Finally-Back to Journaling!

Boy -it's been awhile! I stopped art journaling last September. I tried to figure out why, and what I came up with is that I was 2 pages to the end, and I didn't have another journal ready to go into. I wasn't up to making another one, so I just stopped. Then one of our best friends died, I knew I should journal about him, but couldn't. In January I finally got the gumption to start again, and it's been getting easier ever since. I even started the page on our friend yesterday. And I already have another journal to go into, so hopefully thing will go smoothly from here! But I have decided, after journaling every day for the past month or so, that I lead a terribly predictable and boring life! Oh well!!

So here are all my pages so far, some I took before the journaling as well, so that maybe I can use them in other pieces of art along the road. Besides, I think it's interesting to see "before" and "after"!

This is the completed page of the page I started a few blog posts back, using enlarged copies of 2 moo cards I made a few years ago.  

Before page

after- Family Day

The  background pictures are taken from some of my old ATCs

 Again, more of my old art enlarged in this page as well. I've always loved this Buddha page I did in someone else's Deco Book!

I made this page with the first Altered Pages stamp I got, as well as an extra page I made for another swap book,

and this is what it became:

Another page made with enlarged ATCs of mine. I originally had a quote in the middle, but I hated it, so painted over it. The leaf shapes on the right edge are made with those black heat sensitive foam things that you can impress shapes into. I love this one!

So I used it again on the next page:

This is the page I'm working on this week, so hopefully I will post it in a few days when it's full. The stamps are from Stampin' Up, a gift from a friend. I like using new stamps in my journals. And there's that neat leaf thing across the bottom from the previous page.

My next page to work on, ready to go:

 Images from Tim Holtz paper, other bits are things I found on my table that day. Bought some K&C chip board shapes (on sale at Michael's) and used a few as stencils.

I have one more finished background page but I haven't scanned it yet. Also started making background pages in my next journal with leftover paint from this one.

To make this blog post even longer, here are a few other things I've been working on lately:

I had an enverlope swap to do for Byhand -15 envelopes plus thing to put inside. My theme morphed into a Lord Byron (the poet) theme. I even made Byron Post stamps for each envelope (and put a few extra inside)! You can see the huge amount of room I leave myself to create these things!

SPOILER ALERT! If you are in this swap, and want to be surprised, skip this next photo!

 Inside each envelope are some Byron post stamps, a romantic letter from Byron (After I finished aging these letters, I realized I should have changed the name on each letter to reflect the person it was going to! oh well, next time!), and a "framed" portrait of Byron, as every love lost girl should have!

 

My mother turned 75 on Feb 12 (see sidebar for her new books!), and here is the card I gave her, and the inside:

And another card I made with the Altered Pages stamp (I love this stamp!)

And FINALLY (yes, this post is almost over!!) some ATCs I've made in the last month or so:

One of my favorite stamps -"Maude"  

These two were for a "Queen of hearts" swap.

Well, that's it. When I started I thought I didn't have much to report. Wrong! I really need to do this more often so you aren't subjected to such a LONG post!! Off to spend the afternoon with my friend Marg and to PLAY!!!