Junk journaling and scrapbooking

Are you interested in junk journaling? What is the difference between junk journaling and scrapbooking? Click here to watch my video discussing this very question. I also go through some of my journal pages.

Healing through art. My 1 year recovery seen through my art journal

 September 19th is the one year anniversary of my emergency hospitalization for cervical myelopathy that resulted in cervical surgery (corpectomy and fusions). Three months after that on December 27th, I again had an emergency hospitalization and that resulted in thoracic spinal sugery (T9-12)

You see, my entire spine has sustained a lot of damage over time; to the point that the spinal compression was severe enough for paralysis and fatality. I ended up having two complicated neurosugeries  (cervical and thoracic) over three months. 

I am coming up on my one year anniversary of my first emergency hospitalization/surgery. I want to share with you two different art journal entries I created this year about my recoveries. To hear a much more detailed story with visuals, check out my You Tube video here. 

This first page was made five months post op from my cervical surgery. As you can see, I felt stuck, angry and sad. This was most optimistic page I created at that time. I tried to envision hope with the yellow at top. But falling over and pain were paramount in my mind. The overall sense in this piece is being unable to break through brick walls, tears, pain and not being able to walk or balance. I felt defeated.

In the second art journal spread, I focussed on the physical realm and the emotional realms. 

Having been to hell and back in both those worlds, I have adopted the phoenix as a special animal symbol for myself. Legend has it that the phoenix re-births itself after being consumed by fire. 

Yes. She swooped up beside me and I felt the wisps of flames licking my skin as she flew by.

You still see tears but I am now releasing some emotional tears (blue), not just the red ones of pain and fury. I incorporated butterflies for transformation and drew on the wisdom of my ancestors through the High Priestess tarot card. 

I only used paper that I had drawn on, painted, stamped or altered in some way. I like working in layers. Can you spot the three hospital bands in each art journal piece? They are white, red and yellow. They were color copies of the actual bands I wore for a month. You can find the white band in the video.  This photo cropped it out.

There is so much to say about this first year of recovery. It is like an onion. But what I take away is resilience, acceptance and yet, still I hold onto hope. And maybe one more . . . gratitude. Yes, I'll leave it at that.

Beginner friendly ideas with a stencil

This sweet lil' card is one I would send to book lovers or journalers, etc. The card itself includes the black border. I chose the black border and central image for novelty; but I also saw that stenciling a lavender color over a yellow ombre background produced a sort or lavender/gray. And gray tone lent itself more to black. 

Below, you can clearly see the subtle color shifts from light yellow to orange. This was achieved by inking my card with four different shades in the same color family - from lightest to darkest. You can also see how crisp my white ink looks with the help of Altenew's Stampwheel 2.0 (for a You Tube review of the Stampwheel as well as an explanation of how I stenciled this card, see my video here.)

Supplies

• Altenew Journal Flowers stamp and die set
• Altenew Square Weave stencil
• Altenew pigment inks in Permanent Black and Antique Gold and Cloud White
• Altenew fresh dye ink mini set Golden Sunset
• Altenew glue
• blending tool
• Black and white cardstock
• Die cutting machine

1. First, cut A2 sizes (4.25"X5.5") of black and white cardstock. This is in addition to your blank A2 folded paper for the card base. 
   
   
   
2. Select the four colors of ink and gently use your blending tool to make four bands of color. I chose an ombre gradation. Ink slowly as you want the colors to seamlessly blend into each other.
3. Stamp the book image in white ink onto your black cardstock. Ink the hearts with your gold ink.
4. Use your die cutting machine to cut out the book and hearts.
5. Center the stenciled background and book image and glue down. Glue on the hearts.

This background stencil can be used in a variety of ways. With my first Halloween card of 2025, I texturized the card, creating a literally tangible weave. Instead of inking the ombre background first and then stenciling, I reversed the order. 

First I applied a texture paste by spreading it in a thin, flat coat over the stencil. Then, I let that dry overnight. Then I inked the card. I ratcheted up the spooky drama with black cut outs and a glitter moon and ghoulish critters.

Stay tuned, for more ideas on how to use your staple art supplies in clever ways.

Innocence of Youth, art journal page

 

07:19:25 Check-in: My Art Journal SD 480p

Here you can View my YouTube video that is a check in which focuses on my art journal pages. Here are pictures of my art journal pages that I show in the video.

Bimini ( my cat) as Bastet (ancient Egyptian cat goddess)

 I have been having fun with whimsical animal portraits lately; mainly cats. My Bombay cat, Bimini, fancies herself Bastet. Bastet was the ancient Egyptian feline Goddess. 

Both compositions show Bimini in a Sphinx-like pose. And she wanted to be surrounded or embody Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Image on the left is at work on paper (9”X12”) while the image on the right is a painting on 12”X12” canvas. I do not think I am done yet with Bimi's portraits; no doubt you will see some more of them if I do.

Hello! Hola! Video. An introduction to a crafty chica and a mini craft haul.

Check out my first video on my You tube channel. A friendly hello and a mini haul for my card making adventures.