Designer Showcase: Art Journaling

Hey there and happy Wednesday to you all. It's Cathy here.  The theme for this weeks Designer Showcase is Art Journaling.

What is an Art Journal? Art journaling can take many forms. It is a way to express yourself using creativity as a base.  It could be a way to keep your daily/weekly thoughts, or perhaps a travel journal, maybe a record of a special occurrence in your life, an exercise or diet diary, a bucket-list, to-do list or list of resolutions.  What makes it an art journal is the embellishment that you add to the pages.

You can use all sorts of artistic media in the process.  Including written journaling adds to the depth of the expression.  What's important to remember is that there is no right or wrong way to do this. Just do what helps you to open up and share your thoughts and feelings.

Let's take a look at some samples that the Contributing Artists are sharing today.

This is the cover of an art journal that I created. This particular art journal serves as a source of inspiration for me.  I collect things that get my creative process moving. Sometimes it's magazine clippings, advertisements or even junk mail. Sometimes it's photographs I've taken, paintings that I've done or other mixed media work I've done. When I want to try out a new artistic technique, I'll do so in this journal. What inspires me is often affected by what I am dealing with in life. It's great to see this correlation. So I also jot down some journaling notes in this book as well. I really like having a place where I can go and find both intrinsic and extrinsic sources to inspire me to create.

This page in an art journal that I created four years ago is my "self portrait". I added the journaling around the fingers of my hand.

This cover was designed by Nancy. I love all the baubles, buttons and flowers that she layered on the top. To give it a more cohesive look, she painted and misted them right into the cover.  All this texture and diversity really makes you curious to take a peak inside!

This is a page from Nancy's journal. Don't you wish you could reach out and touch this? The textures are great with the combination of canvas, lace, alphas and transparency. The paints and mists and flowers add fabulous colors. I like the way she added subtle journaling using the alphas.

Karen shares some pages that she created as part of an art journaling class that she took. The class was offered by Jessica Sprague.  On this page, you can see that Karen is starting off her album with ways to encourage herself to express. She has a pocket to hold photos, journal strips, clippings, you name it. The wording "Art for Arts Sake" really sets the mood.  Here are some other pages Karen created from that class.

The class was a hybrid project, so there was a lot of printables that could be customized by adding your own artwork and journaling. Some info Karen shared about the class "each day of the class came with a prompt to get you thinking about different things to include in an art journal such as: lyrics from a meaningful song, compiling a 'mix tape' of music that moves and/or inspires me and using a handprint as a starting point for journaling."

After taking the class, Karen felt that it gave her the confidence to dabble further with art journaling. This last image is a page that she created on her own from start to finish. She brings together some drawing, doodling, coloring and writing.

Looking at these pages you can see that it is hard to confine the definition of art journaling. It really is using any form of creative art to express yourself.  Even if you feel you are not that "artistic", you can just let go of that and try some new techniques, and not worry about how it looks. This is all about YOU!  Maybe you like to have things neat and orderly, maybe you prefer to include clay, paint, metal. Or maybe you just like to doodle. Whatever it may be that helps you to let yourself go and express and share - even if only to be seen by just your own eyes, that is what art journaling is.

Want to find out more? Here are some resources to look into:
How to create and keep an art journal
Prompts for Art Journaling
Collection of Art Journal samples on Tumblr (lots of different samples)
Art Journaling - It's all good (includes a board to discuss art journaling)
Studio Tangie (includes classes and inspiration for hybrid art journaling)
Pinterest
Balzer Designs Art Journal Everyday

These are just a few links. If you have others, please share them in a comment to this post. We would love to see more inspiration!

Update- Color Challenge

Hi everyone!  Nancy here today with a quick reminder about the color challenge sponsored by the Sampler kit club.  You have until June 30th to enter for your chance at some wonderful prizes.  Just link your design here or on the original post to be entered.

Hugs.

Nancy

Distress Stains - Marbling

Hi everyone, Nancy here today to share with you another technique using your Tim Holtz Distress Stains. (warning, tutorial = photo heavy, hee hee)  But I promise, it is easy to do.

Begin by selecting a few distress stain colors to work with, and of course a tag.

 Apply the distress stains to your craft mat.

 Run the tag over the stain.

Here you see the tag after its quick trip over the mat.

 You can use a heat tool to dry the tag.

 Spritz the tag lightly with water to allow the stains to move and blend.

 And here is the finished tag.

I added a Prima Trinket as well as some shrink art I had made in a previous tutorial that you can see here.

I hope you enjoy playing with your Distress Stains as much as I do.

Hugs.

Nancy

A Challenge by Color

Hi everyone!  Nancy here today and I am so excited to share with you that Ideas for Scrapbookers is hosting a color challenge sponsored by The Sampler Kit Club.  Here is your color inspiration.

Bits of Gold, Purple, and Green with maybe a little kraft thrown in for fun.   

Here are few samples from the Sampler kit club design team using the June kit, Walking on Sunshine.

Shaunna Farral 

Amy McMullen Soltolongo

Amber Goble

Amy Brock Coose

and me  Nancy Keslin

You don't need to have the kit to play along.  Just take inspiration from the photo and show us what you've got by putting a link in the comments to your project.  You have until June 30th to play.  Winner will be selected randomly from all submissions and will receive a prize pack from The Sampler.

So, are you up for the challenge?  

Hugs.

Nancy

Designer Showcase: Butterflies!

Who doesn't love butterflies fluttering on a scrapbook page? I love 'em! Maybe it's not your favorite but I think you will find these examples by our contributors great ways to use butterflies on your pages. Check out these great projects.

Cindy created these adorable cards with neat butterflies. Here is how she created them ...

"For the blue card, I punched out the three butterflies from scraps and
put them on a chalked background.  Details here:
http://www.cindyderosier.com/2012/02/secret-agent-004113.html"

"For the yellow card, I used the punch to make a mask.  I used two
shades of ink to create a butterfly background paper.  Details here:
http://www.cindyderosier.com/2012/05/national-scrapbook-day-wrap-up-part-2.html"

Nancy created this sweet. Notice how well the butterflies textures match the background texture. What is a nice touch. Also the blooms look so pretty to go along with the flying butterflies.

 Nancy's second page again shares sweet photos of her daughter along with butterflies and blooms.  The seem to be floating on the page in her example. I especially like her color palette she chose on her page.  Just perfect!

Marlene created this pretty card with a gorgeous butterfly. I like the black border around the butterflies and the title. That really ties the card together.

The butterflies in this next page by Marlene look great all embossed and set on the corner of the photo. The accents on her page go perfectly with the butterflies!

Marlene's third page features creating a butterfly out of butterfly paper. This is such a neat idea. Notice how she centered the butterfly within the other. The both seem be flying onto the page!

Here are two pages by me showcasing butterflies. The first one representing the "flying" that I was trying to do while the second represents my growth as a person.

Get out those butterfly papers, stickers, stamps and accents and add them to your next page. You will be glad you did! 

Distress Stains and Shrinky Dinks

Hi everyone!  Nancy here today to share with you a fun technique using shrink plastic (aka shrinky dinks) and distress stains.  I know I loved playing with shrink plastic when I was a child and couldn't wait to do so again with my children.  Well, needless to say, we know have little bits of plastic all over the place which got me to thinking, why don't I make some things for my paper crafting.

For this project you will need distress stains or inks, a heat gun, shrink plastic and a craft sheet.  I used the Tim Holtz gear die to cut my plastic into a fun shape.

 Apply a bit of the stains to your craft sheet.

 Drag your plastic through the stains.  This will give the plastic a mottled effect.

 Heat plastic to shrink with your heat gun.  I find using the heat gun to shrink plastic much quicker and easier than doing it in the oven.  Plus clean up is a breeze.

When you are done, you will end up with something like these.

So super fun to do.  Try it at your house.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs.

Nancy