Journal Keeping - Helmar Creative Team

You may remember my post in October last year where I shared my October Daily and how I was trying to get back into keeping a journal as I found it really helpful, well with the move my journal keeping fell by the wayside until now.  I decided to try something new and combine a simple Bullet Journal (BuJo) with journal keeping to make life a bit easier on myself with my memory keeping and planning.  Today I want to share with you a couple of my most recent journal entries.

I just grabbed a cheap dot journal from Officeworks to give this new planning style and journal keeping style a try, but the problem with grabbing a cheap journal is the paper is thin and has a lot of bleed through so I have been gluing in printables on some pages with the bleed through is bad or using my journaling to cover the bleed through.

A big part of my change is I am no longer typing my journal entries as I know if something were to happen to me my kids would like to have much of me recorded as possible, including my handwriting so I am now hand writing my entries, due to how this impacts my hand I need to get my entries done more regularly so initially I tried printing photos daily and journaling and I was using photo paper but it's thickness meant that my journal got really chunky very quickly so I have switched to printing on basic 80gsm printer paper and instead of using scrapbooking paper I instead print digital scrapbooking supplies on the same paper.

I started my August 1st entry by gluing in a page I have removed from the back and trimmed the bottom off onto the page with bad bleed through using my favourite memory keepting glue, Helmar Acid Free Glue.

  

Once I had the bleed through covered I grabbed my little photos (my printer shrank my print job for some reason so I wound up with some tiny photos, not one to waste things I went with it) and some embellishments that help tell the story and played with them to figure out how I wanted to glue them down with my Helmar Acid Free Glue.

 

My next journal session I was doing August 2nd and 3rd but got distracted and journalled August 3rd first, I realised when I was about halfway down the page so I left a space to glue in a tip in to quickly journal my August 2nd memories.
I had a journal card that had some white space at the top so I folded the white space down and trimmed it a little to ensure I didn't glue it to my photo that was going to be beside it.
I applied Helmar Acid Free Glue to the flap and glued it down to my journal page.

    

I then folded the tip in open and covered the edge with some copy paper that I had stamped with a circuit board themed stamp as my journalling for August 2nd was about using technology during covid.  I wound up covering the spot I had cut away to make it look more aesthetically pleasing.

I filled in the blank space under the tab by gluing in a fussy cut row of books on a shelf that I used to represent board games and added a cat sticker, this helped define that August 2nd was on the back of the card and the rest was August 3rd.

There are many ways to journal, if you aren't currently keeping a journal I hope this post helps you consider giving it a try.

Ikea Lekman Repair - Helmar Creative Team

I found myself needing a 2x4 Kallax instead of the 2x2 that I had for my scrapping stash, so I browsed Facebook Marketplace regularly in the hope of finding a bargain nearby, finally I scored a white 2x4 that came with 5 Lekman inserts (4 white which I gave to my daughter and 2 smokey), 1 of the smokey ones was broken at the back (the lady had felt pads on the side that faced the walls, which saved me doing that myself).  I contacted Ikea to see if you could get a replacement part and unfortunately you can't so Helmar came to the rescue as I really didn't want to send this to the tip if I could save it.

I grabbed out my Helmar Silicone Adhesive and Sealant and applied it to the break on the parts poking out and the inside. 
Note - I would later realise with the way this had to be forced back in place that I should have worn gloves and had some turpentine at the ready to clean up the excess when done.

 
I don't have photos for the next part as my photography assistant was off in Uni class.
Basically I pulled and pushed at the 2 sections that needed to go back together until I had them together, this is why I overdid it with the Helmar Silicone Adhesive and Sealant, I wanted to ensure some wound up in the break once I had it together.  This is also why I should have worn gloves, if you get it on your skin wash immediately.
This is when you need the Turpentine, so you can wipe off the mess you made when trying to get the 2 sections to click back together.



As it's at the back you can't tell it was repaired when it's on the shelf, it is now a perfectly functional Lekman to stash away goodies in.

Quick Birthday Card

June and July are hectic Birthday months for me so I need to make some quick cards.  Today I wanted to share with you the cards I made for my nephew's Birthday

My nephew loves cars so I wanted to make him a car themed card, I had this car themed 3D punch out sheet in my stash so decided to use this as the inspiration for my card.  I carefully popped out the layers and then adhered them together with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots, they really are perfect for this as I can adjust the height of my layers by using this awesome adhesive.

I set this aside to dry and started working on my card base.
I cut a piece of red A4 cardstock in half and then scored and folded that piece in half.
Then I went through my stash and found a cool piece of black embossed paper, trimmed it to size and adhered it down with Helmar Acid Free Glue.

To finish off my card I adhered my 3D car to my card base with Helmar Acid Free Glue and then raided my alpha stash for a nice big number 5 and some alphas to spell out Happy Birthday.   Tip stick down your alphas with Helmar Acid Free Glue to ensure longevity and if you have the time give your card a coat of Helmar Chrystal Kote Matte Varnish to protect it from anything little fingers get on it.

 

I am really happy with how my card turned out and best of all my nephew loved it.