New Year, New Venture

Art Journal Night: Quickie Envelope Journal

Quickie art journal to tuck into your bag and use on the go.

As some of you know, I will no longer be hosting ATC Night at Stampin’ From the Heart after 2011 ends. Instead, I will be offering Journal Night at on the third Thursday of each month, starting in January. **See supplies lists below.**

It’ll very much be an artistic as well as inspirational and introspective process, which I hope we all can share. We’ll be using a variety of materials (some of which I will supply and some of which you will bring to make your artwork more personal). So I encourage you to begin gathering your thoughts, ideas and any images or other pieces you may wish to incorporate into your projects. We’ll get started transforming your journal into a place to express whatever’s on your mind or in your heart.

I have made a bunch of journals over the past year and I am not done yet. For our first session, I will guide you in making a Quickie Envelope Journal that you can tuck into your purse or bag and use to jot down ideas or make sketches or keep findings. We should be able to finish this journal in one session. Then you can decorate it as you wish at home (or make more and give them as gifts). Warning, they are habit-forming. (I’ve already made 4.)

Each month, I will offer a technique for making exciting and inspirational art journals. Hopefully you will be inspired to come up with some of your own ideas at home (or work further on what was started in class) to show us at the next meeting. It will be an adventure as well as a work in progress.

I hope you will join me at Art Journal Night at Stampin’ From the Heart on January 19. Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m., Cost: $25. Please sign up with the store so I will be sure to have enough materials for everyone.

REQUIRED Supplies:

Please bring these to each session: your favorite scissors for precision cutting, any images, scraps or stamps/ink you might like to use, along with your basic stamping kit, including bone folder, several glue sticks, double-sided tape and any other adhesives you like to use, 1/8-inch hole punch, rubber gloves!!

RECOMMENDED supplies:

Sharpie fine point pens in various colors. I like these because they work on most surfaces. Other people like to use Micron pens. You can try markers, but they don’t work on all surfaces. However they are useful for other things.

Small bottle of Liquitex liquid gesso.

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Art Journal Class

Becoming Brave Art Journal

I am interested in having another Art Journal Class at my home, perhaps in September or October (or both), as the summer has managed to slip past me. My idea is to do a journal called Becoming Brave (based on articles I saw in a two magazines recently). I don’t know about you, but my doubts and fears sometimes paralyze me and render me unable to move forward with what I want to do. So I thought it might be fun to explore that a little through the Art Journal process. We will build a very basic journal, paint some pages and then decorate at least a few of them to get started. If you are interested, please let me know.

To be held at my home, in late December from 1-4:30 p.m. Cost $35.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

What fears do I have that are holding me back?

What I would like to be able to do if I didn’t have this fear?

If I could pick an animal guide to inspire me, what would it be?

Now I’ve begun collecting some images (from magazines, photos or anything really) that I might want to use in my journal. And I’ll be experimenting with journal bindings to find the easiest one. I’m very excited, because usually I can’t think of anything to write about in my journals, I just like making them. It seems that Becoming Brave is a topic that gets my pen flowing because I already have 3 journal entries written, but (ha ha) I don’t have a journal yet. Go figure.

Art Journals

I’ve been working on some Art Journals in the last month. See Art Journals page on this site for the latest pictures.

Journey to Journaling

I have long wanted to make an Art Journal but was never sure how to go about it. So I called my friend, fellow artist and longtime journaler Rosemary the other day, and while she was giving me pointers I ended up in the studio painting the pages of a book I had prepared the day before. That was the beginning.

From there, things started to happen spontaneously. I added some of those wonderful Cavallini birds I love so much and some collage pictures I had been collecting for years. Next, I prepared Monet calendar pages to glue onto the left-facing pages: sanded them (good exercise for my flabby arms) and dry brushed them with some buff acrylyic paint. The next day I stumbled onto a book for sale in the library (50 cents) that had lots of meaningful quotes in it. I copied them and glued one onto each page. After that I added some mini-collages made from my scrap basket, remembering to leave lots of room to write. So far, I haven’t figured out what I want to say or what I want to write with, but I am giving it some thought. To be continued…

Motherboard Piano Hinge Journal

Aubergine piano hinge journal (cover)

Coming in August, we’ll delve into a new way of creating a book. It’s called the Piano Hinge binding, and it looks alot harder than it really is. We’ll decorate the covers with custom papers (we’ll paint and embellish) and lots of scraps. Then we’ll make inside journal pages that you can later write or color or stamp as the spirit moves you). Anyway, it’s lots of fun and I encourage you to bring whatever papers and other goodies you may want to include. Here’s a picture of the journal I am sending into Somerset Studio for the Aubergine call. I’ll be showing the real journal at the class Sunday and taking it in next week. Then I’ll design a new one for the class.

Class on Saturday, Aug. 22, 10:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m., $50; Bring precision scissors, glue sticks, dbl-sided tape, red tape, rubber gloves. Sign up at Stampin’ From the Heart at (310) 391-0466.

Mini Matchbook Album/Journal

If you loved making the matchbook cards we did a few months ago at the Make-It/Take It at Stampin’ From the Heart, then you will go ga-ga over this sweet matchbook album/journal. We’ll make it from a colorful double-sided Basic Grey kit and decorate it with stamps, decorative papers, collage images and other ephemera–don’t you just love ephemera? There’ll be spaces to add journaling later on.

Mini-Matchbook Album: 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday June 13, Stampin From the Heart, Cost $45. Call Karen’s store now or drop by to sign up. Limited to 10 students. Bring lunch.

Tools and materials for you to bring: precision scissors, glue stix, double-sided tape and red tape for those stubborn ephemera items.

Optional: This album can easily be personalized for a special birthday, graduation, Father’s day or wedding gift. Feel free to bring up to 8 of your own images, but they should be no larger than 1-1/2 by 2 -1/2 inches in order to fit on the pages. Hint: Black and white or sepia tone images can give disparate photos a more uniform look.