Stamped Vintage Ledger and Ho'oponopono

 

The first annual Gwen Lafluer ArtistTribe Creative Team Art Retreat was held in mid-July, and wow, did we get creative! Hosted by Jackie Neal in western New York State (minutes from Lake Ontario), we spent creative arty time together from sun-up through midnight for several days. Everyone took turns teaching their specialties, shared yard sale treasures, and puttered happily.

Gwen taught us how to make lapbooks, and I have been slowly working in mine, adding treasures and experimenting on the pages. Jill taught cyanotypes and encaustic painting, Chrissy taught beading, and I taught paintbrush dolls.

I wanted to showcase some of the newest PaperArtsy stamps from Gwen's collection in my lapbook, and mix them with treasures from the retreat weekend. Chrissy had found a vintage ledger and gave us all some pages that were 123 years old! I thought stamps from EGL-30 would look good on top of an old ledger page, but I was hesitant to stamp directly on the old paper. Then I hit on an idea...tuck the antique paper into a glassine envelope! 

I carefully trimmed both a large envelope and the ledger page to fit in the journal, and adhered the glassine envelope to my journal with double-sided tape.

Next, I stamped on the envelope around the edges and bottom so that the vintage handwritten ledger page would show through. I decided to also add some of my favorite stamps from other sets. I used a bird from EGL-19  and a chrysanthemum and leaf from EGL-27.

 

 

I was using the page on the right side of the journal as a "stamp-off/stamp-cleaning" page, but it started to look good, so I decided to make it part of a journal spread. I recently saw a show that mentioned an ancient Hawaiian method of healing called Ho'oponopono. It is based on the work of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who believed in healing through loving oneself. You say four phrases: I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you, and Thank you. It is a method of forgiveness that is believed to clear blockages which can cleanse and release thoughts, beliefs and emotions that are causing physical and emotional pain.

I liked the simplicity of the idea, and tried Ho'oponopono one night when I woke up in great pain and was too exhausted to get up and do my physical therapy exercises. I have had pain radiating from my neck, up into my teeth, and to the top of my head off and on for months. I don't know how Ho'oponopono worked, but it did. I felt relief in minutes, and I haven't had severe pain since.

On the Ho'oponopono page, I added a rough circle from set EGL-08 that reminded me of the grapevine wreaths my mother used to make, then hand wrote the Ho'oponopono prayer inside and outside the circles.

I really love the idea of using more glassine envelopes in my new lapbook. It's a great way to showcase a special piece of artwork. The glassine also adds a little mystery since it is not completely clear, as well as protecting the art inside.

The antique ledger sheet can be removed from the stamped glassine envelope.

I used a bird themed paper napkin to cover one of the lapbook's interior covers, which goes nicely with the newly created black and white pages...a happy accident!