Hello friends and welcome! It’s Laurie with you today to share a fun and easy art journal page. While just like you, I love making cards but I recently made the leap into art journaling. Now, while I call this art journaling, I think it’s more of mixed media play. The layout is similar to how I’d make a card, I’m just making use of more of my supplies ie: pastes and inks!
What is great about this project, is that you likely already have everything you need! This is a 5X7 piece of watercolour paper punched with a disc bound punch. Even though this is punched to fit in my journal, it is not necessary. Because of the size of this project, it fits perfectly into a photo frame! I have plenty of these pages, in frames, throughout my craft space!
Let’s have a play, shall we?
I started by adding texture to the page using the grid stencil from the Pixel Grid Stencil Set and some Opaque Crackle Paste and set it aside to “crackle”.
While that was doing it’s thing, I stamped some images from the Journaling Spots Stamp Set. I wanted them to have a vintage vibe in the finished project so I stamped them with Vintage Photo Archival Ink.
I also came up with a colour combo for this project, brown, teal with a bit of light pink! I should mention, I stamped almost everything onto watercolour paper. The little tag was stamped onto a piece of patterned paper. 
I added some colour to each of the images and fussy cut everything out. Now, the crackle paste has dried…
Before adding the colour to the background, I white heat embossed some shapes from the Accents (Background Builder) Stamp Set. This is going to provide areas of resist where the ink will pool and add more texture.
I do have a few spray inks in my stash but these are not required. Ink smooshing works just as well!! I layered up colours, drying in between each layer. I love how the ink flows between the crackle and the embossing!
Now, let’s put everything together!!
I started by adhering all my images in a cluster. Before adding it to the page, I stamped a sentiment from the You Matter Stamp Set. I also used one the hearts from the same set and coloured it blue.
I went around the edges with the Vintage Photo Ink to “dirty” it up a bit as well as added some zigzag stamping using a stamp from the Accent Borders Set. This really gave the page a finished look.
This page just had to have a butterfly on it. I fussy cut this one out from a piece of patterned paper. Don’t forget about your paper stash!!
And the finished product…
I understand that art journaling or mixed media may sound intimidating. But trust me, it isn’t. You just need to use your stash in a slightly different way…a messier way!! I hope you got some inspiration today. I had so much fun sharing this with you!
Thanks for visiting! See you soon!
Laurie