Over Easter, my sister came to town for a few days to visit and to celebrate the most glorious of holidays. Before she arrived, we swapped emails over a period of days…”What will the weather be like in Michigan?”…”What do you want to eat for Easter dinner?”…”What are we going to keep busy with while we talk the weekend away?” The answers went something as follows:

-“Nice, sunny. Warmer than usual, I think.”

-“I’m good with pretty much anything. Ham, maybe? Dyed Easter eggs? What sounds good to you?”

-Sister: “I’ll teach you how to make a journal.” Me: “Really? Awesome. How did you learn to make one?” Sister: “I wanted a journal. So I looked up the instructions online and taught myself.”

There are three brilliant things about the last statement. 1) My sister is practical, crafty, and one of my very favorite people in the world. 2) We’re related. 3) You can find “how to’s” for just about any craft on the internet. And so, I picked her up at the airport in flip flops, we had ham, potatoes, bread, carrot cake and other delightful things for Easter dinner, and in between the cooking and wandering around town, the late night conversations and the story-swapping, my sister taught me how to make this:

after lots of hole punching, threading, cutting, folding and gluing...the finished product

I just think it’s absolutely lovely. There’s not a whole lot I love more than spending time with my sister, creating, and turning our efforts into something useful (and pretty!)

I searched for quite awhile for the right kind of glue for the binding, and discovered it at my new favorite paper store on. the. planet. (No, honestly. I could live there.) Once I found it, it took me a while to commit to actually finishing the project–but it’s finally done. And every time I look at it, I think, “Hm. I made that.” And that feels pretty good.

Now…to decide what to write among its carefully hand-bound pages…

crisp, white, and waiting

pages and binding

inside cover--i LOVE this paper!

natural-looking paper edge. i really like that it turned out this way!

bookmark and binding

journal love.

Now I’m always craving a new project. I’ll be sure to put up photos of my most recent crafty adventure as soon as my Gramma unwraps it this weekend. She’s turning 80, and we’re celebrating. She’s one of my other favorite people in the world. 🙂 Can’t wait!

mm