MessyJessyCreatesArt

For 2018, I have decided to make my own art journal with my favorite paper-Strathmore 400 series paper- and bind the pages using embroidery thread.  I love the Dylusions journals but found that it gets so fat that I can't use the last third of the pages because it won't lay flat anymore.  We will see how this goes.  I have used this type of art journal before and loved it.  However, it took a while to assemble with all of the sewing.  Effy Wild has an excellent tutorial if you are interested in binding your own journals :-)   https://vimeo.com/56572967

These are PAGES IN PROGRESS (aka not finished LOL) but I wanted to show you a little bit of my hand bound mixed media art journal that I made, and am extremely happy with, thanks to Effy the Wild at Wild Art Studios.  I bought a half yard of muslin, which can be used to make several journals of different sizes and applied white Gesso to both sides of the piece that I cut for my journal.  After that dried, I painted it with acrylic paint in a beige color and added embellishments.  I figured that I could add things as I go along. I then made my folios and bound my journal according to the instructions in the video.  I used Strathmore vellum surface mixed media Best series 400 paper (which I am now addicted to) and thick scrapbooking thread that I have had for literally 10 years from Making Memories. It was a fun process and I am enjoying my new mixed media art journal.  I will probably make several more because they are fun and I will always have extras made...

Some of my lovely friends and family members whom have seen my lovely hand bound art journal book have asked where I learned to do that and I told them from an online workshop.  I am including the link here http://wildsoularts.ning.com/group/book-binding-101   I love Effy and she does an AWESOME job explaining how to do this.  For my book, I used mixed media paper from Strathmore, vellum surface 400 series best and it doesn't buckle like watercolor paper and it takes anything that I throw at it :-)  Love it!!! Anyway, I will post some pictures of my journal in a bit.  Thanks for looking, MessyJessy