Jackie's Showjumping Surprise vintage journal

This little journal was a pleasure to put together, primarily as the horsey adolescent nature of the book reminded me of my own childhood reading, including "The Saddle Club" books, as well as my own short lived pony club adventures. That particular memory was associated with mixed feelings (mostly good!) of lukewarm success in the horsey world. My parents aren't horsey parents, but bless them, they gave it a red hot go as my little sister and I were so desperate to ride. We had fat, graceless ponies on the whole, while the horsey families' stunning horses glistened with perfectly groomed and trained grace. My most vivid memory is my parents, who had given up their weekends, despairing at ponies that wouldn't be loaded onto floats.

To finish this journal, I added regal gold, crimson and purple tabs to emulate show jumping horse ribbons.

Some selected pages from this journal:

I'm completely enamoured with the vintage sewing patterns I've found and started incorporating into my craft and letter art lately. They give such wonderful texture and the creases give a gentle padding out of the pages.

I don't know what I'll do when my Victorian edition of "The Girl's Own Annual" from 1888 is completely stripped of its wonderful pictures and text. It provides centrepieces to so many of my projects.

A little, obligatory vintage natural history spread. The recycled brown paper bag page gives a semi-officious feel. With the brown paper, my mind drifts off to dusty, open fire heated botanists university offices, in which specimens of plants are wrapped and sent to academic collaborators, accompanied by copperplate-scrawled covering correspondence.