I’ve been making an effort to journal more consistently in 2012, and it’s been paying off. While contemplative writing and meditation are my ways of taking energy in, visual journals are one of my favorite ways of putting energy out. They are such a wonderful way to record my life, coalesce visual ideas, and capture inspiration. Plus, they totally justify my hoarder tendencies, since any stray paper, paint chip, magazine tear-out, embellishment, and piece of ephemera is just a little bit easier to save when I tell myself it will come in handy for a journal layout. Oh, well. Such is the creative life.