I am a avid user of an art journal. An art journal can be anything you want to be. It can be filled with anything you would like. It can be filled with crafts, drawings, pictures from the internet or your life. It can be whatever. For me it is a notebook filled with all those crafts that I want to do but don't know what to do with them when I'm done. It's also a way for me to express myself and use up my creative energy. I started one recently and I don't regret it one bit.
I feel that every crafter or artist should have an art journal. It doesn't have to be fancy. You don't need a 20 dollar sketch book or an expensive, fancy notebook. Crafting is all about talking something old, gross, and cheap and with a little help making it something amazing. I am currently using an old notebook from school that I didn't fill up completely. I ripped out all of my old work and started gluing away.
 |
| Title Page |
I had a lot of fun doing the cover. It's a printed out map that I "made old" with an used tea bag and some old coffee grinds. I then baked it in the oven at 170 degrees for about 5 minutes. I mod podged it on and added some stamps in the corner. I am quite proud of it even though it is brown which I am not too fond of.
 |
| First Page |
The first page was basically a result of me being so thrilled to be art journaling and that I was actually being crafty and my excitement of actually owning mod podge. After using an excessive amoutn of mod podge to put down a full sheet of newspaper and then some birds (I actually drew them myself! I have never been able to draw so this was a big accomplishment for me) that I cut out from newspaper and colored with marker and colored pencil. After deciding it was too plain I added some random quotes (I regret this) and sealed it off with a good layer of mod podge.
 |
| Second Page |
The second page was again a result my excitement of art journaling and mod podge. It's a whole bunch ripped newspaper that I sealed with mod podge (big shock, right?!) and not knowing what to do with it I filled it with a whole bunch of quotes. I really do love quotes but I don't know if this really captures the full essence of crafting and art in its full beauty for me.
The third page is a bit of a disappointment for me. I was hoping to make this...
 |
| Source: idemakeriet.blogspot.com via Pintrest |
But I ended up with this...
 |
| Third Page |
I fell that its "failure" (you can really never fail at any type of art) but its "failure" to turn out like its inspiration has to do with using flimsy newspaper instead of book layers (which I assume they used) and that the shape of the butterflies weren't quite right and they were not all the same size. I also feel that it lacks color. I will try this one again but I have so many other projects....
As for the rest of the pages I have tutorials so you can kind of see how some people (well me) put together their art journals. I always see pictures of people pages and want to know how they put them together so that is what I am planning to do for you guys. And don't worry and I will have crafts and tutorials for things other than art journals. I have some things planned...
