Tuesday Tips and Techniques: Enlist Your Family!

My youngest son recently moved to California near Los Angeles, and he and his girlfriend arrived Saturday morning to visit for the week.  (Sorry for the late post, I've been stuck on thinking it's Monday!)  They both love traveling and will soon be headed to Europe to visit London, Paris and Ireland.

When he told me he was headed to Europe, he said, "Don't worry, Mom, I'll bring you some stuff back."  Well, after a couple weeks, (as I began cleaning in anticipation of their arrival), I was thinking about how I don't need any more STUFF, and I suddenly knew what I want from Europe - ANYTHING paper that is written in a language other than English!

I relayed that thought to him a couple weeks ago, and unknown to me, he and his girlfriend began collecting newspapers from different ethnic neighborhoods in the surrounding LA area, and gifted me with them on Saturday.

They brought me two different Latino newspapers...

A Persian/Iranian newspaper...

and a Korean newspaper!  I'm so thrilled to have these wonderful papers to incorporate into my art journals, and an added bonus is the fact that I know my students will be excited when I share these papers with them!    It's fun looking through the papers and seeing the similarity between them and our local papers.

In any language, I know that this is a service or product that I don't need or don't want - just like every other flier in the newspaper!

How can you enlist your family's help in obtaining wonderful art journaling "freebies"?  There are lots of free paper (and possibly other items) to be had that will look great in your art journal.  Where do your relatives live or work that might have "pennies on the dollar" or "freebie" items suitable for your journaling needs?  Give it some thought.  It may be that you have a treasure trove of valuable journaling supplies at your fingertips - just for the asking!  I can barely wait to see what goodies I get from Europe.

Some Ideas:

Medical/Dental - Drug reps leave behind a plethora of "freebies", ie., cleverly designed pamphlets that can be altered into amazing journals, notepads, pens, folders, etc.

Food Service - Discontinued carry out menus or placemats, napkins, promotional/special items

Library - Most libraries have book sales to rid themselves of antiquated volumes.  How about an altered book?

Those are just a few ideas to get your brain churning.  Let me know of any others that come to mind!


I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday weekend as we begin saying goodbye to summer and preparing for the colorful autumn that is right around the corner.  To my friends on the other side of the world, "Happy Spring!" - I know it's been a long winter.   No matter your local, I hope you make time this week to "Celebrate, LOVE, and Create!"