Mixed media art journaling has become a major part of my life and routine over the past couple of months. I look forward to sitting down at my craft desk at the end of a few days throughout the week and making an absolute mess. A few months ago I managed to get two Jane Davenport mixed media journals for $5 each (the last in Michaels!), and since then I’ve been filling each page with paint, crayons, paper scraps, and so much more. I thought I would pop in and share a few of the spreads I’ve worked on since then.

This was the first page I did inspired by Roxanne’s (bybun) Lyrical course, and I learned so damn much from that course. You’ll see in the other spreads in the post that certain techniques have stuck with me since I first worked through it. At the time, I was listening to the Anne with an E soundtrack pretty much on repeat, so I had this song by The Tragically Hip stuck in my head for days. It only made sense to use it in the spread. To be honest, I’m not even sure if it’s finished. Technically, I got to the end of the course with it, but I can see some details that I could add or improve on. I may or may not go back to it in the future.

This one was actually inspired by the colors before the song. I was in the mood for a good pink spread, and I was struck by the idea of adding lyrics from a Hole song to it. I listened to a couple of songs from Live Through This over a few days, but it wasn’t until I got one of those special edition magazines at Target–this one all about witchcraft–that I figured out where to go with the spread as a whole. The image, the lyrics, and the contrasting bubblegum color was way too much fun in the best possible way.

Finally with this last one I moved away from the song lyrics and ended up with a quote by Maya Angelou. This spread is in progress, and it was a challenge for me because I don’t often work with most pastel shades of blue, but I’m loving the push outside of my comfort zone. It started with gelli printing on the two pages just to have a somewhat prepped background, and when I saw the butterfly page in the P13 Always & Forever paper pad, I knew I had to fussy cut them and use the butterfly imagery as a centerpiece. From there, I just googled “quotes about butterflies” until I found one I liked. I actually wouldn’t have ordered the pack myself, but it came free with a Scrapbook.com order, and I’m glad I added it to the order because I’m loving what’s come of it.

I’ve also started making mixed media artist trading cards, and that’s such a joy in itself. You can peek one at the top of each photo. I’m planning on sending them out with orders when I reopen my Etsy shop next month, and I’m having a fun time getting a collection of them ready to go.

I couldn’t guess how much this new hobby would mean to me when I first started on it, but wow. Wow. I am blown away by how positive it has been for me these past few months, and I’m so grateful to have jumped in.