I had gotten a Rolodex while I was working at a hospital a few years ago, and I had no idea what to do with it after our bosses gave us the a-okay to toss them out. I decided there had to be a way to get arty with them, and so I had saved them up (a few of my co-workers gave me theirs), and they have been in my art stash waiting for something to be done with them! Well, last Summer, I finally got out my Rolodex goodies out of the mothballs and I finally started to play with them! Well, for the most part I primarily got jiggy with creating some fun and colorful backgrounds! Something I have had a little bit of practice at.
Today was the day that I finally pulled them out again and decided to take a handful of Rolodex cards out and see them come to completion!
I had an entire mess of my art stash out and at the ready for playing with! I will see if I can list all of the supplies that I actually had used:
UHU Glue Stick
Stabilo Marksall Pencils: green, blue, orange, and brown
A bunch of small pics – most of which were either printed by FreePrints.com or I printed them myself using my Selfie Printer.
Scissors
Fiskars paper cutter
Aleene’s Quick Grab Tacky Glue
Words printed out on regular printer paper, using my home printer
Signo Broad Ink pen; White, and Black
Die cuts
Tim Holtz People cut outs
Washi tape
Hole punch
Mini paper doily
I hope I did not miss anything!
I seriously had such a fun time making these cards. I am seriously considering making this a more frequent visitor in my weekly video catalog!!
I hope that this video has inspired you to go find your own Rolodex (they can be easily found in most thrift stores), and get to playing on your own Creative Rolodex Truth Cards!
As always, if you have any questions, please let me know down in the comments section, I am always happy to be of help! Also, please let me know if you do decide to do a spread like this, what song would you choose to use?
I am a little bit late in getting this post published, but better late than never!
Today I am very happy to be sharing my process video for an art journal spread that I have recently done in my 2018 Soul Book.
The inspiration for this spread was that I have a song that means a lot to me this year that I wanted to document and remember. That song is called Life Uncommon, which was written and performed by Jewel.
The words to Life Uncommon are:
Don’t worry mother It’ll be alright And don’t worry sister Say your prayers and sleep tight
And it’ll be fine Lover of mine It’ll be just fine
(Chorus)
And lend your voices only To sounds of freedom No longer lend your strength To that which you wish To be free from Fill your lives With love and bravery And you shall lead A life uncommon
I’ve heard your anguish I’ve heard your hearts cry out We are tired, we are weary But we aren’t worn out Set down your chains Until only faith remains Set down your chains
(Chorus)
There are plenty of people Who pray for peace But if praying were enough It would’ve come to be Let your words enslave no one And the heavens will hush themselves To hear our voices ring our clear With sounds of freedom Sounds of freedom
Come on you unbelievers Move out of the way There is a new army coming And we are armed with faith To live, we must give To live
(Chorus X3)
A life uncommon
Isn’t that just lovely? It seriously is one of my faves and has been floating around in my head for months! I just knew that I wanted to put the lyrics to this song in my Soul Book, but thought I would first decorate a background and just paste the music on top of the background.
Well, I gave myself permission to put some music on and just play, and before I knew it I was on a creative-mojo-filled-roll!! I love when that happens!! Anyway, before I knew it there was no way I was going to let myself cover up the abstract painting I was doing. The colors were different than anything else I would have ever put together, but I L-O-V-E-D it!!! So, I had to come up with some kind of solution as to where I was going to put my song lyrics. The simple solution popped into my mind, and that was to create a pocket out of the 2nd page of my spread and the following blank page. That combined with some double-sided sticky tape, and viola!! It worked beautifully!!
I ended up mounting the song, that I had printed onto plain printer paper onto opposite sides of a nice piece of water color paper, and that gave the song some heft, and kind of turned it into a gigantic tag – perfect for the new pocket that I had created!
I finished by doing a bunch of doodling on the spread, as well as doing some journaling with a white pen. I did that part after the video because I thought for sure that I was done, but later, when I went back to look at my spread again with new eyes, I just knew what I wanted to say on this spread, and instead of doing a tip-in or anything, I decided to write it out!! I wrote from top to bottom on the right hand page, and then flipped the whole thing over so that the writing is upside down on the left hand side – I thought that was a fancy shmanzy way to do that, and I love they that it turned out.
The materials I used:
Dina Wakley heavy body acrylic paints: Ruby, Blackberry Violet, Ocean, and Tangerine
Liquitex heavy body acrylic paint: Titanium White
An old hotel key card (for scraping my paint in a thin layer on the background)
Dina Wakley paint brushes: 1 inch, a small round brush
UHU glue stick
a small Uni Posca Paint pen: Black
Double-sided construction tape (a gift from my sweetie)
My Fiskars precision paper cutter
Scissors
StazOn permanent ink pad: Jet Black
Date stamp
Bic black doodling pen
Construction pencil from Lowes
Uni-ball Signo Broad: white
Small white paper plate for my paint palette
Song printed on 2 sheets of regular white printer paper
1 sheet of thick watercolor paper
I hope you enjoyed watching this process, and more importantly, I hope that you are inspired to to maybe do a similar kind of art journal spread in your own Soul Book!
As always, if you have any questions, please let me know down in the comments section, I am always happy to be of help! Also, please let me know if you do decide to do a spread like this, what song would you choose to use?
I am so happy to share the 3 video of my new mini-series of art journal how to videos with you! I am calling this series
8-Layer Journaling
Back in February of 2015, Shannon Green put out a YouTube video series, called Journaling by 5s. It took the fear and guesswork out of art journaling. I would highly recommend you go check that process and her work out…Shannon is truly inspirational!!!
To quickly paraphrase her process is that you create 20 art journaling pages in 5 – 15 minute sessions, by layering 2 pre-determined media types per session.
Shannon’s Session are as follows:
Background – Paint, Ink
Texture – Collage, Recycle
Pattern – Stamps, Stencils
Focal Point – Words, Images
Details – Pen, Pencils
Although, I really do love this process, I modified it pretty early on, because I was nowhere near able to get my sessions completed within the allotted time, which drove me BANANAS! I felt like I would do better if I limited myself to one medium per session, and to limit my use of mediums to only 5 options. For example, for the paint layer, I limit myself to only 5 tubes/bottles/jars/etc of color, to cut down on my need to overthink the process. Doing this allowed me to finally get all 20 pages done within the allotted 15 minutes. SUCCESS!!
I have used this process for creating my Soul Sister Cards, and for something I like to call Doodling books that I find super fun to play on while I am on an airplane or waiting someplace!! Every time I have done this process the pages end up looking so different from each other, and I am always so amazed at how cool they turn out!!!
So my modified version, which I am calling 8-Layer Journaling is:
Paint
Paper
Washi
Stamps
Stencil
Focal Image
Words
Pen Work
So, with all of the logistics out of the way…
Let’s get on to Layer #3
Washi Tape!
I have a selected 6 different wash tapes, although I only used 5 of them.
Set my timer
and got to playing!!
If you do decide to do this 8-Layer Journaling process with me, I want to highly encourage you to not purchase anything new…use whatever you have in your stash. (This is probably something we could all hear a little bit more of!)
I hope that this is something that you might be inspired to try, and if you do, please share on Instagram #8layerjournaling I would LOVE to see your creations!!!
Thanks so much for stopping by! If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know in the comments section! I am always happy to be of help!!
I am so happy to share a new mini-series of art journal how to videos with you! I am calling this series
8-Layer Journaling
Back in February of 2015, Shannon Green put out a YouTube video series, called Journaling by 5s. It took the fear and guesswork out of art journaling. I would highly recommend you go check that process and her work out…Shannon is truly inspirational!!!
To quickly paraphrase her process is that you create 20 art journaling pages in 5 – 15 minute sessions, by layering 2 pre-determined media types per session.
Shannon’s Session are as follows:
Background – Paint, Ink
Texture – Collage, Recycle
Pattern – Stamps, Stencils
Focal Point – Words, Images
Details – Pen, Pencils
Although, I really do love this process, I modified it pretty early on, because I was nowhere near able to get my sessions completed within the allotted time, which drove me BANANAS! I felt like I would do better if I limited myself to one medium per session, and to limit my use of mediums to only 5 options. For example, for the paint layer, I limit myself to only 5 tubes/bottles/jars/etc of color, to cut down on my need to overthink the process. Doing this allowed me to finally get all 20 pages done within the allotted 15 minutes. SUCCESS!!
I have used this process for creating my Soul Sister Cards, and for something I like to call Doodling books that I find super fun to play on while I am on an airplane or waiting someplace!! Every time I have done this process the pages end up looking so different from each other, and I am always so amazed at how cool they turn out!!!
So my modified version, which I am calling 8-Layer Journaling is:
Paint
Paper
Washi
Stamps
Stencil
Focal Image
Words
Pen Work
So, with all of the logistics out of the way…
Let’s get on to Layer #2
Paper!
I have a selection of papers: Bible pages, music sheets, math pages, novel pages, graph papers, and ledger paper.
I am using a sponge brush, for my gel medium. They are super cheap and because gel medium is so difficult to get out of brushes, I just use a sponge brush and toss it when I am finished (since if you try washing a sponge brush – they just fall apart)
I grab some Jane Davenport Gel Medium
Set my timer
and got to playing!!
If you do decide to do this 8-Layer Journaling process with me, I want to highly encourage you to not purchase anything new…use whatever you have in your stash. (This is probably something we could all hear a little bit more of!)
I hope that this is something that you might be inspired to try, and if you do, please share on Instagram #8layerjournaling I would LOVE to see your creations!!!
Thanks so much for stopping by! If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know in the comments section! I am always happy to be of help!!
I am so happy to share a new mini-series of art journal how to videos with you! I am calling this series
8-Layer Journaling
Back in February of 2015, Shannon Green put out a YouTube video series, called Journaling by 5s. It took the fear and guesswork out of art journaling. I would highly recommend you go check that process and her work out…Shannon is truly inspirational!!!
To quickly paraphrase her process is that you create 20 art journaling pages in 5 – 15 minute sessions, by layering 2 pre-determined media types per session.
Shannon’s Session are as follows:
Background – Paint, Ink
Texture – Collage, Recycle
Pattern – Stamps, Stencils
Focal Point – Words, Images
Details – Pen, Pencils
Although, I really do love this process, I modified it pretty early on, because I was nowhere near able to get my sessions completed within the allotted time, which drove me BANANAS! I felt like I would do better if I limited myself to one medium per session, and to limit my use of mediums to only 5 options. For example, for the paint layer, I limit myself to only 5 tubes/bottles/jars/etc of color, to cut down on my need to overthink the process. Doing this allowed me to finally get all 20 pages done within the allotted 15 minutes. SUCCESS!!
I have used this process for creating my Soul Sister Cards,
and for something I like to call Doodling books that I find super fun to play on while I am on an airplane or waiting someplace!! Every time I have done this process the pages end up looking so different from each other, and I am always so amazed at how cool they turn out!!!
So my modified version, which I am calling 8-Layer Journaling is:
Paint
Paper
Washi
Stamps
Stencil
Focal Image
Words
Pen Work
So, with all of the logistics out of the way…let’s get started!
I took 5 sheets of 9″ x 12″ Canson watercolor paper, and I cut them in half both directions so that I ended up with 20 sheets of paper sized 4 1/2″ x 6″.
Now let’s get on to Layer #1
Paint!
I selected 5 colors of Dina Wakley’s Heavy Body Acrylic Paint: Tangerine, Magenta, Lime, Lemon, Turquoise. (I didn’t select any inks or sprays because I don’t have any in my art studio, at the moment.)
I grabbed 2 paint brushes, 1 for the warm colors (tangerine, Magenta, Lemon), and 1 for the cool colors (Lime, Turquoise, Lemon)
Set my timer
and got to playing!!
If you do decide to do this 8-Layer Journaling process with me, I want to highly encourage you to not purchase anything new…use whatever you have in your stash. (This is probably something we could all hear a little bit more of!)
I hope that this is something that you might be inspired to try, and if you do, please share on Instagram #8layerjournaling I would LOVE to see your creations!!!
Thanks so much for stopping by! If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know in the comments section! I am always happy to be of help!!
I hope you are enjoying my weekly Soul Book Club series! This week, I am happy to announce that week 4 is ready for your enjoyment!
I a really having a lot of fun recording these sessions, I think it is getting a little bit easier. I have been doing this process for a few years, but I am experimenting with how to go about teaching others how to play in your Soul Book, as well as how use your Soul Book as a tool to help you get from where you are to where you want to be, and to ultimately live an authentically creative life, in your own manner!
This week’s Soul Book journaling prompts:
I feel happy when…
I feel sad when…
I feel peaceful when…
I feel most myself when…
My favorite childhood memory…
My favorite memory as a teenager…
My favorite memory as an adult…
What is one area of my life needing attention?
What is one area of my life that is doing amazingly? How did you make it amazing? Can you translate that to other areas of your life?
If there is something that you have putting off, but you know you really should do it, what is that thing? What can you do within the next 10 minutes to take action on that thing?
Please feel free to copy and paste into Word or Pages, and then you will then have the ability to change the fonts style, colors, size, etc. I give you permission to use this list however you would like, including removing prompts, adding prompts, or even just wiping the entire list out and starting over!
I really do hope you are getting some goodness out of my weekly Soul Book Club videos!!
I am very happy to announce that I have finally kicked off my Soul Book Club over on YouTube!
YEAH!!! 😉
I wanted to make sure that I was able to easily get you the list of journaling prompts that I am using this week. Please feel free to copy and paste into Word or Pages, and then you will then have the ability to change the fonts style, colors, size, etc. I give you permission to use this list however you would like, including removing prompts, adding prompts, or even just wiping the entire list out and starting over!
I am very happy to be able to share this with you!
Here are those journaling prompts:
What are my strengths?
What are my short-term goals?
What are my long-term goals?
Who matters most to me?
Who are my support people?
What am I ashamed of?
How can I turn these moments/decisions into life lessons?
What do I like to do for fun?
What new activities am I interested in or willing to try?
What am I worried about?
What is my favorite house chore?
What is my least favorite house chore?
Describe your home in as much detail as possible?
What are my values?
What do I believe in?
If I could have one wish, it would be…
Where do I feel safest?
What or who gives me comfort?
If I wasn’t afraid, I would…
What is my proudest accomplishment?
What is my biggest failure?
Am I a night owl or an early bird?
How can I arrange my life to better suit this part of my nature?
What do I like about my job? What do I dislike?
What does my inner critic tell me?
What do I do to show myself self-compassion and self-care?
What am I passionate about?
What is my happiest memory?
Write out the details of a dream you’ve dream this year. Be as vivid as possible.
What am I listening to?
What I watching on the tele?
What am I reading?
What movie did I watch last?
What movie did you last watch in the theatre?
What am I grateful for?
What songs are on my favorite playlist?
When I’m feeling down I like to…
I know I’m stressed when I…
Describe yourself as a child.
As always, if you have any questions about any of the techniques that I’ve used, please do not hesitate to reach out to me! I would be VERY happy to be of service! 😉
If you want to have a different life, live differently!
I am happy to announce that my Art Journal Thursday video has been posted out on YouTube!
The supplies I used this week were:
White gesso
Art Advantage Acrylic Paint: Permanent Green Light, Phthalo Turquoise, Cerulean Blue
Dina Wakley Media Stencils: Halves, and Spinners
Dylusions 5×8 Stencil: Circles Small
Black Stabilo Pencil
Finalize Bottle filled with white acrylic paint
Punchinella
M. Graham & Co Titanium White Acrylic Paint
This week’s page is actually really simple, but I love the way that it turned out.
I was really excited to get started on this week’s art journal spread because this was the week that I got to start in my crisp, clean, new art journal!
My new art journal is a Strathmore 400 series, 8.5×11 watercolor paper journal, and I am just LOVING the size! It is so much more manageable than the art journal I just finished, which was a Strathmore 500 series 11×17, I think!
The pages of this journal aren’t quite as smooth as the last journal, but I think I will be able to enjoy myself so much more, now that I don’t have the pressure of trying to figure out to cover such a large spread! So YEAH FOR THAT!! 😉
I am LOVING all of the textures that this background technique has created!
I also really LOVE the colors that I have chosen for this page – ACTUALLY, it was my hubby who chose blue and green – his favorite colors!! Thank you, Sweetie! 😉
I also am really enjoying adding art journaling to my spreads!! It has kind of become a game to see if I can figure out a new way to journal on my page each week! I really like the circular journaling though…might be my new fave! 🙂
So, even though this page was really simple to do, and actually came together rather quickly, I am really very happy with how it turned out! I think that this new journal is off to a great start!! I can’t wait to see what comes out next!!!
What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!! 🙂
Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!
Until next time!
Here is to a BEAUTIFUL CREATIVE life! 🙂
If you want to have a different life, live differently!
I am very happy to report that my 21st Art Journal Thursday video out on YouTube!
The art supplies I used this week were:
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Decorative Tissue Wrap: Postale
Uhu Glue Stick
3×5 Gelli Plate
Blick Studio Acrylic Paints: Cadmium Orange Hue, Primary Red, Phthalo Green
Apple Barrel Acrylic Craft Paint: White
Brayer
Art Advantage Double Ended Stylus
5 Miscellaneous Wood Mounted Rubber Stamps: one is from Great Impressions (3 concentric circles), one is from Inkadoo (Carte postale), one is from Delafield Stamp Company (XOXOXO), one is from Hero Arts (Painted Circle), and I am not sure where the last one is from, but it is the one with small doily design
Ranger’s Black Archival Ink Pad
Black Stabilo All Pencil
Uni-Ball Signo White Broad Pen
Scissors
Scarlet Lime Black Doodling Pen
When I started this week’s layout, I was determined to try something that I had felt failed miserably last week; and that was creating a background using my 3×5 Gelli Plate.
I felt like the reason this didn’t work for me last week was the fact that I didn’t limit myself to a selection of a handful of colors. That background ended up being so busy that there was no way that anything could stood out on its own in the foreground. This time I made sure to limit my colors to just three, not counting white!
As I was laying my color down with my Gelli Plate, I started seeing this layout as kind of a paper quilt, which made me start thinking about my mama, and my grandmother, and all of the strong women who came before me. It made me really happy to reconnect with those memories, and to understand just how blessed I am that I come from such a long line of really strong, and AMAZING women!
Thinking on the women of family, also made me think of a favorite song from my childhood, that has a way of popping up in my life at exactly the right moments. This song is called “This Little Light of Mine”. It has been showing up a LOT in my life over the past year, and it again this week. It reminds me that I need to shine my light, which is where my my sentiment came from this week. You may be the only light in the world someone sees today, make sure you shine bright!
I think this background turned out much better than my attempt last week, hands down! This week’s attempt has inspired me to try this again, but this time on an art canvas! I am thinking that this might be a really cool background for a new piece of artwork that I can hang in my new office at work!
What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂
Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!
I realize this is better late than never, but I am happy to report that my Art Journal Thursday #20 has been posted out on YouTube!
The art supplies I used this week were:
3X5 Gelli Plate
Brayer
Blick Studio Acrylic Paints: Titanium White, Phthalo Green, Cadmium Orange Hue, Green Light Permanent, Primary Red, Primary Blue
Dina Wakley Stencils: Mod, Organic Shapes, Halves
Dylusions Stencils: Circles Large, Shattered Large, Triangles Large
Huey’s Mask Stencil: Bubbles
Liquitex White Gesso
Dylusions Spray Inks: White Linen, Vibrant Turquoise, Calypso Teal, London Blue, Fresh Lime, Cut Grass
Apple Barrel Acrylic Craft Paint: White
Uhu Glue Stick
Black Stabilo Pencil
Blue Stabilo Pencil
Ranger’s Archival Black Ink Pad
If you watched the video this week, you might notice that I was really struggling to get this spread to a point that I was happy with!
I also, generally, frown on completely whiting a page out and starting over…I usually am a firm believer that every spread is salvageable in some way or another! So, when I finally hit day three, try three, and I was still feeling really stuck, I knew that whiting the spread out was going to have to be my solution this week!
Although I felt the need to completely white out my backgrounds and start over, I really had fun just playing with my Gelli Plate and playing some with a few new stencils!
My final attempt at this spread, which is the one that I was finally happy with was so much fun to create. I think the reason that I felt I was finally successful was that I finally got out of my own head, and started to really just go with the flow! I think I was having so much trouble because I was overthinking what I was trying to do…I have a tendency to do that at times! 😉
I also think that where the genius of this spread shows up is in some of the close up photographs! I can say genius, right??? Yeah! I can do that! I just LOVE all the yummily-scrumptious color combinations that unexpectantly showed up!
I also really LOVE the very textured background that was created by all of the layers that I had inadvertently created with all of my ugly background tries! It has resulted in a very tactile friendly kind of spread, which I surprisingly LOVE!
See what I mean??? This green and blue are just AMAZING together!! I love the pop that it creates!
And somehow, I ended up with a few speckles of a deep burgundy, red – I am not sure how that happened, but I am really LOVING that too!! 😉 So, all-in-all, I think that after more than a few heartbreaking tries, this page turned into something that I can be very happy about! 😉
What do you think? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this week’s art spread!! 🙂
Also, if you have any ideas, or techniques that you might like to see me try in one of my future layouts, please let me know in the comment section and I will see what I can do to be accommodating! Also, I really do LOVE answering any questions you may have about art journaling, mixed-media, or anything you might have seen me do here! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I will try and get back to you in a timely manner!!
Good morning!
