Wednesday Trends- Art Journaling

Jessica here with our weekly Wednesday Trends post but before I get into the details, I gotta give my girl Jessie a shout out for all of those sweet things that she said about me! No need to suck up anymore Jess, you have a permanent spot on my team ;) lol!

For today's trend I wanted to share a project that I've started that was inspired by a bunch of different mini albums that I've seen floating around Pinterest. They go by many different names- mini albums, art journals, smash book, etc. I love these types of projects because they are similar to a card in the way that you can add layers, stamped images, embellishments and all of that other fun stuff that we are so addicted enjoy using on our paper crafting projects ;) But the one plus is that you can keep your album without the guilt that you get for keeping all of those cards that you make.

Last year Corinna and I started an annual stamping get together with a few of our closest friends. We had so much fun hanging out with Angela Thomas, Kim Teasdale, Danielle Lounds and Sparkle Smith. This year I am hosting the shindig at my house and we have a few more people that are able to make it. (Last count I think was 11 people flying/driving in from other states/countries and 4 people local coming.) I know that there are going to be a ton more laughter happening rather than crafting but I am going to make the girls do at least one project while they are here and it is going to be a page for this journal. I have appropriately named this 'What happens at the crop, stayz at the crop' because if last year was any indication of how things are going to go, we are going to need some rules in place lol!

For each person that comes, I will supply two pages for them as well as a list of questions that they have to answer on their journal page (favorite moment, something new learned, etc.) and they will have the weekend to work on it. I can't wait until everyone has done theirs and I can put the journal together. I'm sure it will be just as entertaining to read it as it was to live it :D

I created my own template for the journal and then traced and cut out the template onto chipboard. I started by creating the cover using a bunch of different scraps of dp from my stash, sticker letters that I've been hoarding for AGES and also stamped images from the sets A-Z & 1,2,3, Crafty Taglines, Craftier Taglines, In Stitches and Fabulous. I haven't quite figured out how I want to bind all of the pages together but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up using my crop-o-dile to punch holes along the side and then use binder rings to secure them all together. Then I can tie a bunch of pretty ribbon from the RibbonCarousel.com to the rings and make the journal even prettier!

So if you ever feel like you are in a slump with your stamping / card making, give art journaling a try- I have a feeling that you will love it!