Eye Of The Beholder

Scrapbooking always been good way of documenting our memories and everyday life, and is probably one of the best  known and long running ways of documenting our time that there is. Personally I was looking for something more creative than just scrapbooking. Enter the art journal. I wanted something that would work as a part sketch book, part scrapbook, something that would be fun and interesting to look back at in the future.

As much as I love my Polaroid Project its nice to be able to add more. I don't feel that other keepsakes like tickets, notes and the random little things you find, have a place in something such as my Polaroid frame. I have collected a lot of these kind of things over the years and have therefore been planning on starting an art journal for a while now. A couple of weekends ago I finally found the time to start. By start I mean the front cover is done, but I have begun planning some pages, so watch this space.

So after way too much deliberation this is what I ended up creating.

So this started out life as a 8" x 8" Spiral Bound Kraft Scrapbook from Hobbycraft (£3).

These actually come with black ribbon ties.

I decided to remove these with some scissors, and then pushed any fibers that I couldn't get to back into the slot it was originally threaded through, with a Pokey Tool (Yes it's a real thing. Get one here for £4)

Why did I take them off? Because I don't have the patients to keep untying, and retying things. I'm lazy.

I knew that I wanted text on the cover and wanted the look of old books; so I got an old book.

You can relax. I didn't just go and buy a book in order to tear it up. The Librarian at my old secondary school was told he had to get rid of some of the old books. I use to be a student librarian; since he knew I was arty he asked if I wanted to take some of the old books off his hands and use them for something other than just going in the bin.

For my art journal I went with a page from an old Dictionary/Thesaurus/Medical Dictionary. This one was already fairly yellow from age, but I wanted to add to that along the edges. To do this I used the Antique Linen Distress Ink  by Tim Holtz (you may want to shop around and see where you can get it cheapest). I glued down the book page using Mod Podge (matte finish).

For the main design elements for my cover I chose to use some stamps by Visible Image. I absolutely love their stamps. If you haven't checked their stuff out, then you need to; and be prepared to spend. A lot.

For this I used the eye from the Where Dreams Take You set (I have had this stamp a while, as in before it was a part of this set, so the eye is all I have), as well as the Reveal Your True Colours stamp from the Own It! set and an ink splat from the aptly named Ink Splats set.

To start with I stamped each image where I wanted it using the Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I did this so that it would just about show up against the natural colour of the Kraft card.

I wanted to be able to stamp the ink splat in coloured inks and have the colours stand out. The images stamped in Walnut Stain acted as a guide for me to be able to fill in the areas I wanted to colour with White Gesso first as a base for the colours.

Once the Gesso had dried I added the coloured ink splats.

These were done with the Visible Image splat stamp and just a collection of coloured inks. I used pastel pink, blue and purple inks from a variety of brands (mostly ones that I had forgotten about.)








Next I used a black Versafine Ink Pad To stamp the Eye and True Colours images. I did, however, fine that it took awhile for the ink to dry on the Gesso areas so in future I would probably opt to use a Stazon ink pad instead, just to be sure that it actually dries without any risk of smudging.

Afterwards I just added a bit of a doodle in the top left corner using a black pen. When I was sure that all the inks were dry I sealed everything down with a layer of Gloss Finish Mod Podge . 

And there you have it. I hope to be able to start working on some pages soon so watch this space for more art journal related stuff. 

Happy Scrapping!!

If you have and questions or comments I'd love to heard them! As usual, come find me on Twitter and now Instagram using the buttons at the top of the side bar. Alternatively send your messages via carrier pigeon, flying monkey or magic carpet. Unicorns are also an accepted delivery service!!