

(23 x 31 cm - 9.1 x 12.2 inch)

After a long, creative weekend the daily routine still has to settle in…
but I’m sure tomorrow everything will be ‘back to normal’.

I wish you all a lovely week!
(Turn disappointments into opportunities!)