I made an art journal page with a Halloween gift bag. Since the bag had cute little bats on it, I made a page about how I feel about bats. I used gel medium to “glue” the cut outs from the gift bag into my journal.

I like bats, but NOT in my house. Luckily, I haven’t had any try to take up residence.

I love seasonal paper goods; cups, plates, napkins. Halloween, Christmas, the Fourth of July, Autumn, Summer, Winter, Thanksgiving, Easter. Love. Love. Love.

So I made this art journaling page recording this addiction. I decoupaged a Halloween napkin onto to the page. Aren’t those little images on the napkin adorable?

I started with a piece of teal cardstock and stamped it with VersaMark ink. VersaMark ink is an embossing ink, but it can also be used for watermark, tone-on-tone stamping. This technique works better with some colors than others so test a scrap or the backside first to see how it will work with your cardstock color. I used a polka dot stamp from Prima to add more interest to the cardstock.

I cut a piece of kraft cardstock to frame the title and the photo. I love kraft cardstock in general, but I particularly love it on fall pages. When going through my fall themed papers, I found this older one from Bo Bunny. The colors worked perfectly with my page. It was on a sheet of printed border strips, the bottom of the strip was wavy, but the top edge was straight. I love the wavy look, so I cut the top edge wavy too. I think it adds a nice movement to the page, like the fall wind blowing gently through the trees.

I LOVE metallic paint, and one of my favorite colors is the metallic copper. The paint I used  was from Folk Art. I used a foam brush to apply the paint to the tree stamp. The tree stamp is a large foam stamp mounted on an acrylic sheet made be Prima.

I waited for the paint to dry and mounted the photo. I assembled the page. Then stamped the title word, Hayride, with VersaMark ink and applied copper embossing powder. Then I used my embossing pen to write, going on a, and applied black embossing powder. I LOVE my embossing pen.

Then I stamped embellishment circles and a journaling spot using three different ink colors for interest.

I finished off the whole page by adding some stitching. I used both zigzag and straight stitching. I kept it neat on the edges and flowing straight stitches on the border strip.

For this scrapbook layout, I knew I wanted to have a center mat bordered on every side by a patterned paper, clean lines, rounded corners, and a hand stitched border. I chose a busy plaid from the “B side” of the old Mr. Campy line by Cosmo Cricket with a center mat of kraft cardstock.

I then knew where I wanted the photos and worked from there. I also wanted to use an old tag Bo Bunny’s  Roughin’ It line. The tag is acting as the title for the page. I decided it really needed to overlap other element to add interest instead of trimming it down to fit.

I wanted a paper for a block at the bottom. I needed it to have an element of interest, but I didn’t want to add another patterned paper. I decided on a piece of Core’dinations cardstock that matched the light green in the plaid paper. I LOVE the embossed Core’dinations cardstock. The embossed cardstock adds interest through texture, but won’t compete with patterned papers. Sometimes, I sand the embossed cardstock, which is a messy process, but I love the results. It becomes distressed with embossed areas revealing the inner core color. This time I just inked the cardstock to emphasize the embossing.

I decided to cut the journaling block into two pieces rather than leave it whole under the title tag. I think this emphasized the tag. I also added some stickers from the Mr. Campy line to the journaling block and one to the embossed cardstock for embellishment. I also added some brown brads to the bottom corner, since it was looking a little bare. I think the brads help balance the layout.

I finished off the page by adding the hand stitched, embroidery floss border. I’m a slow stitcher, so this took a LONG time. BUT I love the results.

This was a fun page to make. I was inspired by the colorful, bright towel in the photo. I had an older piece of patterned paper from the Snorkel line by Cosmo Cricket. It had some great wave-ish shapes to cut out.

I started by spraying lily pad and turquoise Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels on some blue cardstock. Then I cut and arranged the wave shapes and photos on the page. I strategically adhered the waves to lessen the amount of adhesive that I would sew through. I did some messy machine stitching on the waves and added a page border.

Then I adhered the photos. I used a chipboard sticker from K & Co. for the title, mainly because I thought it went well with the towel. I also used some circle epoxy stickers for the fish’s air bubble.

I used a die cut from the Joyride line by Collage Press on which I wrote the journaling. I finished off the page by adding outlining to the elements on the layout with a pen.

I found a font at dafont.com that I wanted to use for a title on a scrapbook page I was creating. But how to get it on the page? I don’t have a die cutting machine (although I dream of owning a Silhouette one day). I didn’t want to print it on cardstock and stick it on the page. So this was my solution:

I printed the title on paper in a variety of sizes to see which one worked best. I cut out the one I liked most. Then I held the paper up to a window. I traced the letters with a dull pencil on the back of the sheet. I could have covered the whole back with pencil “scribbles”, but I didn’t want smudges on my pink paint.

I positioned the title paper where I wanted it on the painted area. Then I went over the front on the letter edges with a pen. A stylus would work for this, if you have one. This transferred the pencil lines on the back of the title sheet onto the scrapbook page.

Then I used an embossing marker to trace the pencil lines and fill in the letters. I used some leftover packaging to see if red or black lettering would look best on the page. For the test, I wrote with markers in red and black and positioned it over the paint. I liked red best, so I used red embossing powder to make the title. I finished off the title by adding some shading with a gray marker.

It was a bit time consuming, but I got the font I wanted!

I have been waiting for the Smash book to be available in stores. The Smash book is a cool place to record your daily life or whatever you want.  You can glue in images that inspire you, quotes, tickets, receipts, etc. I love that some of the pages have a design to add interest. I think if you are an avid art journaler you already do this on your own. I think this will be a great crossover product to get scrapbookers and ‘tweens into art journaling. I can’t wait to see the accessories that might be sold to go along with the Smash.

I want a Smash to keep with me to play with while waiting for appointments. I am not an art journaler who carries my journal around with me. Carrying my journal around doesn’t work for me since I am too paint intensive and a lover  of working in a messy way.

Well, Smash was supposed to hit the stores in April, but there has been a production delay. So K & Company, the makers of the Smash, gave away 400 mini Smash books on this Smash blog a couple weeks ago. And I was lucky enough to get one! I just got it in the mail last night. Even the cardboard envelope was cool! This should tide me over until I get the real thing.

You can check out the Smash on this video.

I love glitter! The blog IS named Glitter N Glue, so I’m sure you assumed that. I found these awesome glittered foam leaf stickers at the dollar store, so I had to use some of them on an art journal page!

I started with a background of Folk Art metallic copper paint. I LOVE this paint. The color is super, and it is so shiny. I wanted to add a path of a paint across the page that was lighter and dull copper-ish. I mixed various paint combos, but nothing came out right. I was getting frustrated and becoming surrounded by little pots of the wrong colors. So eventually, I gave up and went with the mix that I liked best. This one was a bit to pinky for my taste.  I added the stickers, and then filled in extra space with spirals.

I made this page in November with some packaging I had saved from Halloween candy. I loved the graphics on these little boxes, so I wanted to play off the images and preserve them on an art journaling page. I recorded some random thoughts about the candy too. I used a cellophane image from the bag that the candy sticks came in too. I love the black background. I used some Neon Chalk Markers by Cadaco for the title. The markers are made for black dry erase boards. I LOVE these markers. I found them at a local surplus/salvage store. The blue was disappointing. It doesn’t show up well on the black, but all the other colors are awesome!