 Hey guys! How are you today? Alright, so we are back here to work in our My Year 2017 journal again and today I want to talk about nature. So this month our prompt is think spring, right? So to me when you think of the word spring or when you say the word spring I think of you know, new freshly cut green grass, beautiful blooming flowers, bright sunshine, and all of that sort of thing, abundant nature, right? So here in my studio I actually have a drawer that's labeled nature. I'm not really kidding. So I'm going to get it here in a minute and I'll be right back. Really I wanted to adjust the camera and move the table around a little bit so this is the drawer out of my cabinet behind me that is labeled nature and you know it says actually says tiny shells dried flowers nature and it really is full of dried flowers, sticks and branches. These are some little weird polliny seed, I don't know what these are but they were interesting so I picked them up when I was out on a walk with my husband and when I came home I put him in a Ziploc bag and stuck him in my nature drawer because that's what I do. These are professionally dried dry flowers that I've purchased and leaves. They're it's sort of a flower collection you get them just like this. I think there's some in here with labels on them. These are some dried seed heads, flower heads that I picked up outside of a hospital actually when my husband was having some test done and yes he's fine before anybody anybody else. So the dried flowers are called real pressed wildflowers. The brand is Nature's Pressed. They're out of Utah and I do think they're still around. Their website is www.naturespressed.com and I actually have quite a few of these in here because I used to glue them onto things greeting card fronts and things like that and sell them when I was in the Crafters Cooperative gift shop so these were something that I've actually had for a while, sticks and branches I wasn't kidding. These are some dried tea leaves that I've actually found inside of an antique teapot that I have that I inherited from my grandmother and when I was moving things around recently I've had the pot for years. She's been dead for quite a while but when I was moving the pot around and packing things up I realized there was something in it and when I opened it it had these dried leaves in it. I don't know what they are but I saved them. I also have things like these are some slices of seashell and then I have bags of little mini seashells. So there's all kinds of things in here under the label of Nature. Things that I found like these dried leaves, things that I've purchased like the pressed flowers. So whether you have, I have some dried rose petals down here, I've got skeleton leaves. Maybe you guys have some skeleton leaves still in your stash from the scrapbook days. They used to be a pretty popular thing to use. So whatever you have, whether it's something that you've found out in nature when you've been out on a walk or in your yard or it's something that you've purchased, I want you to gather those bits together and let me show you one way that you can maybe use them in your journal and we'll talk about some other ways too. I think for my journal for today I'm going to use this one. So I'm going to get this ready. I'm going to get out the glue that I'm going to need because I'm going to need some glue and I'll be right back. So when you're working with dried natural foliage you need to be gentle with it and I could go ahead and put it right into the journal on the page but I kind of really want something in the background and I was initially thinking book text but then I saw the scrap of sheet music sticking out of my bin behind me and you know spring is when all the flowers are blooming and the grass is growing, the trees all have green leaves on them, the birds are singing and I have so many birds around my property. In fact my husband encourages the birds. He feeds them so I am going to put some of these on the sheet music and then we're going to use that in the journal. So I'm going to pop this open. There we go and you could use Mod Podge. When I was in the Crafters Cooperative I didn't know about map medium. We use Mod Podge and that worked just fine. I do need a rag. Here's one. So the one thing you don't want to do is get them too wet or really fuss with them too much. You don't want to go back and forth and over and over them because they're very delicate. You really just want to treat it very very very gently. Of course I want to get this piece that's in the back because you know why wouldn't I. A friend of mine who I used to be in the shop with, she was actually the store owner, she used to put these on to Mod Podge them onto candles onto the fronts of the candles and glasses and jars and things. They were very pretty. So when you buy these little packs of dried flowers, if you buy them everything that's in here is really coordinated to work together and I'll give you a close up here in a minute. I still haven't added any more Mod Podge. I mean map medium talking about Mod Podge. This other pink flower. So I'm going to do another one down over here. I'm going to zoom in. You can definitely do this with natural dried flowers, things that you found out on your walks or things. You do want to make sure it's a dry and that it's not still damp and moist because it's you know you run the chance of it molding or something like that. If there's any moisture in it so you want to dry it out really well. Make sure I'm still in the frame. Some of these little bits may be dyed if you've purchased them and if that's the case the dye may run when you get it wet with the glue. So just be prepared for that. These little bits of baby's breath are challenging to glue down. You notice I didn't say impossible, just said challenging. So give it a good coat on top and bottom and then let it dry and then we will be back and we will get them into our journal. All right there we go. So we have our two groupings of dried nature on our sheet music which I love and usually you know some people would want to cut it out properly and take it out. I'm going to just tear them apart. I want to have some torn edges. I don't want to lose the hard manufactured edge. I'm going to throw this piece away but anything I tear off that has music on it I'm going to save for another project because it's a good little bit of collage paper. I want to leave a little bit of border around the flowers of the sheet music but not too much. Something like that. So let's do that to the other one. Just something that's organic and again that's reminiscent of something that you would find in nature. So those are really cool. I have this sheet of 12 by 12 recollections paper. It's like a corrugated cardboard type scrapbooking paper and it's black but it's got a craft paper core. So we're going to just rip a piece off. On this I'm okay with there being like one edge that has the straight cut edge and again I'm going to save those because I can use those scraps on something else. I like that one for that so we've got to cut a tear piece for that one. Take a piece off the bottom. I like that a lot. I have these scraps of paper from that Ulta little brochure that I tipped in to this month's journal and I'm kind of wondering if I want to use some of it. Okay then I also have a bunch of these pieces of deli paper on which I've been doing the melted metal paste that I've developed. It's a DIY. It's coming up soon here on YouTube. Actually there's a few videos on it so like probably you guys are going to get sick of me talking about it by the end of May but anyway these are the dried sheets that you'll see them being manufactured at some point here on YouTube. I'm going to pick I think the oranges. These are by the way some of my new line of stencils I have out for sale in my Etsy shop right now in the Arrows and this face the meditative face. Coming soon are the feathers and the oranges. At the time of this broadcast they may be available for pre-order. I'm not sure at the time of filming so check out my Etsy shop and see. We're going to take some of these oranges and we just need two of them cut two off. I'm going to cut around them. I'm going to leave a little bit of an edge. You could cut or you could tear it. I'm not sure why but I kind of want to cut so we're going to just go with that impulse. This is a cute little embellishment that you could make using things from nature, things that remind you of springtime and you could make them for your journal, you could make a few of them and share them with friends who are doing the My Year 2017 program. It would be a fun little swap item. Not that you have to do that I'm just saying. So I want to tuck this because it doesn't just like remind you of the sunshine. That's what I think of when I look at that. I love those. All right we are going to get the stapler. No glue. I know you're all thinking what stapler? Yes. There's just something that's, oh I need staples in it though, something that's attractive about pairing up something delicate with something really industrial like a staple. I need something pointy because there's a staple stuck in here. Or staples. There's a few of them stuck in here. There we go. Got them. Alrighty. This is the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher Stapler which has a small size stapler, staple. But you could use a regular stapler if that's what you have. Or you could glue it. You could glue it. All right so I'm going to put one here. You could stitch this too on a machine. That would be interesting. I like that. I like the way that looks. All right let's do another one. And I know you're thinking black. Black's not evocative of spring. You should use a brighter color. I know somebody's going to say that you know what? I like black. I love black and if I was a little younger and wasn't married to a conservative I'd probably be a goth because I love black and I find the culture fascinating. So that is what you make it. Of course you could use a brightly colored paper or cardstock in the background to do what makes you happy. I love this. And now let's put one of these into my journal. Here is my journal as it's shaping up so far and we're going to put one or more of these in here. I just have to figure out where. I might want to put both of them in here. Maybe over there. Yeah I might want to put it in there. Okay let's get this one in here first. Again you could glue it down. You could tape it down. I'm going to just staple it some more. I like staples. See what's behind here. We have that purple dot that I have on that paper towel that I kind of want to save. There we go. I love that. So that works out really well. I love the way that looks. I think it makes a really nice addition to my journal and again these could be done ahead of time and you could swap them with friends. You could share them. Use things from nature that you can find in your own yard. I am going to take this little bit that's sticking up right here where my stapler won't reach and I'm going to just put some tape runner there and stick that down. Just a little you know tiny bit and then if there's any tape runner sticking out I'm going to just rub my finger over it and take it right off. Think of it as the rubber cement. There you go. So there you have it. So go out in nature. Find some things or if you are if you have trouble getting out in nature like some of us do buy a few dried flowers or something like that and use them in your journal. You can take the flower seeds and crush them up and put them in heavy gel medium and use them that way and spread them out on your page and stick them down that way and if they're suspended in the gel medium they're not going to rub off or go anywhere and they can make interesting texture under paintings and on things like this or on a card you could make these for a card front that would be really pretty. Use what you have and enjoy what you're doing and if you want to join my year 2017 and you're not a member you're seeing this on YouTube or my other Facebook group or you would like to support my channel by shopping in my Etsy shop or send me happy mail or send me an email. All the information on how to do all those things is in the description below so please take a look at it and the most important thing go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys.