I struggled a bit with the title of this post, my concern being that fans of Journey (the music group) would get riled-up to a fever pitch of excitement. Then having read the post, they’d be horribly disappointed by the fact that it had nothing at all to do the band of the same name, would find me & burn my house down.

You’d be surprised by how often I worry about this sort of thing. Not from Journey fans in particular: I’m not at all suggesting they are hell-bent arsonists.  I just generally worry about offending (or disappointing, or annoying), people. The fact is: in real life I do all these things constantly, but am typically so self-obsessed that I remain blissfuly ignorant 90% of the time. . . However, there is something special about a public forum that makes me more anxious. (Although– and let’s just be honest here–  ’public’ is a bit grand for the number of people who are likely to read this.)

Ultimately, I decided to fight back the paranoia & go with it: because journey really is the right word. In my particular case, it has a “romantic” theme, but could really be any one person’s journey. (So long as it involves more than one place. Otherwise, it’s a bit of a small journey, more like a “Just Standing-Around Bracelet” really.)

All of this is because I love maps: old ones, new ones, fake ones, real ones. Don’t know why, just think they are cool and pretty and I like to find reasons to have them around.

I decided to make a cuff that showed the place I grew up, the place my boyfriend grew up, the place we met, & the place where we live now.

So I found some cool looking maps of those places, then dragged-&-dropped a heart shape over the name before cutting them out. . .

Originally, I put a little heart shape around the name as well, with the idea of the cut-out being heart-shaped. The thing is, I have a completely crap eye for size. I’m often standing in the store thinking ‘yeah, that should work, that’s about the right size,’ only to get it home & find it’s completely wrong. Not just a little bit wrong, completely wrong: wrong like too big to fit the doorway or so small on the wall, you have to squint to see it. My boyfriend uses the word “measurement”; I wish he’d learn I need to work these things out for myself. Anyway, that happened again & the hearts were massively ridiculous. . .  so I just cut out little oblongs instead:

Now, the wiley amongst you might say “You said four places but that’s only three,” and I would say to you ‘Oh bugger off, will you, the 4th one was too big to even be an oblong, why do you always have to point out every little mistake…?’ Then I’d trail off in an embarassed way (like when I hear the word “measurement”), and just look at my feet.

I Mod-Podged them onto a leather cuff I’d got at Michaels’ Crafts, and by leather I mean leather made from plastic. It looked a bit empty: so I added some little bits of suede cord to make it a bit more 3D, radical and groovy.

Like I said, mine is “romantic” in nature, but it doesn’t have to be at all. I could have done where I grew up, where I went to school, where I live now, where I ate my favorite pizza for the first time, the place I fell over in front of everyone, the towns of all the banks I’d robbed, etc. Anything of significance to me.

I like it: It’s a bit odd but then so am I, and hopefully so are you.

Hope your week is good-and-crafty.

Love,

Em.