Today I have two VERY different New Year’s journal entries to share. I like them both quite a lot, but they have such different moods to them! The first page is the beginning of the book I made in Kelly Kilmer’s Kawaii Book class at Ink About It. I did the whole page on December 30, most of it in class but the journaling and a few details were added after I got home that evening. I love, love, LOVE this book and I can’t wait to do more in it. I want to finish the altered book I’ve been working in for the past several months first though. Not sure if I will, I may just end up with multiple books going at once. That’s kind of already the case anyhow, given that I have my Strategic Planner in the works. I need to share that soon too! :)

I had SO much fun making this book, and the page came together surprisingly easily. Kelly gave out a piece of tape that said “Happy New Year” to everyone in class, and the colors matched my background really nicely. I cut out the little man in his truck from one of many, many letfover game cards. (I added the rainbow star on the hubcap though – Lisa Frank stickers FTW!) I end up with bits and pieces of lots of different games from my Etsy listings. I have seriously HUNDREDS of random cards that I’m hoping to break into grabbags to put in my shop soon. The randomness of them is pretty cool, they make awesome journal fodder. I’m definitely keeping a few for myself, though! :)

Clicking on either photo will let you view them in closer detail.

As for the second New Year’s page, I found myself in a wicked bad funk as the clocks ticked over into 2010. [Oops! New England-ism alert! Wicked = very.] I was feeling overwhelmed by all the other journal artists out there, and found myself wondering why I was even bothering to try and share what I have to offer. I have to admit, this was partly prompted by the new issue of Art Journaling magazine I picked up at Barnes & Noble. It’s probably an unpopular opinion, but I have to say I was kind of disappointed with it. I mean, I didn’t dislike it exactly; there’s a lot of great stuff to look at and it was an enjoyable read, but I have to say I was sort of expecting more How To type articles. Ah well, to each her own. Anyhow, I was all cranky and, well, jaded and frustrated. So over the few hours around about the time 2009 turned into 2010, I put this together. It’s kind of ironic, but I really like how it came out! The background is brayered – many, many layers! It took quite a few tries to get the color combo I was going for to evoke both my mood and the windy, snowy weather outside that seemed to echo it. I added some star punchinella stencilling, which blurred a lot but it worked well that way. I stamped a cityscape with a stamp I picked up at Ink About It, but it’s a bit subtle. I scribbled sort of an aurora borealis emphasis with silver paint marker. At Christmas I got some snowflake stickers in my stocking, and they matched my color scheme quite well. I used a couple of those (yes, I’m on a sticker kick!) and drew in a bunch more with gel pen. The headline is rub on letters of various origins and the journaling is my good ole DecoColors.

Hope everyone is enjoying the New Year – I know January 3rd is a bit late for New Year journal pages but I’m a bit slow to blog without my own laptop – still! Hopefully this afternoon, we’ll have to see how the roads look. Stupid snow. At least it waited until after my workshops with Kelly! :D