If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here. Please read this post first. There is a flickr group for sharing right here. Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day! No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week and you've blogged about it, or put it on flickr, please leave a link in the linky list at the end of this post. Thanks! We've had a wonderful batch of guest posts, haven't we? I am so thankful to all the... Read more →

I've been practicing drawing faces lately and sometimes I post the results to instagram. This has led me to figuring out that I can make even the faces I don't like look better with some clever cropping! I drew/painted this face with a water soluble graphite pencil: And then I started playing with my iPhone and taking photos that cropped out large portions of the face. I feel like there's a smirk in this one. Just by getting rid of the lips this one becomes all about the eyes. And those bangs! This crop is just so much more interesting... Read more →

Last week my husband and I journeyed to The Cape for several sunny days filled with lobster! One day my Father took us to visit Provincetown. Provincetown, MA is a lovely town right at the tip of the Cape Cod curl. There seems to be a gallery every few feet as you walk down the main drag. A wide range of tastes, styles, and mediums are represented. I didn't, of course, take any photos in the galleries. But Provincetown had plenty of lovely bits of inspiration right out on the street. I stumbled across this fantastic etched glass window in... Read more →

Today is the sixth Second Floor challenge! Are you ready to take it to the second floor? What does that mean? It means trying something vastly out of your comfort zone. Doing something that might not work. Experimenting with a crazy idea. It's all about pushing yourself. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't work, awesome! The challenge this time around is to use a pencil. Whatever that means to you or however it inspires you. The prompt is simply meant to get you started. The level of challenge you aim for is entirely internal and up to you. Click... Read more →

Here are five things I know to be true: 1. Painty Hands = Good Day 2. If I don't wear an apron, I will get paint or glue or something terrible on my clothes. Every. Single. Time. So I have a wide variety of aprons that I wear each and every day! 3. The best way to kick a bad mood to the curb is ten minutes in my art journal. 4. It is possible to have dirty fingers and clean design. (I hate it when people refer to my scrapbooking style as "messy." The word messy indicates a lack... Read more →

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, all the posts can be found here. Please read this post first. There is a flickr group for sharing right here. Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day! No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week and you've blogged about it, or put it on flickr, please leave a link in the linky list at the end of this post. Thanks! Today we have a guest post from Jami Oscherwitz all about liquid watercolors: I wanted to start... Read more →

I've been scrapbooking for a long time and during that time I have gone through a number of phases. Sometimes the phases overlapped each other. But I can see some definite trends! Here's a quick tour through some of my many phases: 2005-2007: Two Page Layouts When I started scrapbooking I didn't know that you could do one-page layouts. I worried a lot about what my book would look like if the two pages across from each other didn't match. 2006-2007: Ugly Patterned Paper & Big Titles This was the period of time that I really really really really really... Read more →

Here's a round up of the internet fodder that has been inspiring me lately: Sgraffito Video A wonderful fast forward peek into the techinque of "sgraffito" or scratching into paint from Nat Kalbach. Journey into Collage Karen Grunberg runs a feature on her blog on Fridays called "Journey into Collage." It's a wonderful collection of collage experiments in an art journal. Advice on Living the Creative Life From the Brain Pickings blog a wonderful summary (including a video) of writer Neil Gaiman's recent Commencement address to the 2012 graduating class of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Glimmer Mist... Read more →

I'm days-of-the-week obsessed. I've got two daily projects going: Art Journal Every Day and Project Life. Both projects call for a certain amount of day-of-the-week-using. Since January I've been chasing the perfect days-of-the-week tool. In January I carved days-of-the-week stamps: They're super fun and I use them all the time, but they're a bit big. I designed some stamps for Eco Green Crafts back in January: They were supposed to be released in March. It's June and still no stamps. I created printable days-of-the-week banners: These are great and I love to print and cut. But you know, I don't... Read more →

After a very long teaching hiatus, I'm teaching three classes at the upcoming CREATE Mixed Media Retreat in Somerset, New Jersey. Carving Stamps for Patterning Date: Friday, July 20 Time: 9:00am-4:00pm Price: $149.00 Materials Fee: $5.00 This class is all about carving patterning stamps, ones that can be used over and over to create beautiful repeating patterns! Along with the basics of transferring images, carving stamps, and printing, you will learn tips and tricks for carving stamps that create complex patterns depending on how you print them. Gain loads of fresh new ideas for methods of printing repeating pattern stamps.... Read more →