Journal the Everyday.

 I've been feeling the ephemera lately & on a tear to use up some of my endless stash. I started this page with gesso & a stencil to create a resist. Next was some Dylusions sprays-told you I can't stay away from them right now. The one thing about these sprays is (if you want the image to be white) you have to wipe the color off the gesso quick because the color will stain the gesso. Stamped my title & added my ephemera- K& co? On the next page I added a tip in. I have had these journal cards for years & am very happy to use them. They are double sided & I always hated to waste one side by gluing them on a scrap page. Some washi tape on the side of the card... love me some washi...

voila extra journal space! The bright blue is a stamped image heat embossed-I love this look & need to do it more- just makes an extra pop of both color & texture. The journaling reads-"You've stolen my joy" Trinny to me after I was making her help me clean up the playroom that she had completely destroyed. "I come home from school all happy & you've stolen my joy." My response "Honey you stole my joy hours ago when I started cleaning this mess! I guess we're even!"  
Remember to journal the everyday fun things that your kids say and the annoying things they do so you can remember. That way when they complain to you about their kids years from now, you will be able to say-"well when you were 7...".

Published! It's Official!

Here is the art journal page I did for the blogozine Unruly Paper Arts. Check out the link here for the tutorial!

Light & Dark

I started my page with a rich dark brown paint & added stamping in black archival ink. To help add dimension to the background, stamping in gold script is the perfect solution. Next I need some lighter elements. There is so much fun ephemera available, this is a Kaiser Craft pack-perfect! Added my ephemera & attached the tag with a brad from My Minds Eye. Love your art!

Zoo Time

This page has a lot of nummy Dylusions sprays on it. The color is so luscious & intense-absolutely love it! The great thing about Dyan's sprays is they layer really well. I dried the london blue color & used a stencil to add the bubble gum pink. The pink layers on top & the color is great. I wanted to add journaling but the background was really dark so I gessoed lines which lightened up the area so you can see my words better. The fun part of this page is I got to use up some stickers from my stash! Yay!

Project Life and so it begins...

 OK it is official I have been dragged kicking & screaming in to doing Project Life. In case you live on another planet & haven't heard of Project Life just do a google search & bam you will get 1 zillion results. Or you could go Becky Higgins blog/site, the originator of this great idea. She has a great video that explains how, why, why, why...

My friend Angela was trying to drag me in, there are a lot of big name scrappers doing it, including some inky people whose pages are more inky cool. I resisted purely based on time. I have no time as it is why on earth would I take on one more thing. All I needed apparently was some of that awesome justification that allows us to jump in head first. I still resisted. Than one day my daughter and I were going through a box of old 1980's photos & ephemera. A small light bulb went off in my head. This is my history, my growing years and they are in a box. Wait a minute! It started innocently- what if I already had the photos & ephemera? Wouldn't that make the process take less time? What if I only used my stash so I could actually use the product I own? What if? 

Excited by this now glowing, bright, light bulb idea I immediately called Angela. Even though she too had gotten started & realized time was not available for this plan I was adamant, "we can do this, I have a plan on how to make the organization easier"... finally I used the old standby- "you got me into this, it's your fault". We agreed to meet up to work on this project weekly. I dragged out a bunch of my stash, paper I had to have at the time but gathers dust, my box of photos and ephemera. Lucky for me when I had pulled everything out of the magnetic, acid eating, destructo albums they were in I had kept things fairly organized. Also the photos... were still in good shape.

My first page which is at the beginning of this post is from 1991. I call it retro scrapbooking. It is kind of hard to work with photos that already exist, I had to make the pages fit the photos not the other way around. No way am I going to pull out negatives or scan & print, this is supposed to be simple (wait till next week when I will be eating those words). I still have to add journaling and "stuff" but it is a start. I felt empowered, like I had accomplished something, crossed something off my never ending list of things to do. Scrap September 2nd 1991-done, cross it off my list. Yay only 35 or soooo more years to go! With this album I am not scrapping a week per 2 page layout as is the norm for Project Life but I am scrapping events. My goal is to get some of my life archived fast-ish & simple with lots of photos so my kids can see where and who I was, and what I was up to. Story to be continued...

London Calling!

Another page in my Book of Days. The background was already done as far as I had just slapped some paint wipe off on the page. I added some stamping around the edges. Time for ephemera! This is the new package from the London Market line from Pink Paislee- totally loving it as I am becoming a wee bit obsessed with London & going there some day soon. One of my favorite things to do is add flip tags & that is what I did here using tissue tape at the bottom of the tag so it can flip down. A tip is to run your tape runner where you are going to put the tissue tape down to help it hold. I usually add decoupage glue on top so it can withstand all the flipping!

On the inside I had room for a quote & some journaling. This is a great way to get extra space on your page, especially if you are using a smaller journal!

Tattoo Me!

I have been neglecting my scrap booking in favor of art journal so I decided to get some photos down! I had bought this DCWV paper pack awhile ago-it is so Tim Holtzy it is crazy. I added some sprocket flowers & spritzed flowers. The letters are metal embossed & inked but hard to see because the photo was taken at night with a flash... The great thing about these papers is they do most of the work for you as they are so beautiful & rich with the epoxy images. This is a photo of my niece Kelsei & I at the tattoo parlor in Texas. Yay For Life!

Spring has Sprung!

This is my art journal page for the Stampotique Challenge Spring has Sprung. I love, love their stamps & definitely need more! This page is filled with inky, yummy goodness and sadly you can't see all the lovely shimmer in the photo. I started with some gesso & stencils than I used Dylusion's sprays mainly for the painting too. The shimmer comes from the luminarte paint which I used with some stencils. My stamps are the lovely Relaxin stamp which is one of my favorites. This is exactly how I felt this day- start of spring break, thinking I would need my umbrella & definitely be tired & want to sit down! Of course love the mushrooms & kitty cat. I don't know why I always make him a marmalade, especially when my cat is a Siamese!
It needed something else so I got busy with punchinella & some distress inks. Surprisingly it didn't rain over spring break this year-oh well maybe it is because I used that stamp! Yay for Spring!

Tip In

I love adding tip-in's on my AJ pages. It makes the journal more interesting to browse through, lets you add journaling that is hidden giving you more artistic space. Plus they are fun. I especially like that I can add one of my new obsessions- artistic tape. Not only looks good but is a functional way to tape down the add in. An added bonus is they are great for covering up boo boo's. Like I make a mess & just need something to go over said mess.

I used a piece of a manila folder for this tip-in but often I use a scrapbook journal piece or tag that will flip giving me the other side to work on. So add a tip-in to your next journal page!

Lyrics

I love using lyrics in both my art journals & my scrap book pages. Often a lyric says not only exactly what you want to but the memory the song creates adds an extra dynamic. One of my art journal book ideas is to do just that. A book of song lyrics & the memories they bring back.

Grow

This is a scrappy art journal page which is fun. I started by painting my page with gesso & letting it dry. Next I sprayed with Dylusions sprays. The ink swirls on top of the gesso giving it a different effect. Stamped with Dyan's stamps as well & added pictures of my daughter at 3 & 7 then journal-ed about her. The thing I love about art journaling is using up my stash. Maybe product I would no longer use on a scrapbook page ends up being perfect for my AJ. For example the glittery pink letters! It is fun to add photos to your pages.

My 1st Publication!!!

Very Exciting news today, I am in my 1st publication ever! The new Unruly PaperArts (UPA) blogozine has an article I did for them which will air on April 25th here -Unruly Paper Arts. For those that know me this is the perfect title for me! I won't give it away but here is the photo of my upcoming article...


April 25th: Textured Flexibility in Art Journal Pages by Guest Artist Karen Bearse.

Very exciting!!!! This magazine is unique, the articles are released over a period of days so instead of pages #'s there are release dates. You can sign up to have it delivered to your email address. It looks very cool with some familiar names like Sharon Briss (founder of UPA & co-founder of Gingersnap Creations), Margie Kemp and Jean Franks Beck and more. I am so excited I have to go get inkier!!! Have a great day!!!