Use what you have, make one from scratch or buy one you love!

Gather your supplies and meet me in my virtual art studio this holiday Monday, April 13, 2020 at 2pm PST! You can find the classroom on TWITCH and FACEBOOK for the live videos.
Below are a few samples of the journals I have bound so far on my own 🙂 .
































Many people have made art journals from book covers from our childhood and sell them online, if you prefer to go that route. An Artist well known for it is Tangie Baxter, and you can purchase one here from her and her handy husband: Art Journaling The Magic Journals (CLICK ME).
Supply list (what I can think of right now 😉 ) :
- art paper (ie: can be one or a mix of the following for your pages: mixed media, watercolour, bristol, card stock, or tomoe river paper)
- scrapbook paper
- paint (I will be using acrylic (matte finish) and watercolour paints)
- a few paint brushes (flat and round). I will most likely be using a #6 or #8 round, a #8 shader, 1/2 and 3/4 flat. NOTE: most of my brushes are from the dollar store.
- a good clear drying craft glue, mode lodge or acrylic medium (matte finish).
- any art stamps and ink pads you have.
- coloured inks (if you have any)
- embossing powders and glitter (if you have them)
- washi tape (if you have it) for decorating and/or creating ‘tip-ins’.
- Art Stencils and & stencil blending brush if you have them.
- a heat gun or hair dryer (if you have one)
- permanent black ink marker (not alcohol based). I will be using a ‘F’ and a ‘M’ sized Faber Castell PITT pen and my favourite, a refillable Pentel brush pen.
- scissors (regular size). If you have small ones for fussy cutting that is a bonus 🙂 .
- watercolour pencils or crayons (if you have them)
- Gelli plate (optional) for making backgrounds. NOTE: I probably won’t use mine.
- ephemera (i.e.:ticket stubs, photos, magazine pages, ribbon, scrap paper, die cut images, stickers, beads, take-out menus, A.T.C.’s (Artist Trading Cards), colouring book pages, etc). Anything that you have that you think may be fun to add in really. 🙂
- Binding supplies (if you are making a book). An Awl (a small pointed tool used for piercing holes) for poking holes through your cover and paper sections. Either book binding thread and a needle or duct tape. I will be using waxed thread and a curved needle (as seen in the photo below).




If you would like to prepare your pages (cut them to size), make sure that when they are folded in half, that they are a little bit smaller in width than the cover you plan on using. FOR EXAMPLE: If you will be using a GOLDEN BOOK for your cover, my pages measure (un-folded) 11″ wide by 7″ high. When they are folded in half, they measure 5 1/2″ wide x 7″ high. If I were to use a GOLDEN BOOK cover as my cover, I may choose to use 3 pieces of 11″x7″ for each signature in the book. In total I may choose to have 4 signatures (3 pieces of art paper in each one) in my booklet, plus any other scrapbook pages, etc that I choose to add in.
If you are using a different size of cover, you will need to make your page sizes different as well (to align with your cover).
If this is confusing, don’t worry. We will go over it at 2pm PST on Monday.
Just make sure that you have some sheets of paper to paint on, on Monday. If you have 12″ x 9″ sheets of paper to work on for then, you will be in great shape. TIP: You can keep some at a longer length for a few tip-in pages.
Please share this post with anyone that you know that may like to join in on the fun.




WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT during this FREE class:
- painting, stencilling, doodling, stamping and other mark making
- tip-in pages
- creating page tabs
- glueing, smearing and blending galore….lol!
- Introductory to book binding
- Some chatting and hopefully some laughs along the way 🙂




See you in the ART STUDIO!
April 13-17, 2020 from 2-4pm P.S.T.: Creating our Art/Junk Journals
- Monday: page cutting and creating backgrounds. You may want a colour scheme….just a thought.
- Tuesday: stamping and creating die cuts of our own.
- Wednesday: incorporating scrapbook papers and planning tip-ins, and pockets.
- Thursday: t.b.a.
- Friday: Journal lay out plans and binding.
April 20-24, 2020 from 2-4pm P.S.T.: Working in our Journals
- Monday: TBA (we will plan this during the 1st week)
- Tuesday: TBA
- Wednesday: TBA
- Thursday: TBA
- Friday: TBA




Please SHARE this post with anyone that you know that may like to join in on the fun.
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