Over the years, we’ve kept a record of our summer holidays. Sometimes in scrap books, sometimes in photo albums, and there have been a few videos. Some of these items have been quite elaborate and they are lovely to look at years later.
Digital photos have disrupted this process. Before digital cameras and especially camera phones, you were always conscious that film, and developing the photos you took, cost money and so you’d be more careful about what and who you snapped. Now, you can go mad, snapping at this and that and ending up with hundreds of photos that you’ve then got to go through to pick out the ones you want to keep. I’ll probably do this eventually but I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to use them.
I’ve always loved the idea of a handwritten travel journal containing words, sketches, maybe a few tickets and other bits and pieces. Once or twice, I’ve managed to put something like this together, probably heavier on tickets than sketches. This year, I did keep a journal and, because of the creativity every day resolution, I did my best to do some sketches, as you’ll have seen a few posts back. Of course, when you’re on holiday, there isn’t always enough time to sketch stuff, and I wouldn’t be the quickest of sketchers.
In time, I might try to sketch a few more of the things we saw, from photos. In the meantime, I did this map this morning …
Yesterday in work, there were a few enforced gaps. One, when my computer decided to update itself and then, two hours later, decided to undo the updates. And two, during a Vodafone outage.
I DID do some work during these gaps but I also did these!
I love Pinterest and many of the ideas that I have about things to make and do come from there. Browsing through it on my phone, i found a little video on how to tie a double bow. I happened to have some ribbon in my briefcase (I know, what am I like?) and so I had a go. Once you get the hang of this, it takes about 10 seconds to do. Looks great though. (I love doing stuff like this. I really do.)
One of the interesting things about the resolution that I have mentioned before is that, as time passes, I have begun to THINK more creatively as a matter of course. I suppose it’s like learning a language. After a while, I believe, you begin to think in the language (not that I was ever any good at languages). So, sometimes I might see something and I might think: ‘I could do that’, or ‘I could do something like that’, or ‘that’s interesting and hey, it’s given me an idea’, or ‘I wonder how that’s done’.
In Bratislava, in the shop Ethno Sumba, that I’ve mentioned previously, there were some fish hanging in the window, made of woven reeds. Very simple. Very effective. So, during yesterdays down time, I cut up an Irish Board certificate and made one …
And then I painted it …
I made a couple actually and hung them up in the fishy downstairs toilet but they didn’t look great hanging there, so I took them down this morning and just stuck this one to the wall.
I was watching a documentary about Woodstock 1969 last night and someone used the phrase ‘frayed at the edges’ and it struck a chord.