Collecting Journals

I think more about journals now than I ever have. The reason, mostly, is a Creative Journaling class I took at BookWorks with textile artist -- and journal queen -- Heather Allen Swarttouw. I wrote about it here. And while blogs are a form of journal, they're nowhere near as deliciously tactile as the three-dimensional variety.

There's an item and a photo in a recent post in Notebookism that reminded me of how much I've enjoyed buying journals over the years. I now make many of my own, but it doesn't diminish the pleasure of finding just the right journal, and like the author of the post, I particularly like to bring back journals from places in which I've traveled. My favorite to date (I guess this means I'll have to take a photo of it and post it here sometime soon) is a dark leather journal from Venice, with a small piece of round millefiori glass set into its cover. The endpapers are a subtle patterned paper, and each creamy white page has small illustrations of Venice across the top.

And here's a different take on journals (and the people who fear them!) from artist Kelly Kilmer.