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To say I haven’t been the best about keeping up this blog would be an understatement.  2025 was a busy year with a lot going on that sometimes required that journal making be put on the back burner.

My oldest got accepted to the University of Texas at Austin, which was her dream school.  Since she is the first to head off to college, spring and summer were busy with orientation, buying lots and lots of stuff for her dorm and we managed to squeeze a family vacation in as well.

After school started, I scrambled to prepare for three markets I had in November and December.  I realize that I should have been making journals over the summer to get ready for these, but since I didn’t, I really had to put a lot of hours in starting in September to get ready for them all.

In the midst of all this prep, I became the victim of the latest round of Meta’s mass AI Instagram account bans.  If you aren’t familiar with this, I wasn’t either, just google mass Instagram bans and you will see that these waves seemed to start around June of 2025 and continue to this day.  Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have been impacted.  My Instagram account was my business account and I had it since before Meta bought Instagram.  There was nothing controversial on my account, unless you consider handmade journals to be so, but nevertheless, I was suspended in November.  I appealed but was permanently banned in less than a minute of submitting my appeal.  It was obvious that this was AI and a person had not reviewed my account at all.  I lost years of posts, not to mention the connections with artists I had made all over the world.  To add insult to injury, Meta permanently banned my personal Facebook account as well since I had connected it to my Instagram, a decision I still regret to this day.  I had that account for decades and lost access to so many “friends” that I knew going back to high school.  Worse than that was losing access to all the groups I had joined, especially those for my daughter’s university.

I have since read about a lot of others that this has happened to as well.  Meta’s AI seems to have gone way too far in monitoring accounts and Meta seems to not care that so many of us have zero recourse and no way to ever get our accounts back.  It’s not that one can simply create another account either and start over, as they ban your device as well.  Some people have sent demand letters by signing up for Legal Shield, others have filed claims in small claims court, all with varying levels of success.  I’m just trying to move on, although it’s still bewildering and frustrating and downright isolating.

In the midst of all of this, I’m trying to get a head start on any spring markets I might participate in.  I have found that I really love the social aspects of selling in person.  I get the chance to meet so many fabulous people and fellow artists as well.

I hope you are enjoying the start of the new year, wherever you might be.  Take care of yourself.

Until next time,

Julie

I’ve spent the last few months making some new journals whenever I could squeeze creative time in.  The weather has been mild here, even though it’s November.  I’m apparently in denial that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  Soon the holiday season will be upon us.  We set the clocks back a week or so ago and I am definitely not liking how early it gets dark.  Winter is not my favorite time of year by any means. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t have any bad ice storms.

I hope you enjoy seeing what I’ve been working on.  Here are some of my latest creations:

This journal is for those who love the color purple. It’s filled with butterfly and rose themed papers, as well as coffee dyed papers.

These two were made after watching a tutorial on the Handmade Book Club, of which I’m a member.  The covers were fun to make and are a great way to use up fabric scraps.

Here is a junk journal I made with an adorable French Bulldog on the cover. I was able to use a lot of Tim Holtz fabrics for this one, which I absolutely adore.

These are two more junk journals I made that allowed me to get my paints out, which I haven’t done in a while.

Meet Felicity, Felix and Cooper.  Felix has found a forever home, but Felicity and Cooper are still available.

The three below were made from online classes I took with one of my absolute favorite artists, Liz Constable from Book Art Studios.  If I ever make it to Auckland New Zealand, I would love to meet her in person.  Maybe one day!

The first two have found homes, but the Imagine lavender one is still available, although I’m thinking of sending it to a friend as a surprise gift.

That is all for now! Thank you for allowing me into your day.

Julie

It’s hard to believe today is already the 4th of July.  It seems like just yesterday it was the beginning of June and we were in Maui for the first time.  It was a really fun trip and thankfully we had no flight delays. That is definitely the longest I’ve been on a plane before and I can’t say I loved that aspect, but it was definitely worth it once we were there.

We stayed at the Polo Beach Club condominiums. It was right at the edge of Wailea and Makena. It didn’t have the amenities that the resorts did, but it was quiet and the beach was less crowded, plus all the resorts were within walking distance if we did want to eat at one of the restaurants while we were there.

We were lucky to have a path next to where we were staying that you could walk along the ocean for almost 2 miles.  It went past a number of resorts and if you were up for a long walk, you could make it to the Shops at Wailea as well.

 

This egret accompanied us on one of our morning walks. They were far to busy hunting and eating lizards to be bothered by or concerned with us.

One thing I found interesting is that there were chickens everywhere in Maui.  They were all around the resorts, outside the grocery store and even in the MacDonalds parking lot.

The first morning we were there, my husband did the sunrise bike ride down a volcano. The sunrise certainly looks amazing, but it isn’t something I regret not doing.

These are just a few of the sites we took in. We made the most of the 10 days we were there, but all of us were also glad to be home when the time came.

Since then, I’ve been trying to carve out time to make journals in-between the demands of being a parent and caring for an aging parent and it isn’t always easy.  I just finished a couple of themed journals.  Both are from digital kits from My Porch Prints.

This one is called Enchanted and it’s the first time I’ve made a night themed journal.  I really do love full moons so I enjoyed making this one quite a bit.  Here are a few pictures of the journal. More pictures can be found on the Themed Journals page of my website.

The second one is called The Naturalist.  I had made one kind of similar to this  a few months ago, but it sold right away.  I liked it so much that I wanted to make another one somewhat similar to the first one.  If you would like to see more of this journal, just head on over the the Themed Journals Page and you will find more pictures.

Last but not least is this cute little junk journal.  I call this one Bitsy.   More pictures of this cutie can be found on the Junk Journals page of my site.

I hope your summer is going well, wherever you are spending it.

Until next time!