Wednesday Wonder – The Documented Life Project – 2015

Whether you are new to art journaling or an experienced pro, you’ll want to be sure that The Documented Life Project is on your radar. 2014 is the first year this project took place. It was headed up by a group of the five women who make up the Art to the Fifth Academy; Lorraine Bell, Sandi Keene, Rae Missigman, Barbara Moore, and Roben-Marie Smith.

The project was free and was designed as part planner, part art journal. Most people used Moleskine journals. A prompt was issued each week and these five women shared their take on the prompt. A Facebook group was started and by the end of this year, it had grown to over 7,700 members! People shared photos of their pages and the inspiration and comradery was phenomenal!

The good news is that there will be a new project for 2015!

You can find out about it HERE.

I hope you will join the experience!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

KS

Creative Christmas Bundle

Creative Christmas Bundle Projects and ideas from 15 crafters and designers.

Projects and ideas from 15 crafters and designers.

I am so excited to tell you about a creative bundle of goodness, which I’ve been working on behind the scenes, in preparation for the big day it is released for sale, November 24th. It is a collaborative effort of 15 crafters and designers, which can give you a jump start with ideas and how to instructions on many great holiday projects!  You’ll want to be sure and go check out the information about the designers and sign up to get updates.

Here’s a peek at some of what you’ll find in the Creative Christmas Bundle:

  • 2015 printable photo calendar
  • Advent calendar, printable supplies, tutorials, and suggested daily activities
  • December Daily scrapbook sketches and more
  • Printable pocket page cards
  • Cut files for Silhouette and Cricut
  • Gift ideas and tutorials
  • Christmas-themed cross-stitch patterns
  • Printable Christmas cards
  • Tutorials for making photo gifts
  • Tutorials on using apps to create and print photos and photo gifts
  • Art journaling (for any time of year)
  • Upcycling for a green Christmas
  • Plus bonuses galore

You won’t want to miss out on this bargain, if you are even the least bit prone to creativity! Valued at over $250 it will be on sale for just $29.99!  You can meet the designers and sign up to get the email for the initial release here. The sale runs from November 24 – December 1.

Creative Christmas Bundle art journaling basics online class coverI am bringing my Art Journaling Basics class online, and the first release will be part of the Creative Christmas Bundle!

In this class you will:

  • Learn what art journaling is.  Discover ways you may decide to use it.
  • Receive tips on what to use for a journal. Don’t get lost in the sea of choices, you can make informed decisions.
  • Learn how to make your own journal by recycling a book. It’s easy to go green!
  • Learn about basic supplies and adhesives. Don’t spend money on supplies you don’t need to get started. Find out what you may already have on hand that will work.
  • Receive product recommendations. Get tips you can use to make your selections and save time and money.
  • Learn how to create five fast and easy ways to make backgrounds. Get started right away,  so you aren’t staring at a blank page wondering what to do next.
  • Receive a list of page prompts and learn how using prompts can spark your creativity. Never feel ‘stuck’ or lacking ideas!
  • Receive printable images and quotes to get started without delay! Great to take shopping!

Bonus 1You will also receive the original Artful Adventures Art Journaling Basics eBook for free! This ebook in .pdf format also contains links to the videos and the printables, giving you multiple options to access the class information.

Bonus 2: A private Facebook Group to connect with others and share your projects without the judgement of family and friends who have no idea what you’re doing! We’ll have our own fun!

What you get:

7 Lessons

5 Videos

6 Pages of Printable Images (91 single images)

2 Page of Quotes and online quote resources

Samples with basic description of steps to complete.

List of page prompts

Printable list of basic Product Recommendations

This class is a steal at $20, but it will be part of the Creative Christmas Bundle. So you can have access to the online class and do it whenever you want to, and get all the other goodies in the bundle as well! All content is available upon payment of your Creative Christmas Bundle. You’ll receive a code for your class registration, and there is no expiration date to access your content. Hurry over now to sign up and get updates!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures,

KS

Art Journaling for the Unartsy – a scrapinar

Oct Ehmann free scrapinarMy friend, Lain Ehmann, hosts monthly scrapinars. In case you don’t know, Lain is a scrapbooker and these are webinars – thus “scrapinar.” However, many of her featured guests show techniques that translate into more than just scrapbooking. I know, I know… here I go again about “more than one use for something.” But it is so true! I love the fact that art has made its way into scrapbooking, and that scrapbookers are often trying artsy things they never dreamed of! This month’s topic is, Art Journaling for the Unartsy, and I thought you may be interested or know someone else who is. Share the love!

Lain is teaching this one herself. She’s going to talk about:

  •  How to make an art journal out of just about any surface
  •  The basics for creating backgrounds for your pages
  •  Creative ways to incorporate ephemera and other found elements into your creations
  • …and much more!

It will be live on October 14th, but there will be a recording free for several days if you can’t attend live.

Click here to learn more and register for free!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

KS

Art Journaling Basics for Beginners ebook and Videos

Art Journaling Basics for BeginnersLearn the basics to getting started on your own Artful Adventure into Art Journaling!

If you have always wanted to find out more about art journaling, here’s your chance.  This eBook is complete with video links, as well as images and ideas for your first few pages! It addresses some questions you may have about the very basics of getting started.

The ebook is a downloadable 26 page .PDF file and includes 4 video links along with the printed information, which is NOT a transcription from the videos!  It is an 8.5 x 11 inch size, so that you can print out the included images and quotes to use in your art journaling.

This eBook offers valuable tips on:

  • What to use for a journal
  • Instructions for making your own journal by recycling a book, if you’d like to go green!
  • Tips on Basic Supplies
  • Information on Adhesives
  • 5 Ways to Make Backgrounds
  • Tips on Getting Started
  • Starter Prompts
  • Printable Images and quotes to help you get started! 

Get yours now for just $7

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art journaling basics for beginners ebook


 What People are saying:

I highly recommend Kristie’s ebook, Artful Adventures – Art Journaling Basics, for anyone who has dabbled or who has thought about dabbling in art journaling. Kristie debunks the myth that you need to be an artist to have an art journal. With her open, shoot from the hip style, you learn what an art journal can be, what to look for when buying one and how to create gorgeous background patterns. Getting messy can be the hardest thing for Type A people like me but after watching Kristie slap gesso on the page with her hands, I want to try it! Thanks to Kristie’s tips and tricks I feel more confident in my own fledgling art journaling attempts!

Alison Day
AlisonDayDesigns.com

I love Kristie’s approach to learning about art journaling.  I am so glad I got a chance to read her book.  It is full of beginner info that I found invaluable.  This book should be in every beginner’s hands.  

Gina
GinaZee.com

Get yours now for just $7

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Pinterest + Gelatos = Art Journal Page

While we are learning about the fabulous Gelatos® Made by Faber Castell, I thought you would enjoy meeting Alison Day. Previously we have discussed some ideas on finding inspiration. The popularity and visual context that Pinterest employees, makes it great place to look for inspiration. In today’s post, Alison combines using something she saw on Pinterest with Gelatos to create a fun art journal page.  This same technique with the Gelatos could easily be used on a scrapbook page, a card, or mixed media place!  So heeeeere’s Alison! (Insert my Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson voice!)


Hi everyone! My name is Alison Day and I am super excited to be a Guest Blogger here at Artful Adventures. I am a fairly recent “dabbler” in the art journaling world but from the very first time I put gesso on a page I was hooked.  I can usually be found at Alison Day Designs sharing my love of scrapbooking. Since discovering all the different multimedia techniques used in art journaling, my scrapbooking pages have taken on a decidedly ‘artsy’ feel. But I digress.

Today I wanted to share with Kristie’s readers one of my favourite places to find inspiration for my pages – whether they are scrapbook pages or art journaling pages. And that is Pinterest. Pinterest has become a fantastic way to gather images that inspire you, and a way to share your own projects and products in the hopes of inspiring others. I admit to losing myself a little bit when looking for said inspiration! Things like a 15 minute time limit are excellent tools to remember when surfing online galleries such as Pinterest! Are you on Pinterest? Here’s a link to my boards – I’d love to connect with you there so please follow me!

For today’s post I created an art journal page using this image I found as inspiration for my background.

I loved both the colours used and the painting that the colours were pulled from. I thought the painting would make a great background texture for an art journal page but you could just as easily use this as a background for a layout or card. That would look awesome!!

Here’s my finished page. What do you think?

Find Your Wings and Fly art journal page

Here’s how I created the background.

matching Gelatos to colour combo

To get started I printed off my inspiration piece and searched in my Gelato stash for matching colours. The gold one on the far right was a design choice. I hoped it would add a bit of shimmer to the page instead of going with a more flat yellow colour.

art journal page starting point - Gelato scribbles

The next step was simply to scribble all over my page with my Gelato’s – following as best I could the colour placement in the inspiration piece.

water brush

I knew I needed to blend the colours to get the soft look from the original painting. Instead of using a paint brush and cup of water, I pulled out a water brush (from my Stampin’ Up days), filled the handle and got busy.

art journal page after water brushing

It wasn’t giving me the soft blended look I was trying to achieve so I spritzed it with a bit of water to see if that would help.

art journal page spritzed with water and running

I admit that at this point it looked nothing like the inspiration piece and I was a tiny bit disheartened but … not to worry! I found a fix!!

using a paper towel to soak up the excess paint

I wondered what would happen if I dabbed at the page with a piece of paper towel. Voila! The soft blended look I had been trying to achieve revealed itself!

I may have let out a squeal of delight at this point, but let’s keep that between ourselves, okay?

Once my background was dry I started adding my stamping. I’d decided on the phrase “find your wings and fly” so stamped that out using different letter stamps from my stash. I would have used Stazon ink for this if I’d been able to find my ink pad  but … regular black ink had to suffice.

close up of 'FLY' with butterfly wings and paint splatters

Here is a close up of the word ‘FLY’. I used a Post-it note to cover half of a butterfly stamp at a time so I could get just one wing on each side of the word.

close up of stamping detail and punched vellum butterflies

I did more stamping – love how it’s all imperfect! I also punched a few small butterflies out of some Crate Paper vellum to add more colour, texture and whimsy.

The last thing I did was splatter the page with some watered down white acrylic paint. I keep it in an old Mister Huey bottle and decided to try spraying it on the page this time instead of shaking it from the nozzle. It was totally messy and I did use my paper towel to soak up some of the excess but I love the added texture.

Here’s another look at the finished page.

Find Your Wings and Fly art journal page

Thanks for having me today! I find Kristie’s style so fun and love her easy to follow tutorials, don’t you? I’d love for you to stop by and say hi over at Alison Day Designs or connect with me on Facebook. Any friend of Kristie’s is a friend of mine!!