Help! I think I'm melting ...

Yorkshire's officially experiencing a drought, and I'm wilting from the heat. It's that muggy, sticky kind of hot weather, and I'm lethargic and headachy. So I've neglected the allotment for the last few days, just nipping down there to gather raspberries and the very last strawberries. Instead, I've been spending my time reading the latest Richard Osman book - lovin' it - and messing about with junk journals. These homemade books are my latest obsession. I really enjoy making them, especially using up all that food packaging or scrap paper that'd otherwise be headed straight for the recycling bin. Above is one of the journals I've been making and decorating, the cover being created from a tetra pack. (That mess is my dining table! I know, I know.)

The other journal is much larger, and I reckon you can easily guess what the cover for this originally was. That logo must be one of the most recognisable on the planet!

I'm having so much fun finding ways of using up anything and everything to make pages, pockets, journal cards and tags.

Envelopes, bright pink Ryvita wrappers, even the paper bags that once contained porridge oats are finding their way into this bumper sized journal.

I've also been messing about with making fabric and paper butterflies too, for no other reason than I saw them on Instagram and thought they looked pretty. You stick odd scraps of fabric on to a piece of fairly sturdy brown paper, then cut out a butterfly shape. Add stitching, if you like, or beads or paint splatters. Whatever takes your fancy.

There won't be a lot of crafting done tomorrow as I'm hopping on the train to New Pudsey - not been there before - but I want to visit Leeds Scrapstore and hopefully snap up some bargains to include on future journal pages. Bus journeys always feel like a chore, but I still get childishly excited about a train journey. Maybe you're the same?

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites. I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs. It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know. Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world! I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them. Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters - I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet. Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining. I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar. Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint. Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste. Applying paint with a ATM card wa...

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