I Positively Collect!

I collect a lot of things, many things people may consider junk.  I have special places that I store them in and nobody would actually know that I have a whole drawer full of old maps, brochures, ticket stubs... So when the Journal Fodder Junkies challenged us to collage random things, my heart jumped in excitement.  I spent way more than 15 minutes (the length of the time we are challenged to each day) both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  I got so involved, I arrived a little late at my cousin's grad party.

Both pieces are a compilation of layers over seven days of challenges. The first two days' challenges were to watercolour paint backgrounds and borders, add squares and rectangles of all sizes and overlap them.

Even though I really liked my pages without any journaling, I bit the bullet and filled in my squares. The whole purpose of the pages are to journal on them!  The next days' challenges were to collage random things to a page, add words, add circles, straight lines, and fill shapes that were already made.  I filled the squares with subjects that  will most likely appear throughout my journal.

My second two pages include collage, circles, straight lines, words and fills.  All were completed outside, while I sat at my dugout. They include a transit ticket from our visit to the Calgary Stampede last year, musical notes, post marks, a map, draw tickets, fortune cookie messages... and I entitled the page, I Collect.  I listed many things that I collect, and as well, memories that I collected the day that I created the pages.

While journaling,  a little brown butterfly, about the size on my thumb nail,  landed on my page, a damsel fly (commonly mistaken as a blue dragonfly) also landed.  Several lovely song birds entertained me and three ducks landed in the water.  Two robins, not knowing that I was hiding within the trees, darted closely above my head to the bank.

A very unusual phenomenon occurred.  The water was as still as can be, when all of a sudden a wind devil appeared and touched down next to the west bank of the dugout.  The water began to swirl and lift and it looked as if a sea serpent was arising or the red sea was parting.  I started to worry that I may get soaked.  As soon as the wind devil reached the bank by my feet, it lifted up and disappeared, only leaving a long diagonal line of bubbles behind!  What a little treat!  I have never seen such a thing before!  COOOOL!





A giant brown dragonfly continuously lit and landed on near by branches, strutting his double set of transparent wings.

Two damsel flies entertained me with their mating.  I have just completed a novel about a very intuitive boy who always asked the most interesting questions.  I thought he might ask the following questions:  Do damsel flies make a conscious decision to mate?  Do they know that they must mate to carry on the population or do they mate because the enjoy the act?  The mating lasted a very long time and throughout the process their bodies formed a heart.  Is this where the original heart shape was thought of, way back in time?

What lovely, peaceful two June weekend days I had journaling, visiting and enjoying nature!

Can you find the lady bug?

As you can tell, I positively collect a lot of things, words, memories, photos,...

What do you collect?