INSTAGRAM Educators Hop 2/26

My new interest in journaling pages made it easy to decide what I wanted to make for the upcoming Instagram Educators Blog Hop . . . a journaling page!

I started this artistic journey as a scrapbooker way back when the supplies were limited to stickers, decorative scissors and plastic templates with geometric shapes.

Next door to the scrapbook store where I worked was a stamp store. It was irresistible! Soon my teaching expanded to include stamping and scrapbooking.

Today’s Art Journals are a natural result of these two art forms melding with the development and discovery of a whole new world of media.

The third predominant element that is taking me to journals is Altenew. Creating cards for others is my passion. But I yearn to in some way document this beautiful art form for myself.

While I don’t have a garden in my yard, I do have a spectacular paper garden of Altenew flowers in my studio. The journal I imagine will be a personal inventory of my Altenew Flowers and the art I create with them. I will not aim for perfection. This journal is just for the satisfaction of recording ideas, successes, suggestions for improvement and fun experiments just for my eyes.

The scrapbooker in me also plans to record a few memories here and there, maybe even an occasional photograph.

I give myself license to use any media. My journal pages will be open to paints and sprays and papers and inks and ephemera and pens galore.

This first page is on water color paper. For the floral elements I’ve chosen Altenew’s Pretty Pansies. The flowers will be cut from water color pattern paper I create using water and blends of Altenew Crisp Dye Reinkers. It’s messy! Gloves are essential!

Once the paper is dry, the flowers can be silver heat-embossed and die cut. Some shading is added and a dot of yellow acrylic paint. The results are even better than I’d hoped! I had to stop, move the flowers around and just admire the fabulous colors.

Now that I have the major component of my page, I wanted to make a very subtle background for these vibrant flowers. After several unsatisfactory ideas I decided on a simple water color smoosh down the center of each page with some black splatters.

On this page I decided to focus on the different ways to color these gorgeous pansies. When I found the right combo of alcohol markers I recorded them in my journal., The same with Altenew ink pads and reinkers for the ink pads. Now I can go right to this page when I want to make pansies again. I also included the photo I used for inspiration.

If I had a photo of my garden of pansies in Cincinnati or my mother in her garden I would have included it. Instead I just wrote a note as to some sentimental reasons why I purchased the Pretty Pansies set.

I found making this page very satisfying. It’s something just for me. Now I have a keepsake of my beautiful paper pansy garden.

Supplies I used:

• Pretty Pansies stamp and die set
• Simple Alpha Die Set
• Bold Alpha Die Set
• Altenew Watercolor Paper
• Altenew Fine Liner Pen Set
• Altenew Jet Black Ink Sprays

Upcoming Class on making an Altenew Artist’s Journal Page

On April 21st I will be teaching a workshop on the basics of making a journaling page using the BAF Bellaroma Hybrid Tea Rose. The kit for sale at Altenew will be called A Rose is a Rose.