Last minute rush

Well nearly. I have to confess that time did its passing thing (as previously documented) and suddenly with less than two weeks to go my journal was still requiring serious wrecking. However, a bit of pressure is what always makes a Lisa perform and so I've been letting rip this week with one page even getting a spot of double wrecking - there's enthusiasm for you!

The question that's been most of my mind this week is "would I even have got this far had I been wrecking alone?" Probably not. I have a real need to share my life experiences - I'm a gregarious soul - and finding this great gang of fellow wreckers has really been really rather lovely. How will I spend my Friday afternoons at work now? Might I have to work? (In case anyone from work reads this - that is a joke - lunchtime web browsing only, honest!). Working with you guys has taught me how to wreck, how to let go and not be so precious. I suspect that had I done this alone I would only have managed a few pages and they would have been very carefully thought out and pretty. Although, journal would definitely have gone for a walk - that's just the kind of wacky activity that appeals to me!

Adding to what Jamie mentions in her vlog. Well, I am certainly the enthusaistic starter with all guns blazing. The first few weeks I could have blogged every day about WTJ; I was doing so much and thinking about wrecking when I wasn't! The middle weeks sloooowwweeed right down and then it's all systems go again at the end, because this is one project I am determined to finish. It's a bit like that at work - initial excitement and getting stuck in, boredom with the whole thing as inevitably things never go to plan, then last minute panics which fire me up all over again and gets the creativity sparking again! However, the bit that always gets me, that I cringe over - the final finishing off, the filing, the tidying away... I want to be onto the next project! I know that there will be the odd page that doesn't get done... but here at least I can easily get away with just ripping them out and hiding them under the carpet!

So, what did I enjoy the most this week? Weeeellll, I'd been saving a couple of pages. Not quite sure why and I did them both.

'This page is a sign'. Well, this one perplexed me and I dabbled with thoughts of spiritual signs, road signs, sign language. In the end, I multi-tasked. I'm taking part in an another online course (Q: Do I ever stop? A: No!), doing some creative journaling. I needed to practice my motifs, so voila! Heart motifs - telling me to 'follow my heart'. Something I made a promise to myself to do a while ago. Heads are all very well for working out how to pay for it; but hearts are the journey's vehicle and they want you to have so much fun!

Both this and 'white stuff' are good wrecking for me - I just kind of slung the paint on my sign to see what it would turn out like and my carefully selected white collage got the gesso treatment then scribbled all over so you don't even get to see half the white things... but I know they're there - especially the unicorn who is normally very shy and came out to play just for me!

I've really grown to like wrecking. It's relaxing not worrying about what something might turn out like.

"It's supposed to be messy" - what a glorious phrase!

Before you ask, no I didn't rub my boyfriend on the page - for that is he you see atop a Majorcan mountain. It is instead a slightly twee story. Long before I met him, I always loved the perfume Ralph. And, that is his name. So, the journal smells of 'Ralph'. He smells nice too actually :)

Not content with squashing a cake on this page during a previous wrecking spree, I decided it looked a bit dull. 'Greasy stain' never was going to win an art award now was it? I doubt even Damian Hirst could pull that one off!

So many pages, so little time. But perhaps just enough for one more... Somehow, many years ago I used to be quite good at embroidery. I guess that some talents just curl up and die.