The “Junk Journal January” challenge was such an encouragement for me to get my art journals finished up, I joined another one. It’s also a daily challenge, but without the prompts, and it’s for anything creative. Actually, I took a couple of days off to work on some crochet, and counted those into the challenge…

…that seems to have been a popular decision, cuddles abound!

The good, the bad, and the finished!

This weekend I spent a little time decluttering and organizing the room that I use to film my YouTube videos. I wanted it to feel a little more inspiring than just an extra room with a bed, so I turned it into art journaling central. I shifted things around and made this shelf to house some of my finished art journals. I can’t fit another journal in, that’s a little scary. Especially when I had purged a few of my journals when we moved into this house!

Last week I had spent a day or so creating some pages ahead of time so that I didn’t fall behind with the challenge while working on other projects, and I wanted to share some of them here before posting them to Instagram. If you want to see my pages the first few weeks of this challenge, the link is in my sidebar. I always feel a bit cheesy when I post photos here that I have already posted to the IG’s.

All of these pages are made from pieces I pulled out of art journals that I had changed my mind about. And now I have quite a pile of collage clusters ready and waiting to fill my pages. So, not only have I knocked unfinished projects from my list (art journals), but I can quickly pull page spreads together. Win!

Along with plenty of collage clusters, I have also splurged a bit on painted background printables from my new favorite shop: ArtPaperJoy, (please go check her out).

Another quick addition to my pages is painted masking tape (upper left side of page). A video of how I make painted masking tape is up on my channel if you’d like to take a look:

EclecticArtJournals

This page was half finished before I added this collage cluster and the flower.

Gesso, a tinted dictionary page, scrapbook paper, collage cluster. I’m on a roll!

Update on the internet sitch: we switched companies and our internet is above and beyond expectations now! I do too many things online to be in a constant state of frustration. Definitely one of the best decisions we’ve made in a while.

And now that it dosn’t take hours or days to upload, I’m working on getting more things into my shoppe (including “curated art” ephemera packs soon), making videos (I started a new series, the first installment is up on my channel), participating in this 100 day challenge, decluttering, organizing along with all the home/house/family doings…I need a nap!

I think that’s about all for now. Although I have a lot of things going on right now and I will try to check in more often with the latest.

Until then,

Thanks so much for stopping in,

Talk to you soon,

Much Love,

~Patty

I started filming the video of this page on Wednesday the 15th with the highest of hopes. Finished filming it on Friday and started the upload to YouTube at approximately 1:pm.

“Okay”, I thought, “This should be up and ready by Saturday morning.” I woke up Sat. morning ready to write this blog post announcing “Another Video Up!”, but this was not to be!…it was still at 3% almost 24 hours later.

Are you kidding me?!

Oh for my goodness sake! Really!

Anyway, I packed up all my gear and drove to Starbucks to see if their internet a was any better. It was but how many coffees can one drink in one day, so I left at 35% after about 2 hours. Progress, but not what I was hoping for.

So, the next morning back to another Starbucks to see if their internet was better, not really. So, after about an hour and a half I packed my up my gear and went to a local coffee shop in town to see how that would work. It was awesome! It finished loading in about 30 minutes!

Moral of the story: blow the dust off your bank account and pay for better internet service Patty!

The End!

Oh, and here is the link to my video “Journal with Me: Backgrounds and Decor”

Love you guys! 🙂

Lately, I have been slightly obsessed with making small “art pieces” for my journals. It started with tags of course, but I thought it would be fun to make small pieces on background paper too.

…and use up some of the small bits I have been storing over the years. I could say hoarding, but it really is more of a case of collecting too much stuff and not enough time to work with them.

Believe me, I definitely have a little stash of hoarded goodness I will get out and play with someday soon, but need to get through some of these bits first.

Here are some tags I decorated while watching my favorite artists on YouTube. I thought it would be fun to make some of these for my shoppe, but I keep using them up…better get to work!

An example of an “instant page” so to speak.

As you can see I prepped the page with gesso, tinted matte medium, and stenciling. I like to prep my backgrounds to get the wet media out of the way to be able to work on my collage…but if the background is done ahead of time, and the collage is done ahead of time…I could very well be creating some kind of art journaling time warp!

The future is bright!

For your entertainment.

I’m loving these florals created by Kathryn at “Art Paper Joy” on YouTube. I printed them out on clear table paper and cut them out, Lovely!

Here is a link to her shop: Art Paper Joy

Well, that’s it for now,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty

My last post for Junk Journal January and I have mixed feelings. I miss participating with so many people from so many places around the world, it was fun being a part of such a large project.

Day 25: “One Colour”

These birds inspired my color choice, I absolutely love that parakeet! I prepped the page with gesso then stenciled the geometric dots in gradations of blue paint across the page. I used the neutral moths? butterflies? to fill in space… and annoy the birds.

Day 26: “Wordy”

I had so much fun with the paint gradations on the “One Colour” page, I experimented with rainbow colors across this one, using a stencil of random words, then did a few black paint splatters.

Day 27: Earth Tones”

I really struggled with this one. I googled “Earth Tones” and it looks like it’s anybody’s interpretation…so this is mine. Paint scrapes, fussy cuts and postage stamps, the usual suspects.

Day 28: “Antique”

Thais one was fun! The book I used was from 1927, so not really considered an “antique”, whatever, I’m a rebel. Children’s book images, stenciling, fussy cut florals, and a little ephemera cluster…keeping it simple.

Day 29: “Musical”

I found a page from a music book titled “January” and thought it would be perfect, unfortunately the photo isn’t. I’m going to have to pull out the “artistic license” on this one because I’m too lazy to take a new pic. Truth be told you’re not missing much, but I couldn’t leave a hole in the group, if you know what I mean.

Day 30: “Unexpected”

I had a lot of fun with this one. I started with those images of children singing, I thought they looked as if they were amazed at something “unexpected”. I had a plan with a few things I had gathered, but then looked at my mess of a desk and decided to use what was already spread across the surface. Sometimes those are the best page spreads, making do with what’s at hand. I was amazed at how clean my desk was when I finished.

I even filmed the process:

YouTube Video

One of the easiest videos I have ever filmed. Intro – high speed creating – outro… easy peasy!

I hope you enjoyed my Junk Journal January adventure as much as I did! I’m still working away in my art room making fun things to share. Participating in J.J.J. has really jump started my creativity, along with following lots of new creators on YouTube and Instagram. So much inspiration, so little time…and energy!

Until next time,

Thanks so much for stopping by

Much love,

~Patty

Hello, I’m back with another installment of Junk Journal January 2023. Although the challenge has finished up, I hope you will find a little inspiration with these pages.

Day 19: “Handlettered”

If you look closely at the first page spread, you can see my handwriting underneath the tissue paper. I’m not a huge fan of my handwriting, so I added scrapbook papers with handwriting along with my writing. Probably not quite what the hosts of this challenge had in mind, but I had fun doing things my way.

Day 20: “Texture”

This was a struggle, mostly because I am determined to use what I have on hand. I have purchased too many supplies only to give them away, so I’m very hesitant to purchase more until I use up more of what I already have.

I looked in my fabric stash remembering this upholstery fabric from years ago, it has a great raised weave. On the first page spread I painted the fabric with gesso and scraped a little paint over the raised bits. On the second page spread, I adhered tissue paper and pressed it into the weave to enhance it. Both of these pages are very experimental for me, I’ve been trying to get back into my more “artistic” roots lately

Day 21: “Experimental”

This was a funny happenstance. A couple of days before creating this page spread I had experimented with rusting up paperclips. I used to just stick them in water for a couple of months, who knew you could do it in a few minutes in a peroxide/salt solution. Ah, the wonders of YouTube!

I dried the paperclips on dictionary pages to see what would happen. It looks a bit of a mess, but I had a lot of fun with it.

Day 22: “Old and New”

After two very messy days, I was ready for some simplicity. Old photos from my garden and a feather I found on our porch that morning.

Day 23: “Stickers”

Okay, now this was FUN! I got out stickers I’ve had for years and took out all the transparent ones. I just layered and layered until I ran out. I’m going to see what else I can come up with this technique. Maybe some tag embellishments instead of an entire page?

Day 24: “Scenery”

Some of the prompts were quite a challenge. For the most part I tried to avoid seeing what other people were doing so I could see what I could come up with. Here I was imagining a little scene from a cruise ship heading to Japan…with a ginormous butterfly.

I have been working pretty hard everyday on my little art journals and I am really looking forward to showing you what I’ve been up to, so one more blog post about Junk Journal January then we move on..Yay!

Thanks as always for the visit

Have a great day

~Patty