Prairie Eydie SMASHES her journal - Part II

Prairie Friends, I hope you spent the weekend gathering up ticket stubs, cartoons, drawings, quotes and whatever else brings you joy.  (If you feel lost, make sure to read Friday's blog, Prairie Eydie SMASHES her journal - Part I)

Let's continue our journey through my SMASH journal . 

 

Your SMASH journal is a great place for all those vacation postcards you never sent.  (Let's face it.  You KNEW you'd never send them, but were just sucked into the gift shop vortex.) NOTE: I have yet to see Pa's fiddle in person.  It is not in DeSmet, South Dakota as I once thought.  Rather the fiddle has put down roots in Mansfield, Missouri.  (Prairie Sherry and I will be making that trip in the near future.) 

 



What about all those "I Love You" notes from your loved ones?  The above note from my oldest erased all the times he puked in my hair and pooped after I just changed him.  He earned extra points for writing in pink marker. 

 

As an artist, I like to collect poems and quotes that I might be inspired to use in one of my collages.  The above is a poem called Arriving At Your Own Door.  I had to add it to my journal after finding out Oprah had the poem painted on the wall in some room of her house.  (I want to say "bathroom," but that doesn't seem right.)  Here is the poem, by Derek Walcott, just in case you need it too. 

 

Arriving At Your Own Door

 

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

 

 

 

Things to keep in mind.

 

My sentiment that "Most Things are Better With a Glue Gun"  seems especially pertinent with a SMASH journal.  A simple glue stick will work for some flimsy stuff, but not everything.

 

SMASH journals are for everyone!  Prairie friend, Jenell, said her young daughter, Lilly, knew just what to do with her journal.  (Jenell was a bit flummoxed, but that is understandable!)

 

Don't worry about chronology.  It will drive you crazy.  Just start with whatever makes sense to you.

 

Don't search Pinterest for ideas if you are at all insecure about your creativity. This journal is for you, no one else. 

 

Plug in that glue gun and let me know how your SMASH journals are coming along!

 

Prairie Eydie