Whether it be the flip-through of my completed journal on YouTube (which now has half of a million views, THANK YOU!!!), the one I wrecked in one day, the individual pages on my Instagram or something in between... chances are you stumbled upon me and my little home on the internet because of Keri Smith's bestselling book: Wreck This Journal.
I have come to the not-so-recent conclusion that much of my social media following is due to my Wreck This Journal (with the exception of tumblr where 85% of my followers are there because of either the Digimon fandom or because at one point it was cool to have a banner for your blog and I was one of the weirdos who made them for fun). I am more than okay with this because it's something I adore (Wreck This Journal.. although Digimon too haha) and I'm very proud of the pages (and the completed journal) that I have done!
I have posted on here about individual pages I've done that I wanted to add a bit of a story behind either the idea or the process behind the finished page that goes up on Instagram, YouTube, or Tumblr with just a couple hashtags and a sentence long description... but for this post I just wanted to do a bit of an all-encompassing post kind of answering the who/what/where/when/why... or something like that.
The first (and probably best) link I'm going to throw at you is the link to my WTJ page on my Tumblr blog. I use it as kind of a command centre for my Wreck This Journaling as I have been less than consistent when it comes to the way I post my pages. For my first journal I started out scanning the finished pages and posting them as I finished, the quality gets continuously better as you go from 2012 to 2014. The links to my current journal aren't finished yet, but it has the playlist of all my WTJ videos as well as a FAQ.
http://ehdreeahnah.tumblr.com/journal
If you're new to the whole world of WTJ, this is the first WTJ video I made:
It gives a bit of an intro as well as a look at my completed WTJ before it was, well... complete.
The other video I would like to include is my completed Wreck This Journal. Now if watching a flip-through video isn't your style you can also scroll through the pages on my Tumblr with the links on the journal page OR just click here because I like short cuts too
- pages sorted by page number/ order given in the book
- pages in the order I completed them (a couple of pages from my current wtj are at the end)
- pages in order from most to least recent (a couple of pages from my current journal are here also)
And for those of you who would like to sit back, relax, grab a cup of (insert your beverage of choice here) and press play on a video here it is:
Now a lot of people have felt it necessary to point out the shakiness of my voice/ how I sound like I am going to cry and as a tiny disclaimer: I talk about it HERE if you would like to know more, but I assure you I am not overly emotional in any way in the video haha.
So that pretty much covers my first WTJ (if you don't count the DIY one I did in 2009 haha). Shortly after that I started a new one, which is what you see in my WTJ series on YouTube. Since my tumblr is run mostly on queued/ reblogged posts I don't post pages on there much anymore (I'll have to fix that soon!) but whenever I finish a page now, it goes on my Instagram! I do try to make videos for the majority of the pages I do but sometimes it just doesn't happen... so if you would like to stay in the loop with my completed pages, the best way to do so is to check them out on there!
Instagram is also where I've been posting better quality pictures of pages from my original WTJ (#tbt anyone?) as well as other Keri Smith book pages, such as Mess, This is Not a Book and Pocket Scavenger. I also have the Wreck This Journal Everywhere and a few of the lesser known books that don't come in the box sets. I'll try and get them all sorted and linked on the "control centre" page, but for now, Instagram is their home.
Something I noticed people commented on quite a bit was how I failed to "wreck" my journal and it was moreso a scrapbook/ art book/ quote book. To be quite honest that was always my intention and it was the reason I purchased a WTJ. I love making things and being creative and making collages/ homages to things and words that move me and have affected my life and WTJ provided a medium for me to do that in a compact way that didn't impinge on my dwindling wall space. I try to address it over and over but people keep telling me how I am "wrong" in my wrecking. I did use a spare WTJ to try completely wrecking with reckless abandon and you can watch that HERE but at the end of the day it's my journal. Whatever Ms. Smith's intentions were or weren't, four pages into the journal it states:
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Carry this with you everywhere you go.
2. Follow the instructions on every page.
3. Order is not important.
4. Instructions are open to interpretation.
5. Experiment (work against your better judgement).
My journal is my interpretation of each prompt. I follow each prompt and I experiment. Yes, it ends up being a little artsy-fartsy but that is cathartic for me. That is how I relax and unwind and I rip pages and I mess up and I deal with it in often very creative ways. I create and I destroy and then usually cover up said destruction creatively.
That being said, if you own or intend to purchase a Wreck This Journal it then becomes YOURS. You can do the journal as destructively or creatively as you want! Don't let anyone influence you on what you want to do, it's YOUR book and I hope you have so much fun with it! :D
Before ending this post I just want to thank EVERYONE who helped me with my WTJ: whether it be my brother who walked my journal with me in the snow and filmed the majority of my wreck-this-journal-in-one-day video, my boyfriend who helped me make my first WTJ series video in Cuba as well as being insanely supportive of me, Erica for being the friend who did something destructive to that page (I didn't look), and to you for reading this post, liking my pictures on Instagram and watching my videos on YouTube (and not minding this ridiculous run-on sentence). You have made this online experience so fun and exciting and rewarding and I am so, insanely grateful. Also shoutout to Keri Smith for making these books. I couldn't have done it without her, literally.
Thanks again!
Adrianna.
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