Elastic band journal

I’ve seen these duct tape books here and there on the Internet and so I decided to try one myself. The covers are made from old book covers. They’ve been wrapped in patterned paper and decorated with rub-ons and tape. The spine is done using duct tape (or something similar). I cut the pages from thick watercolour board and they’ve been bound simply with an elastic band. It seems to keep the pages in place well but the advantage is that they can easily be removed while being journaled on.

I really like this book. It’s nifty and incredibly quick and easy to make.

Play is childrens’ work

A child is healthy when it plays, they say in this country. I spotted an Angry Birds activity park for children in the town of Rovaniemi last winter when it was all coated in snow. I decided to go back to have a proper look when all the snow was gone. [SWOON] It was lovely! At one end of the park were all the slides, swings and things for smaller kids and all the parents standing about.

There was a football pitch in the middle, with an Angry Bird in the middle of it, of course.

A running track circles the football pitch.

There were things for climbing, hanging, swinging, leaping, jumping, spinning, rolling, twisting and a whole lot of other things probably, too. And look, yellow astro turf! Don’t you just love it?!

One could get totally tangled up with all sorts of ropey things.

Those weird boxes at the back are mini-sized wall climbing walls. And there was even a kiddy-sized assault course.

Isn’t it marvellous? It totally worked for me anyway. All I wanted was to race around that blue track.

Piece of cardboard

Here’s another little picture for the wall. I made it using a piece of cardboard from a cardboard box. Just added some gesso, acrylic paints, bit of stencilling and some transfers using an old telephone book and then cut out the flower from an old book. That’s it.

White and blue

The seasons are definitely changing now up here in the Arctic. Winter is ridiculously long, spring takes its time to get going but when it does arrive, it does it in an instant. Wham! Bang! And it’s here! I was still wearing a winter coat last week – it was that cold. The north wind went right through the bones. The next day all changed and shorts and a t-shirt was more suitable. I don’t know what it is now, spring or summer. It feels like summer but I’m being told by the locals that it’s not summer up here until the end of June. Whatever it is, it’s very pleasant at the moment.

Last Saturday evening we went out to make some pictures. We stopped by a camping site which always seems empty and closed. They seem to be doing it up since there are new cottages and the whole place is like a building site. They have these cute, little old sheds on the embankment of the river. They used to have sheds up here which were standing high up with only one leg in the middle, to keep the wild animals from the food. I’m not sure if this is one of those food storage sheds but I liked the way it looked. Can you see the tiny little green bits on the birches? That happened basically that same Saturday. Now the leaves are much bigger and it’s starting to look much greener.

I like this wooden head. I don’t think it’s anything typical to this area. It’s probably just someone’s sense of humour.

And here’s the compulsory water picture! There is so much water in this country that it’s almost impossible to take a picture without water in it!! And of course if you’re anything like me, you go looking for it, too.

The sun rose today at 2:40 am and will set at 23:45 pm. Not much of the night left now! If only I could sell daylight, I’d be very, very rich!

This is an artist’s vision of the before mentioned camping site. The picture of the river above was taken about where the white camper vans are.

Do not open fire

Do not open fire! Seriously! Do not even light one!

No problem, heh, heh

Here’s a page from my journal. It’s stamping gone crazy! It’s about the things I like.

Mona Lisa

Have glue and small pieces of paper, will mess like a 5-year-old. Yay! This is a page from one of my journals.