no rest for the weary - art journal page

One of the first tips I learned from Paula Phillips on your UStreams is to take any of your extra paint, spray from using templates/stencils, inkings from stamps, etc and put them on a blank page in your art journal.  This is great in so many ways!  First of all, it puts some color on that white paper.  Sometimes that's all I need to get an idea....seeing some color.  It's also wonderful because you don't waste a thing!  That extra paint you scraped off, or left on your palette gets used and not left there to dry.  And, those sprays!  When you use a color spray, Glimmer Mist, etc on a stencil, your stencil gets covered.  And those sprays aren't cheap!  Well, or I'm just a cheapskate, because I hated thinking about wiping them off and wasting that.  But, slip that template in your journal somewhere and all of that color goodness soaks into the paper and you hardly waste a drop.

So, the pages that you see below are some of the first pages that I started doing this in.  Any time I used anything green or blue, I put the extra on those two pages.  There are also some stamped images from leftover ink on a stamp and even some molding paste scraped on there.  Just a hot mess of color and products really! lol

I pulled out some green and purple acrylic paints and started trying to blend the two pages together so that they would work as a two page spread.  While I was painting, my little one was beside me and she painted some green and purple on a strip of paper and gave it to me as a special gift. ;-)  It matched my page so well and I asked her if I could put it in my journal.  She was thrilled!  Then, I found an ATC that my friend Jamie made (she sent it along with her beautiful background papers that I received-I share the papers I made here).  It was sitting on my counter, because I had shown it off the other day.  It matched perfectly, too, so I added it in the top, left corner of my page along with the strip of painted paper by my little one.

So, here is a perfect example of how doing this can really jumpstart a journal page:

the before....

and the after.....

 Jamie's amazing ATC and GG's painted strip of paper

 talk about layers!

more of GG's painted strip of paper...

So just for fun....here's a before and after side-by-side:

Thanks for stopping by and happy arting!
God Bless!
di