Uniquely Yours Craft Journal

I’m really into working on my art journal again. I am using composition books as I did for my first one. I found this old tutorial I did for my niece last summer. I am posting here for anyone interested in starting their own. You can see morejournal junk examples in my flickr album. Here you go!

I start with putting wax paper down under each page to prevent sticking, mess, etc…

Then I use gesso to prepare the page. Gesso is like white paint primer. You can find in painting isle. It helps give page some body and prevents paint from soaking in. Please note though that you will not have “perfect” results in a composition book. There will still be some wrinkling, buckling, but I assure you they are fun to work in and great as a art journal!

So, take your cheapo brush and dip into gesso…

There…now let that dry…won’t take long, believe me..gesso dries quite fast…

Now, i squirt paint right onto the page (ok, so this is not scientific or anything)

This time I decide to use an old plastic card to scape it around the page…

Ok, there, that looks like enough paint…are we having fun yet?

Ok, that’s better. I used my nieces fave color here…

ok, now I wait for it to dry or use my craft dryer if I don’t want to wait…
Then I start to glue on some collage bits…(save those scrap leftovers now, they are great for this!)

I love using paint pens on my pages so I start writing and swirling around here…

Ok, here’s a finished spread (not done all at one sitting, you can do a bit now, then go back and add more..

Here’s the cover of my first “journal junk” journal made last summer I believe…

Hope you liked this tutorial. I encourage kids both young and old to make an art journal and just use it as your regular diary or a “dream” journal, quote journal, whatever you like. It’s lots of fun to see the pages fill up.
I’ll post my fave art journal links in my next art journal post. Now, off I go to paint some more pages!