new art journal page

For some reason I've been in a bit of a funk when it comes to playing in my art journal. I've still been in my craft room almost everyday, but I'm usually making cards, or trying to organize my goodies.

Tonight I decided that no matter what, I was going to work in my journal. It felt really good to get in there & get my fingers dirty!

I'd seen several people use washi tape on their pages but hadn't tried it yet. I have quite the washi collection (obsession?) and picked some cute ones.


I started the page with some Tim Holtz tissue paper & covered it with some iridescent turquoise paint.

 Washi!

Stencils, stencils & more stencils. I chose paint colors based on the colors in the tape.

I'm not sure if it's quite finished; maybe it needs a quote or something? But, I really like how it's turned out so far.

rediscovering an old love

Back in the day, when I used to scrapbook, I loved making cards. For a long time now, I've pretty much just gone the lazy easy route and purchased any that I needed. Even after all this time I felt kind of guilty, like I'm capable of doing it, I'm just not choosing to do so. (Guilty is probably too strong a word, but you know what I mean.)

Lately I've been getting sucked into the black hole known as YouTube a lot. As you know, that's very easy to do. One of my favorite card making bloggers/YouTubers is Jennifer McGuire. I think my friend Rebecca told me about her.

Anyway, I could sit and watch her videos all day (though I won't admit whether or not I've actually done so). Her videos have inspired me so much that I've been making a few cards here and there again.

My sister's birthday is this weekend, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to continue getting my feet wet again. My card was quite obviously based on the one Jennifer McGuire posted today... If you watch her video, she does a great job explaining how to do it.

Now I'm just trying to come up with reasons to make cards! I had kind of forgotten how fun the are!

playing around

I was playing around in my art journal yesterday & decided to take pictures as I went. I missed a step or two, but hopefully you'll get the idea. ;)

As I've been experimenting over the last couple of months with different products in my journal, I've come to realize I'm not a huge fan of using sprays. Or at least in the way they're intended to be used. The splatter-y look just doesn't seem to work for me. I like it in other people's journals, just not my own.

In an effort to expand my horizons a bit, I used Dylusions Inks to create my background. My friend Rebecca gave me a Studio Calico kit box to help prevent over spray. It works really well!

Then I used Liquitex Matte Gel to spread the spray like paint. I like how it didn't dilute the gorgeous color!

While I didn't really mind the brush strokes, I wanted a bit more texture, so I wadded up a piece of plastic wrap and pressed it into the spray/gel. I LOVE how it turned out!

 (I changed to my actual camera so the pictures look a bit different now.)

Next I sprayed green in the center, spritzed with water & moved my journal back & forth to let the ink drip.

I tried a technique I've seen on various videos, blogs, etc., where you sprinkle salt on top of the ink. It soaks up the dye and leaves little circles of lighter color.

Once it's dry, you brush off the salt to reveal the mottled texture. To be honest, I wasn't super happy with how it turned out.  Maybe I used too much salt, or let it sit too long before brushing off. I debated painting over it, but decided to just roll with it.

A few days ago, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out some stencils. LOVE that I can do this, btw. One that I cut was a kind of doily shape. (You may be able to see where I stamped some images on the background... that would be the step I forgot to get a picture of. Oops!)

The one on the left was just begging me to draw a girl in it. LOL Who am I to not listen?

This is how the page looks as of now. I want to add more to it, possibly a quote or something, but I'm just not sure what yet.

I kind of enjoyed taking step-by-step pictures as I went. Tell me what y'all think. Would you like to see more posts like this?