"A New Page" Journal

My online group, AAWA, just started a journaling challenge a few weeks ago and I've jumped onboard. Autumn (Autumn's Antics) is leading us through creating a ring-bound journal "from scratch" with miscellaneous papers and ephemera and posting a new prompt every week for us to ponder and write about. I've always wanted to start an art journal and never gotten around to it, so this is a good excuse to jump in and do it.

The first week we gathered our papers - I used the K&Co paper stack that Autumn suggested as I had it in my stash - and cut them 6"x9". I tore the covers off an old book and am using them as the journal covers. At the moment they are naked, awaiting my muse to tell me what more to do to them.

Last week the prompt was the title of the journal - A New Page - and comprises the first spread in the journal. I pretty much copied the layout and many of the images that Autumn provided for us. I'm hoping I will get braver and branch out a bit more as the weeks progress. I like the inclusion of the Bingo card.

This week is about "Beautiful Things" and I've already changed my spread from Autumn's example. Many of the things I added were laying around on my desktop - I love the fact that you can use up lots of bits and pieces left over from other projects or use that one special item that you don't have enough of to make anything with. The beautiful postcard was sent to me with an order I purchased from a gal in Australia and was too pretty to discard. And the blue scalloped tag, also sent with an order, was something I'd saved. I didn't particularly like the paper on the left page so I dry-brushed some white paint over it to tone it down. The pretty pattern on the right page is a piece of a beautiful napkin and that cute little guy is my husband. This is so much fun, even though I'm still struggling with the written part...

If you want to see more, check out Autumn's blog (link above) to see what she's doing.