Over the last few, weeks I have been spending most of my time making videos for my YouTube channel. I really enjoy the creative process, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else.
I still have so many supplies, empty journals, paints, art supplies of every stripe, and of course…ephemera. So, I still have a lot to work with and use up.
I probably make and film at least five art journal page spreads a week now, and I really love the process. It’s quite the learning curve, but I really appreciate the brain exercises…to an extent.
This means a lot of creating, cleaning up, staging photos, and editing (I can whittle an hour down to 58 seconds for ‘Reels’ and ‘Shorts’ like a pro!) but not time for much else. I think we have a dust bunny colony growing in our living room.
But at least I’m having fun….and filling up journals!
I may not have a lot to say in my blog posts until I get a little more organized, but I can share fruits of my labors, aka; journal spreads.
If you are interested in seeing how these pages came together, you can visit my channel by hitting the YouTube button in my sidebar, I’d love to see you over there!
I think I began participating in the iHanna Post Card Swap in 2014…or maybe 2013. I’m not sure how many years it’s been, I only know it was two blogs ago. My original plan was to repurpose an index card journal to make the postcards…boring! I was feeling much more creative today.
And this is what I came up with…
Painted dictionary pages on cardstock.
This is an experiment that I had zero plans for, until today. I had made these several weeks ago and stuck them on a shelf in hopes I would actually find a use for them…and I did. I will be making a video of how I make these soon, it’s a bit of a process. So, look for that soon if you are interested.
The ephemera bits.
I came across a container with loads of quote cards and such that I’ve been poking around from place to place hoping for inspiration. Nice to finally find a fun project to use them in…on, whatever. These beautiful butterflies are from one of my newest favorite Etsy shops: TheJunkJournalStudio
Olde paper bits.
Again, too much of a good thing. My love for variety gets me into a lot of trouble.
Handmade decorative tape.
These are from a video I made last week, so much fun! If you would like to see how I made these, here’s the link to my channel: EclecticArtJournals
The cards.
As you can see I only made four, I actually need to make 10…unless you would like one!
My plan is to make a video of my postcard making process sometime soon. I may decide to embellish these with a little paint if I get inspired. I really just wanted to get this blog post out there in time in case you were interested in joining up. The deadline to sign up is November 19th, the link to sign up is here: iHanna PCS
Did you catch that little hint up there about sending you a postcard? I think it would be so much fun to make more of these for my friends here, (international mail is more than welcome too). All you have to do is send me an email with your name and address, the button is at the top right of this page.
Sending a card to me is completely optional, I’ll put my address on all the cards I send out.
A couple of years ago I thought it would be fun to put together a journal of the ephemera packs I make for my Shoppe, and like many things I start…yeah. (the link to original post is here)
At this point you shouldn’t be surprised that still have half finished projects that need tending to one way or another, meaning: either finish them or dismantle and move on. I’m happy to say that not only did I take a project off my list, I started a new one…again…wait a minute!
Oh well, If you are interested in my process, read on:
Step one: Tear all decor from said journal
This is one of my favorite photos, geishas in ‘Kiss’ makeup. I took this off the internet and printed it out to make a birthday card for my brother years ago. ‘Kiss’ was the first concert I ever went to, big bro took me of course. I have the best brother ever, fyi! I had printed an extra one out for me.
Step two: Make a pile of sticky backed journal decor
This tag is no great shakes but so much fun to make. I’m moving to a larger (wider) size of this style of journal and this tag helped me knock out a page of this one…that I’m moving out of… if you know what I mean.
Step three: Move said pile from one creative space to the next making sure they all stick together awkwardly
I really struggled with this page spread, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The large tag and the journal card are made from a painting experiment I’m still working out. The pocket is from the “pile”. (the flowers are from a different project I had to let go of…long story)
Step four: Pry the sticky ephemera off each other every time you want to work with it for extra frustration
The pocket and stamps are from the “pile”, the photo of my dog ‘Lily’ is from a different pile. Part of the “Gratitude Dailies” project that pooped out.
Step five: Put and end to it by cramming as much stuff on to two pages as possible…then add a butterfly
I’m the first one to admit that my pages sometimes look like a hot mess, but I’m having so much fun! One of my favorite things to do is find homes for wandering ephemera or repurposing journals that go awry. I seem to spend a lot of time with “Clean up on aisle 5” projects. But there is a lot of inspiration out there and a lot more projects to start, stop and drop like a hot potato.
Here’s a thought: “Wouldn’t it be fun to film every time I worked in one of my art journals?”. (Shoulda thought that on through a little more!)
Yeah, what I ended up with is a huge backlog of footage in various stages of undress to deal with. I do not recommend taking on something like this if you don’t have a ton of time on your hands, or are as unorganized as I am. (palm-to-forehead)
Also, because I have been dealing with the bird’s nest I created, sharing on social media felt like too much, this blog included. So, with many apologies for the length of this blog post due to overwhelm, let’s get started…
Using a master board as decor pieces
These are the “stills’ from my videos. They are all on my YouTube channel either as a “Short” or video if you are interested. The link to my channel in the sidebar.
Shameless Advertising.
An Amazon shop approached me to make a video of one of their art journaling kits. It’s not quite my style, but it was fun to do something different. The link to the BLEDS Shop is in the video. (and that’s enough advert for them).
“Summer’s Bounty” Embellishments
But here is an advert for someone else I would like you to check out ‘TheJunkJournalStudio‘ shop on Etsy. Her shop is fantastic…I’m obsessed! I share a bit more about her shop in the video, so go take a look.
More from “The Junk Journal Studio”.
I hear there are a few people out there that don’t like mushrooms, at least I seem to follow the mushroom haters for some reason. Well, I’m not in that camp, I love them…and so does the moose!
Using my vintage scrap box.
I have a box of nonsense on my desk where I throw things I’m too lazy to put away. Well, it overflow-ith, and here is the result. Even I’m amazed at how long I can keep stuff around.
Creating little worlds.
I’m trying something new lately. One of the things I love about this type of journal is it doesn’t have that binding wire down the middle, but I was still creating my pages like there was. So, now I’m trying to work from the middle out so that it looks like one piece, instead of separated, if that makes sense. I’ve been slowly working in that direction if you’ll notice in some of the page spreads above, but this one was more intentional.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to try to post these video catch-ups during the week from now on, hopefully not as long, because I have other things I want to share on my weekend posts.
I can’t believe it has been a month since I’ve written a blog post, but I decided (about a month ago) that I would give myself permission to float from project to project and and see where my creativity takes me.
And this is a perfect example of that…
A gift of homegrown eggs.
Sometime in September, I thought I wanted to give myself a little push to get into my journals more often. I should know by now that the word “push” does not inspire me, it makes me dig my heels in. How it was supposed to work was I take a photo everyday of something I’m grateful for and put it in my journal, it lasted for a week. Don’t get me wrong, I find plenty to be grateful for throughout the day, but taking a photo of whatever it is…every day? Ya, moving on…
A deer in the field.
But since I made an effort for one week, I thought I would share what I came up with. My daughter sent me a video of my grandson telling this whole yarn about how he spotted a deer foraging while he and his friends were building a fort in the field across from their house. He was so excited, I took a screen shot from the video, so fun!
Finishing up old projects.
I made some TN style journals and decorated a journal cover. Yes, in one day! I had all the ingredients to make about ten journals sitting in a container, all I had to do is put them together. I’m really wondering when I’m going to catch up on all the half done projects in my world.
Staying grateful for the small things.
My husband and I have taken several fishing trips this month, and I took very few photos. I just wanted to soak it all in. I didn’t spend very much time on our boat when we lived on the Puget Sound, but I absolutely love going out on the lakes now and navigating while my husband fishes.
And this is why I took a break from blogging. How do you share about a project you’re not doing anymore? But I did, and there it is.
I have actually worked on a few other things lately, so I will share about those soon.
Patty Radish 