I've been journaling in some way or another, since I was about 10/11 years old. It started with a scrapbook style and I would include photos of my hamsters and write about them. I then started documenting specific events - birthday parties, Christmas' and I'd be making up little journals for each occasion. This carried on throughout my teens and my love for horse riding provided more photos to collect and journal with. When I was 18, I was lucky enough to be able to afford my own horse and the journaling stopped for a while. All my time was spent with my horse - Harley and although I did take photos, without cameras on mobile phones back then, I don't have nearly as many as I wish I did!
(Me with Harley)
Roll on 10 years, I'd got married and had my first little boy - Cooper. I'd found my way back to journaling again and had started a baby journal (more about this in a minute). I very sadly lost Harley when Cooper was about 7 months old and later gathered all the photos together that I had of him (as I said before, no where near as many as I would have liked) and started making a scrapbook style journal, documenting my life with Harley, (more about this in a minute too). It was around now I discovered journaling video's on YouTube and got inspired by the idea of keeping a journal of Cooper's life, that I could keep adding to and give to him when he was older. Cooper had now become a big brother, with the arrival of Caleb and I was so excited about documenting them growing up and all the adventures they would be going on. I started making my own travelers notebooks, one for each boy and one for me. With a camera on my phone now, photos were so easy to take and I had loads to choose from to add to our journals.
(A few of the boys' journals)
Cooper's baby journal and Harley's journal are embarrassingly, still not completed! Harley's journal I am hoping to document completing that on my YouTube channel. It will hopefully encourage me and I can plan it into my YouTube schedule, which should keep me accountable and then you'll be able to follow along too. I will also try to film some of the baby journals too, because of course, I now have another baby journal to make and I've not even started Caleb's! I've jotted dates and info down and have boxes full of photos, so it's all ready to go, it's just waiting for time, which I will hopefully get soon!
Cooper is now 11 and Caleb is 8, 9 in a couple of months. They both have journals full of memories from the last 8 years! My journals have changed slightly, I still do the boys' journaling in travelers notebooks that I make myself, but I have moved my own journaling into slightly bigger journals. I found the space a bit limiting in the TN's and I enjoy adding lots of decoration to my layouts and the larger page size gives me the freedom to do that. I make these journals myself too and when I made my first one back in 2019 I realised how much I enjoyed it. I started by making fabric cover journals, my love for Liberty fabric came out too as I love using their gorgeous floral fabrics for the covers. I started making more and realised I could sell them to other journalers, so set up my Etsy and online shop. I have since started making upcycled journals too. I get excited to find books that remind me of my childhood, that I then turn into journals and feel it adds another memory to the whole journal. As well as being filled with memories, the book itself is a memory.
When I started Cornflower Lane I really wanted it to be a very inspiring and creative place. I started out with the journals and then put together some journaling kits, which included lots of pieces that I made myself. I have since been lucky enough to get a Cricut machine and a great printer so I have started adding more journaling supplies to my shop and still have lots of ideas popping into my head all the time.
If you are wondering how my shop's name came about, my favourite flowers are cornflowers and when I started we lived in a lovely little cottage on a lane. I thought Cornflower Lane sounded like a lovely little place I would like to visit and I really wanted other people to feel the same way.
(A few of my journals)
I have lots of plans for Cornflower Lane over the next few years and new ideas that I can't wait to share with you. I would love for you to join me and follow my progress.
Thank you so much for reading my story, I promise I'll try not to ramble on quite so much from now on! I have enjoyed sharing my story with you and it was quite fun going back over my journaling journey.
I would love to hear from you too. Let me know if you are a journaler and what type of journaler you are and how long have you been journaling?