Art Journal #1 - Cover - 8/8

It's been on my heart for almost a year to start journaling and I know I need to do more of it, but it's hard for me to just sit and write what's going on, so I always just sat at the computer and did some scrap therapy... but I'm finding it's not quite doing what it needs to do... I don't feel like I'm being super creative... I mean, shouldn't I be doodling like I did in my school days or getting my hands messy? I've been admiring and pinning so much stuff on art journaling and mixed media and it just looked so expensive and hard to really do with a little one who wants to join in the fun. My dear friend did a blog post on art journaling on a budget and decided I didn't have an excuse anymore, it was time to just do it!!! Today, I took the plunge and started playing with the cover. I've decided this would be a good place to share my in process pictures, and any inspiration I find. I'm doing this hybrid style, meaning I'm printing up digital papers from the awesome designers that I get to work with and you get to see how I unwind and play!!! So here's what I've started with today!!!

These are just pictures I took on the iPhone "Gloria", so don't expect quality pictures until my page is done ;) First up, is creating my cover page... I'm also needing to glue two pages together, throughout the book so that they're thick enough for all the moisture I'm going to be using...

I started with just a spiral-bound notebook that Mark brought home from work... some Mod Podge, Gesso and some papers that I really liked the colors of and printed off on Presentation Paper :) I ended up adding some foam stickers I found in my scrapbook stash...