Making tags, bookmarks and art journal tip ins from recycled materials

I'm am such a hoarder-anyone out there with me?  I'm starting to even save tags off of clothing items and dig discarded cereal boxes  out of the trash. 

I do think I have a problem!

But why not save them? When all you have to do is add a coat of gesso....

Some paint and ribbon....

And Wa La... cute cute cute little things to use as gift tags, book marks or scrapbooking, Bible journaling and art journaling tip ins. And now you've also recycled something that is trash to most, into something useful and beautiful.

Follow me on Instagram to see my daily projects and artwork.

Would you like some custom tags or bookmarks? Visit my Etsy Shop.

Art Journaling to me

I've been art journaling for years now, but it's just been over the past year that I started making it an everyday habit. I first started out using old books to occasionally sketch out art inspiration, glue magazine tear outs of something I wanted to paint or a color combo I loved, or just practicing drawing things that I would see. Now I have several types of journals going all at once; one to experiment in, a prayer journal, a daily journal and a demo journal. 

I have been so inspired and encouraged to grow in my journaling skills over the years by great artists like Tammy Garcia at Daisy Yellow Art, Rae Missigman, and Stephanie Ackerman with Documented Faith. They are so generous to share their techniques and tips and encourage other artists in their creative process.

Not only does art journaling help me grow and learn more about myself as an artist, but it's a safe place for me to record my emotions, prayers, dreams and daily lists. I love looking back through my journals and remembering the journey, and also being able to create a little piece of myself that my children and grandchildren will treasure one day.

More often than not, I create several page spreads ahead of time, so I have time and pre-prepared space to do my writing each day.

 Some days my journaling may only be art...

Somedays it may be a verse or quote...

Maybe something I've seen in a book or magazine that inspires me...

A memory or memorial...

Somedays I just write and express my emotions onto a page I've created in the past...

Sometimes I just record an encouraging scripture or thoughts from my daily Bible reading...

or a prayer...

I also have a calendar for each month and lots of to do lists, goals, etc...

If you are in the Northwest Arkansas area and are interested in learning how to get an art journal started, I will be offering some beginning art journaling workshops this fall and winter. Email your info to me at Spanglerstacy@yahoo.com,  and I will email you a flyer with dates and times once I have them set. In my workshops I will teaching art journaling basics-from what supplies you need to get started, and how to use them in a variety of ways to create simple art techniques like collage, stamping, lettering, watercolor, stenciling and more.

I am also available to teach classes or workshops for retreats, special events or your own private group, here in Northwest Arkansas or other towns across Arkansas and surrounding states. Email me for details. 

Follow me on Instagram under SleepyheadDesignsStudio to see my daily journal entries. Also, for more pictures and happening from my studio, follow me on Facebook.www.facebook.com/sleepyhead.designs.studio 

Repeating Elements in Journaling

Here's my progression photos from the Worth Repeating challenge for Documented Life Art Journal 2015. I love flowers, and always seem to use them somewhere on my journal pages. It's hard to do just one flower.

This page is mostly collage, acrylic paint and a white signo pen.

It feels a little chaotic, and not much room for journaling, but I love the colors. Enjoy!

When art just happens

I always keep a piece of butcher paper covering my work space, and I'm embarrassed to admit, that until I did the Documented Life Challenge this year and was challenged to use my "under paper", I always just threw it away

Today, instead of throwing it way I cut up into pieces and was amazed by the results. I love some of the new color combos that turned up in my scraps-colors I would probably never intentionally put together. Each piece was like it's own individual mini artwork--and I didn't even try! Gotta love that!

I used a couple pieces in my journal entry today. It pushed my a bit out of my comfort zone to add theses to my pretty pastel pages, but I loved the results

Art Journaling Work Desk

Here's a sneak peak of what I've been up to lately in my art journal. 

I joined the challenge over at Documented Faith, so I've been using Stephanie's words and verses as a spring board for my pages.

I've also been trying to keep up with the weekly challenges at The Documented Life Project. Here's one I did with the layers you will love-cover up the good stuff challenge. 

I love Illustrated Faith's Bible journaling techniques, so I've tried a few of my own in my Bible when the inspiration strikes me. It's such a natural way for me to worship and take delight in God's word!

I've also been inspired lately by the colors in my daughter's new bedding. She wants me to paint some new abstract art for her walls, so I've been trying out some things in my journal first.

Can you believe I found these quilts at Walmart for $25 a set, and the cute orange pillows at Home Goods. We are thinking something like this below to place above each bed. I'll be posting pics on Facebook when I get the canvases completed and placed.

And of course, Valentine's Day-hearts are on the top of my list of favorite fun things to paint! Hope you had a LOVEly one:)

As always, you can follow me on Facebook or Instagram to see what I'm working on daily, as well as what's going on in the classroom.

Color in Art Journaling

Here's my week three Documented Life Challenge on the Color Wheel and a quote by Georgia O'Keeffe. 

I decided to do a Mandala for my color wheel because I do this project with my students and I love the way the designs turn out. It was a challenge because creating a mandala is a very tedious task to me....Yes, I know they are supposed to be a relaxing exercise:)

I started with a spread covered with a layer of gesso and used a variety of different mediums to fill in the mandala shapes. I was a great learning process to see how each one reacted differently to the gesso. 

I wanted to leave room for some journaling, so I put the quote along the side border.

Not one of my favorite pages, but I'm glad to be caught up! I can say each challenge is pushing me a big outside of my comfort zone and helping me try some new styles.

Using Gesso in an Art Journal

 Here's a quick step by step of how I did my week two challenge for the Documented Life Project-the Journal. The challenge is facing the blank page with gesso, and the quote was by Mary Shelley.

I use gesso on almost every journal page. I love the texture that it gives, and it allows it to hold up better for all the layers. Here I glued on some burlap and cotton duct canvas pieces and then covered it all in gesso. I added a little paint to the gesso in the background here.

After that dried, I added some color with acrylic paint.

On the next layer, I used some bubble wrap and stamps to imprint more texture. I also used a watercolor pencil to outline everything. I used my Friday and Saturday hand carved stamps since I am using my journal for a planner also.

More stamps and some designs.

I finished it off with some neocolor crayon shading, more doodles, paint and the Mary Shelley quote. This quote really brought to mind one of my favorite verses, Lamentations 3:22-23. "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Truly, with Jesus, the beginning is always today!

Art Journaling with Documented Life and Documented Faith

Over the past year, I have been inspired both creatively and spiritually by the Documented Life Project and the Documented Faith project. For me, it's the perfect intermingling of life, faith and creativity, so I decided to jump in feet first for 2015.  It's taken me awhile to prep my Journal/Planner, and process all the prompts, posts and emails, but I managed to be ready enough to start with the first day of January, so I wanted to share a few of my pages and thoughts.

First, I purchased the Moleskine  Diary Daily Planner. Last year, it seemed like most of the participant's used the Moleskine weekly planner, but I really wanted to have more room to journal during my daily quiet time, and also have some space to record my daily "to-do's" and prayer requests. I love the binding of the moleskins, but the paper is so thin it takes a lot of prep to get each page ready to take some of the mixed media that I prefer to use. Overall though, I think I'm pretty pleased. I also got a new Bible for Christmas with a journaling column on each page. I haven't figured out yet how I want to use this, but I've loved some of the ideas I've seen over at Documented Faith and Illustrated Faith.

For the Documented Faith challenge, the word for the month is TRUTH The verse for week one was Jeremiah 29:11. Here's my Journal page for that week.

For Documented Life, the challenge was Facing the Blank page with book pages, and the prompt was "keeper of your own goals". Here's a quick detail on how I put together my journal spread. I love using old books for art journaling. In fact, I worked in our school library for two years, so any book that was ready for the trash bin went to my art stash. I have dozens of old books with nice antiqued pages. I use them all the time to wipe off left over paint and clean off stamps, and then I use those to start my journal pages or add layers.

I started off with some book pages that were painted with paint, spray ink and stencils and stamps. Without putting too much thought into it, I tore out pieces and adhered to my page.

Next I used a watercolor pencil to define some of the edges and add some shading and detail. Then I filled in with some gray paint.

Being the "keeper of my own goals" really challenged me when put in a spiritual context. All my verses this past week have related to plans and trusting God, so I went pretty deep here. My page turned out more chaotic than I like, but I kept having random thoughts, and I just wanted to get them all down on the page. It's got a lot going on, and really no focal point, so I may still tweak it some. Overall, though, I love all the texture and grungy feel. I normally use a lot more color, but the old book pages set the tone for me.

First, when I think about my goals and dreams, I automatically consider what God's plan for me might be, because I've learned from experience that His way is always best. I have a knack for making a mess of things, and God knows my heart better than I do.  He always has great plans for us!

Proverbs 4:23 says, Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."(NIV) With that in mind, I started thinking about the best way to keep or protect my goals and dreams, was to guard my heart. Psalm 90:12, reminds us, "... to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I have to protect my time, and protect myself from desires of the flesh like selfishness, and protect my heart from temptation and worrying about pleasing others. I know that God gave me the gift of creativity, and it brings me so much joy. Through creating, I can praise Him and give Him glory. It's so easy for me to not make time for the things that make my heart come alive; to cave to the pressure of pleasing others and doing what everyone else is doing instead of seeking God's pace and plan.

God has showed me three verses that I need to focus on this year that can help me "guard my heart" or "keep my goals" the best. They are all things that make my heart come alive and enable me to trust, love more and bless others. 

1) Time in His word. John 15

2) Pray continually 1Thessalonians 5:16

3) Fix my eyes on Jesus-my ultimate goal. Hebrews 12:2

I would love for you to join me in this journey for 2015. I'm hoping when my journal/planner is complete, it will be a beautiful gift of praise and documented faith to my heavenly Father. I post regularly on Facebook and Instagram, so follow me there to see my daily pages.