I am preparing today for an event tomorrow for International Women's Day. It is also International Craft Month. It is also a month with my Mom's birthday, yesterday March 6th and a year since she passed peacefully March 30th. All of these events have been swirling around in my mind and heart. I also have been coaching several people lately and have had conversations about creativity that confirm the importance of creative outlets for our health and well being. I have also realized often I am busy writing articles, instructions, designing specific projects that I do not make time for creative play for myself.

I have been inspired lately by my very talented designer friends Rebekah Meier and Marie Browning. I am having fun trying new techniques and putting together a workshop on Creative Collage Journalling. I began with a journal of my own, much of our past explains our present and so I begin a journal with the strong women in my childhood. This journal's cover is distressed, layered with stenciling and stamping. I used fabric transfer sheets to apply the images. The young woman on the cover my great aunt Anna, she never married as she carried the haemophilia gene and did not want to pass it on. She worked fifty years as a book keeper at Ganong's candy factory and always had a beautiful candy dish filled on her table. It is with her I began my journal.

This second journal is totally different. I used Rebekah's technique of embossing and painting fun foam. I used a stencil brush to apply glitter stickles. As women we often put ourselves last, this journal "it is all about ME, ME, ME!!!"

This month I celebrate the creative, strong, amazing women I know past and present who have impacted, shaped and delighted my life! Follow the JOY! Debra