Have you ever seen a handmade art journal that has decorative edge cuts as part of the page design? They are beautiful — and time consuming! I adore their appearance, but don’t usually have the time to devote to their creation.

In recently going through the handbook of one of my Cricut cartridges, I decided that instead of cutting one of the little booklets from card stock, I would use mixed media paper. That way, I could create the small size I wanted, yet use it for whatever suits my mood! I have a large pad of Canson watercolor, 90 lb. paper, which I had picked up on sale. It is heavy enough to take whatever I decide to dish out on my pages. It is 12×18″ so it was easy to cut a 12×12″ sheet to place on the cutting mat. So that’s what I decided to use.

I used the Artbooking Cricut cartridge from Close to My Heart. To maximize my paper, I cut the pages at 5 inches. Now I have a sweet little booklet to use however I want. I may even just do background treatments and still put some little photos in it.

Notice the bonus letters from the cut-outs of “summer” and “fun.”

Once I picked out which pages I wanted to use, it was a breeze! I love the fact that there are various sized page heights. I could have made two of the scrolled pages and flipped them opposite ways! Maybe next time.

Check out all the cuts you can do in the Artbooking handbook, and pick yours up here.

What would you do with a little summer art journal? Draw, paint, use it for photos….? Share your ideas in the comments!