The Creative Archives: July Artifix Journal...

As you know I have been swapping on Swap-Bot.

I found this really fun swap called July Artifix Journal.

I signed up on June 30th and had til August 8th to finish it.

What is an Artifix Journal you ask...

On the first page you will tell your partner a bit about yourself, where you live, your interests, etc. Then, date the rest of the pages from July 1st through July 31st. You will then attach an artifix to each page for that day. For the purpose of this journal, an artifix is a keepsake of an event or a piece of ephemera from a day in your life. We’ll be collecting these items each day for a month and sharing them with our assigned partner along with a description of how we came across the item, why it was meaningful to us for that day, etc. So, it could be an appointment card from an appointment you had one day along with a description of what the appointment was for, a menu with a few sentences about what you selected from the menu that day, a receipt for something you purchased on one of the days along with a picture and a description of what you bought, or it could be a bus/train ticket along with a description about where you traveled to. If the writing on the artifix is not in English, you must translate it so it is. You MUST also write a few sentences about how you got the artifix. You are welcome to get as creative as you like in linking descriptions/pictures to the artifix

I didn't want to buy a typical journal for this, I had a better idea.

I went through all the childrens books at Ross and found a pretty, beat up book,

with about 32 pages, and paid $2.99 for it!!

I covered the outside and all the pages inside with gesso.

Then I coordinated that day's ephemera with acrylic paint.

I just did a simple wash of paint over the gesso.

Some pages I added more gesso than others.

I really love the way it turned out!!

Here is the book, that I sent to my partner Janice (in Arizona)

in it's entirety...