Just Journals Link Party

What have you been playing around with in your art journal?  I'd love to see your pages.   Add your link below and try to visit at least 2 other links!  Are you wondering *when* I post Just Journals Links?  Well, I've decided not to post them with any regularity, but just whenever I feel inspired to. 



Grab a button for your page:


Index Cards

Daisy Yellow is again hosting an Index Card a Day challenge, where you are challenged to create art on index cards.  I knew there was no way that I would be making one every day this summer, but I did make several cards this week! 






Anatomy of an Art Journal Page: Edition #3

Hi there!  I am having fun making these art journal diagrams.  Here and here.  They are nice because then you can see where all of the layers and elements come from.  Lately I have been using a lot of rub on transfers, which are so much fun. 


Here is the complete page.
The weekly theme for Inspiration Avenue is art journaling, which is perfect for me, since that is my primary form of art right now.  I am also linking to Creative Every Day.

Re-Art Swap

Every year, a local art store hosts a Re-Art Swap, where anyone can drop off old art supplies and take anything they want for free! This year I volunteered to help out for a few hours and I had a great time sorting and looking through things.

Here is my big box of stuff that I donated.  It felt so good to clean out my art supplies.  Little did I know that I would come back with as much stuff as I gave away!  Although most of what I picked up are things that I am going to bring to the school I teach at, so at least it won't be stuff in my house.

Here is the front of the Absolutely Art store.

People looking through piles and piles of fabric scraps and other goodies.  The place was open all day and lots of people came and went, dropping off old supplies and picking up new ones.  It truly was "one man's trash is another man's treasure."  The area was bigger than my camera captured.

More boxes of stuff.

Here are some of the things I scored for my art classroom at school. 
These are very delicate, thin pieces of wood cut into a variety of shapes.  This will be fun to use in collages for the kids.

Stack of perfectly good cardstock.

Glue, origami paper, labels, a large piece of glass for glass fusing, mosaic tiles, comics....

Collage goodies!

More ephemera

I love these Easter Seals stamps.. they are from the 70's and 80's

Labels, scrapbook paper, random ephemera... notice the Disney stickers (perfect for the Disneyworld scrapbook I am going to put together this summer)

a book, crochet hooks, stickers, greeting cards, Pitt artist pens and Faber Castell markers

On the Road Journaling

We went to Disney World the past 2 weeks.  I have lots of pictures from that fun and exciting trip and throughout the next couple of posts I will share a few of the gems.  I also had time to do a bit of art journaling on the road.  We drove to Florida from Wisconsin, which took us 2 1/2 days to drive.  So, we had a lot of time in the car.





These are the nail strips I bought.  Love them!  It says on the package that they last for 10 days and so far they have lasted 2.  I will let you know how long they last.  They have all sorts of cool designs.
Love these!



Daria meeting her hero!

Tigger was so friendly... me and Daria

Linking up to the Random Journal Day!

Postcard Swap

I participated in the Inspiration Avenue postcard swap this Spring and all of my postcards from different people have arrived.  I love them! 

Oops, I made a mistake and threw away the envelopes they came in so I'm not 100% sure who sent me each of the cards.  If one of these is yours, let me know!  Another reason to always sign the backs of your cards!

My first postcard arrived in the mail from Nancy Gerritzen.  Thanks!  It is very cool!



This one is by Donna Letterese  www.drawdvl.com  Her artwork is very cool.  It looks like she took some of her drawings, cut them up and collaged them.

Here was another beautiful postcard sent to me.  I have that set of stamps! 
 I bought them a loooonng time ago.

This one was sent by someone named "Evil Edna".

This is one by someone named Ani Gallo (I think that's what the name says.)

I love all these postcards and again I'm so sorry that I lost the names.  So if you see this and sent it to me, let me know and I'll attribute the card to you with a link to your blog.


Whimsical Faces



Anatomy of an Art Journal Page: #2

I love making these diagrams of my art journal pages.
Bright colorful pages..

Watercolor doodling..


I just received Orly Avineri's book in the mail.  It is gorgeous and I can't wait to read it.  I flipped through it and it is chock-full of beautiful pages.  (I do not get paid to review books/nor have I gotten this one for free.)  I really think this one is worth the money if you like her blog and I hope more people start publishing full books of art journal pages (rather than simply how-to books).



Random Journaling

Doodling on top of sprayed/stenciled background.
Mind map journaling...

I am reading this awesome book now!

Full spread!


I LOVE how my flippy floppy book opens up. I just love how I can use 4 pages with a similar theme or color scheme. I will definitely be making another one of these books.

I just finished reading Mockingjay. The first two books in the series were super good. This one I was just ready for it to be done at the end. I'm not sure how they are going to make it into a movie.. I feel this one was way more violent and gruesome.  Towards the end of the series it was super depressing to read.  If you have elementary school kids, did you let your kids see the first movie? I think the themes in the first one were of course violent and scary, but they did a good job of not showing a lot of gore. I asked the kids in 5th/6th grade if they had seen the movie and it was split. Some of the parents took their kids to the movie and others felt they were too young to see it.  I thought the Hunger Games movie was very good, but I don't know how kids would handle it.