Art Journaling: My Way

I would love to do "proper" art journaling with lots of layers of paint & ink & collage elements... The problem is- my paper can't take it!

Now, I do have a fair amount of paper stashed away. But I didn't start playing with paints or wet media until this year so most of my paper is colourful notebook paper (which I LOVE!) and cheap scrapbook paper.  This type of paper buckles badly & will pretty much disintegrate with too much paint. I don't have the funds for gesso or anything to treat my paper so I have taken to doing this:

 

 

mini art journaling "pages"

 I do my little art journal "pages" on small scraps of paper or blank ATCs & glue them into my book.

This eliminates a lot of barriers for me.

1) It doesn't matter if the paper buckles or the paint seeps thru- because it's just going to be glued down anyway!

2) I use less paint & ink, which means I don't use up my supplies too quickly

3) My notebooks don't get filled up faster than I want (I generally like my journals to last me 6 months- 1 year)

3) I've found that I prefer to make smaller paintings & drawings rather than larger ones.  It keeps me from getting overly fussy about details & making it perfect. Full page spreads for every idea would be too much.

4) I can work on my journal even when I don't have it with me

Prepped backgrounds

I have a bunch of pre-cut cards that are stashed in my journal pocket, purse, wallet & a couple other convenient places. Most of them are blank but I do sometimes prep the background ahead of time, like the ones above. I also use scraps or scratch paper & cut them down later.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there into cyber space.  Maybe somebody else will find it helpful :)

And I Start to Complain When There's No Rain

"Oh but EVERYBODY loves sunshine!"

Sorry, no... some of us are odd little Bee Girls who just wish it would rain already..

Seriously sunny days are usually miserable for me. But there seems to be a lot of things that "EVERYBODY" loves, except me.

If you don't get the reference in the title, you should really google the video for "No Rain" by Blind Melon. The little Bee Girl is representative of all us oddballs who dance to a different beat ;)

Starry Night Notebook

Ta-da! Another notebook! lol isn't it prettiful? :D


It's another one that is made out of a Hamburger Helper box (I just think they have good dimensions for books!). However, instead of covering this one with paper, I just painted the box itself.

The outside cover is painted with blue acrylic & then Yasutomo shimmery watercolours over it.

(The Yasutomo watercolours were sent to me by a wonderful Crafty Fairy Godmother! )

The closure is made from salvaged bits of chain from broken necklaces fed thru an eyelet. 

 

 

jump ring to act as a stopper

I got this idea for the closure from one of Kathy Orta's videos.

inside front cover

On the inside covers, I used leftover paper scraps (from making the pages) which I painted with Crayola watercolours with a bit of the shimmery Yasutomos over them. I used something like 5 shades of blue but the effect is very pretty!

 

I made a little library card style pocket out of some leftover cardstock (lots of recycling going on in this notebook!)

back inside cover... soo sparkly! O.O

 

side view

There are 3 signatures that are stitched into the the book. The outside of each signature is blue cardstock with white, mixed-media paper in the middles.

I drew little shimmery star designs on the first page of each signature.

I'm really happy with how this one came out (no pages stitched in upside down!!! First time ever!)

I think I am probably going put it up for sale in my Etsy shop... since I am rich in notebooks, but poor in cash.  Altho, if nobody ends up buying it, I'm sure I can find some use for it ;) hehe

Clouds, Hearts & Compulsive Doodling

Hello!

I've been making more notebooks :)

This is the first one I've made that has co-ordinating papers & a theme rather than just a random mix.

Another homemade notebook!!!

I make a simple little watercolour painting for the cover.
The clouds & hearts were inspired by my favourite washi tape.. which I have used all up, sadly.

decorated pocket pages

After I finished the notebook I decided to make some matching journaling cards & stickers to go with it... >.>

And then I decided to do my November calendar...

And some more stickers...

lol I'm wondering, am I the only one who gets these funny little fixations where they want to doodle the same thing over & over?

Last week I did 3 dozen "creepy cute" face stickers... and before that, it was butterflies >.>


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If case anyone's interested.. the notebook & matching goodies are for sale here --->Daybook Kit: Clouds & Hearts

and so are the stickers ---> Clouds & Hearts Stickers

:)

Journal Page

Once upon a time

Once upon a time I drew a creepy little face for a pack of Halloween stickers. 

It was so cute that I had to make a whole pack of creepy, cute faces...
and then another...
and another... 

And then, one day... they started to evolve! o.O  
Slowly at first.. something that could be limbs....  and then arrms & legs & hands & hair & clothing!

Until they developed into a new species of doodles. 

"Why did Death cross the road?" (to get Morbid Little Girl to the other side..)

"Cupcake Massacre"

"Morbid Little Sisters"

"A Bedtime Story"

"Princess of Nowhere"

"Tall, Dark & Handsome"

A Parade of Pocket Notebooks

Hi there!
I have several big notebooks that I am working on for awhile now. I think they will be very nice once they're (finally) finished, but in the meantime I just felt like having a COMPLETED project.

So I decided to make some pocket sized notebooks.  I made 7 in a day & a half and now feel very accoomplished! :D lol

Neon Pink Pocket Notebooks
http://www.zibbet.com/ScrappySweetpea/artwork?artworkId=993016

LOVE coloured notebook paper!

stitching in the middle

<3
https://www.etsy.com/listing/111618750/purple-teal-pocket-notebooks

Notebook for my father's work notes :)

for keeping track of cool stuff!
http://www.zibbet.com/ScrappySweetpea/artwork?artworkId=99295

Evolution of a Page

Yay, I"m back, did ya miss me?
The craziest thing happened... I ran out of paint! o.O My watercolours lasted less than a month (altho, in my defence they were only a wee little 8 colour set). Evidently I've already developed a serious addiction to painting, since I went thru some serious withdrawals during the 2 weeks it took me to acquire new paints.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program. A few of my Smash*y friends were asking me how I think of ideas for my pages. It was hard to explain because I don't tend to do whole pages at once. My notebooks/daybooks/smashbooks evolved from journals, which I think are probably different from these same type of books that are made by scrapbookers.  I don't (usually) plan ahead or think of layouts, the pages just kind of develop as I go along.

So, I decided to try & document a page as I went along :) From start to finish, I believe it took about a month.

This page started with a mistake. I was trying to do this cute, little project I had seen on Pinterest with two hands making a heart in the middle. Except my thumb was in the wrong position so I ended up with a triangle >,<

So I went ahead & painted the hand I had already cut out & found a blank page in my Smash*book for it.

"I want to 'seize the day' but usually I settle for surviving it"... is something I had written in an earlier journal entry & it still resonated with me months later when I was flipping thru, so I wrote it here.

"Surviving" was also a mistake (cool things come from accidents!)  I misspelled it so I tore off a piece of coffee stained paper to cover it.. I like it, it emphasizes the word

The girl is inspired by the chapter illustrations from the book Ghostgirl.

I was watching Mona the Vampire, which made me think of the Beetlejuice cartoon I watched when I was younger. I was also looking at The Scribble Project & somebody had drawn cute little worms peeking out of holes. I decided I wanted to draw worms, but cuz I was thinking of  Beetlejuice they became sand worms!  I also added a little sandworm as a divided under a piece of journalling.

In the Ghostgirl illustrations, there is a little crow that keeps her compnay. I thought it would be fun to have the crow being scared by the sandworm. :)

I liked the idea of having things perched on my fingers, so I added another crow & a spider

I received a very nice comment from the other Anne (hehe), one of the lovely & talented ladies over at This Blog Made Possible by Coffee :D

To emphasize how much I loved the comment, I cut out a heart from some scratch paper I had used to practice mixing watercolours to get pink (red + purple + tiny bit of yellow, in case you were curious!)

Under another sandworm divider, I recorded a conversation with my handsome friend regarding the harsh reality of evil zombie kittens o.O beware!! beware!!!

And voila! a finished page :)

10 Things in My Notebook

I am currently trying to think up a fancy sounding name for what my notebooks are. They are not anything like traditional journals.. they're not quite art journals and they don't much resemble other Smash*books I've seen..

What goes into my notebooks can vary a lot, but I will share a few things that are pretty consistently included

I know most people have a page of quote or a few quotes  here and there.. but I have A LOT.  Quoteable quotes that are popular... Quotes from TV shows I'm watching (I am almost always writing or doodling in my notebook while I watch TV)... and quotes from books I'm reading. When I'm reading I tend to dog-ear pages that have quotes I like (so if you borrow a book from me, NEVER mess w/ my dog-earred paged!). If i end up with a lot of them, I do a whole page (or two) of quotes from that book..

 

The Tao of Pooh = Awesomeness

Oodles & oodles of doodles!  My name is Anne & I'm a doodler.

doodle mania!

The two big lists I always keep are the books I've read (this is from having read a book & then spending years trying to remember the name to find it again!) and important things that happen each month.

Here is a list of some of my other lists:

•  A check-list of steps to get my teaching credential
• The word for "blue" in different languages
• To do list (sail away w/ a crew of pirates; take up with a caravan of traveling gypsies; enlist in the french foreign legion..)
• Things that are iredescent 
• Invisibility aids
• Friends & family's birthdays
• Comic book alliterations 
• Places I want to go
• Final consonants which are not usually silent in French

I  have a lot of definitions in my notebooks. I am a word nerd :), so I will include definitions of words that I think are interesting or have a funny etymology. Sometimes I write out definitions of words which are related to how I'm feeling during a particular point in time.

I tend to pilfer items from previous notebooks. When I was younger I mostly did this with stickers- I would peel them off of the page & glue them into my new notebook (yes- I was that hard up for craft supplies!). Sometimes I steal the ribbon marker from a previous journal. Lately I have been doing this a lot with leftover blank pages from previous notebooks.

 I usually to do this for one of two completely opposite reasons. Some notebooks I get attached to and feel sad when I have to move on, like the one I kept right before my Smash*book.. So I included a page from it when I was altering my book because I liked it so..  On the other hand, there are notebooks that I've had so much disdain for that I"ve completely taken them apart for scraps!

page from last notebook glued in :)

letter to my younger self, on pages from an old childhood diary

 

This is something that seems to be really different about my notebooks.  My friends have ALWAYS read & written in  them. My very first notebook was bought as a pair with my sister Beth's & we both wrote in each other's notebooks. When I was a little older my friends & I would use my notebooks to write notes back and forth at school or during church (yes, I know! Very bad!! lol but we did..)

I still have friends that write notes or comments in my notebooks. They write encouraging things or add details to events that I might have forgotten and add comments about pictures.

And no, I don't mean those little packs of do-dads that are sold in scrapbook stores (altho I DO use those too!). Just in case you're not sure, ephemera refers to "printed paper items that were originally meant to be discarded after use". So gift tags, labels, used postage stamps, programs from plays, movie tickets (ok, so I haven't actually been to a movie since The Half Blood Prince.. but when I DID go, I kept the tickets). All of those things usually end up glued in my notebooks. 

 I don't really keep photo albums or scrapbooks, so most of my photos either end up on The Wall  or in my notebooks. 

 Things that are said in text or online tend to get lost & forgotten. So when my friends or family say something funny or cute that I want to remember: I write it down!! I had a friend whose texts were so funny & uplifting that I always saved them and they completely filled up my phone's inbox (I have an ancient, un-smart cell plhone!).  I ended up deleting most of them to free up the space and he passed away less than a week later.... I SO WISH I still had all those messages. So now I write those things down. 

 

 I very rarely do traditional journal entries of: Here's what I did today & how I'm feeling. The main reason  is, when I write things out explicitly-  if I go back and read it later I am thrown right back into that emotional state. Which is good if I want to remember a really great vacation.. not so good if it was a painful time. There are pages that I can not even look at for this reason. Also, I am just not that good at articulating how I"m feeling.  

All the previously mention things, can also be a form of abstract journaling. A lot of my quotes are there because they express more eloquently how I feel. I often draw or paint my feelings too. Photos, ephemera, snippets of conversations are all forms of journaling without having to do a "dear diary" type entry. 

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Do you keep any kind of notebook or journal?