It's All About "Happy"

    Good morning and happy weekend! This post is not only to share my project for this week's Art Journal Everyday but to also mention how the word "happy" presented itself to me in various forms in the last 2 days-obviously the universe was trying to get my attention.

    The first thing that occurred was that I found out that the "Be Happy Swami" Swamiji Anubhavananda is coming to a local Hindu Temple to present workshops and lectures the beginning of July. It's open to the public and free of charge. Click on his name for the link to his website. You can find U-tube links to portions of his talks from this site if you wish to know a little about him. I cannot tell you how elated I was as I had been hoping to hear him again after attending his lectures at the temple several years ago. I had never heard of him before this nor had I ever been in a hindu temple. It was a moving experience I will never forget. The members could not have been kinder and more welcoming, the temple is so beautiful and the Swamiji exuded pure peace and joy. Since then I also attended lectures there given by Shubhraji  another world wide spiritual leader. Of course, at first I heard all the "you're going where, you're doing whats???", especially from my hubby. But guess what? I convinced him to join me one evening and he attended the last few evenings . He loved Shubhraji and how the way she spoke and interpreted her teachings made it easy for him to understand. We're so hoping she will come back again. What an enlightening experience for both of us.

  On to my project. But my table was piled up with used papers etc. so I needed to clean up first and toss some of the piled paper-WHAT??? They actually looked kinda pretty....and my idea for the project was born. I made a little journal from these papers and here's how I did it:

   First I gathered the scrap papers, cut some down, folded one in half and glued the page together for  stability to use as my cover. These truly were scrapped papers as you can see above was one that had been used as a test sheet for aligning my printer ink cartridge!

   After folding and nesting the pages I ran some Tim Holtz tissue tape on the outside and inside crease of my cover where the binding would be sewn.

   I gave it a title-there's that magic word again :) along with my happy stamper. That's a self inking OLD stamper that had been found at a yard sale and I keep it on my table right in front of me. Now for the easy peasy binding.

  I nested my folded pages together and centered them with the fold of the cover, using a large paper clip on one end to keep it all together. I made three holes with my awl, one in the center and one on either side of the center 1" apart. I took a length of black rattail cord (about 2 1/2 x the length of the book) and pulled my cord from the outside center hole to the inside leaving some length for tying in the end. Come out through the bottom inside hole and then into the top hole from the outside as shown.

  From the inside come out the center hole, tie the ends into a double knot and voila! By the way-don't you love the needle I used?? It's actually a length of 24 gauge wire I folded in half and used-something I do quite often when I can't find the right size needle. Pretty nifty huh?

   This is the inside. The papers are varying lengths-I think I have 16 pages. And this is the outside:

 
  My finished project for Art Journal Everyday at Julie Balzer's blog. But I'm still not done with "happy". Looky here:

  Did you see it in the photo of my book just above this one? Sitting right there in front of me! This darling piece of art made from a nail polish bottle was given to me some years ago by one of  my internet art friends, Paula Dion. Always brings a smile to my face.

 I'll leave you now with one final "happy". This was in the paper yesterday-a Mutts comic strip:

   Love it!!!!!

   Have a beautiful weekend. Thanks for stopping by.