Art Journal Pouches, Inspiration Cards, and Carve December

Happy New Year. 

Today it’s my turn to share my latest project as a member of Gwen Lafleurs Artist Tribe.  It’s an art journal page with a Journal Pouch, an Inspiration Artist Card, and stamped images from my #CarveDecember designs. 

Every year for Christmas, I like to give my staff a small gift of appreciation that includes something hand made by me.  Gift cards can feel impersonal; but not so when given in hand-painted fabric pouches stenciled with Gwen's hand-drawn stencil designs.  These pouches feature Gwen's Border Stencil from her Art Deco Stencil Collection  and the Curvy Ornament, Filagree Ornament, and Medallion stencils from her Decorative Collection, (with a little typography assistance from StencilGirl Product stencils L580 Christmas #1 by June Pfaff Daley and S434 Holiday Sayings by Marybeth Shaw).

I made the Christmas Pouches out of Recollections Fabric Bags that I found on clearance at Michaels.

I wasn't worried about color when I bought them since I had some magic potion up my sleeve, (aka Gesso) that would turn these any color I wanted.  

Since I had a few bags left over from Christmas, I decided to adapt them for use in my art journal.  Here's a quick summary of how I made them.

First I prepared the bags for painting.

• I lined a piece of scrap cardboard with deli paper and then inserted it into the bag's opening.  
• Then I misted the material with water to relax the fibers and waited a minute or two. 
• I applied two coats of gesso on the front of the bag giving it time to dry in between coats.  (I gessoed both sides for my Christmas Pouches.)  
• Finally I painted and practiced my stenciling, embossing, and mark making techniques on the front of the bags. (I used Emerald Creek's Burnt Copper Leaves Embossing Powder, my personal favorite, for this project. Gwen has an impressive variety of Emerald Creek Embossing Powders in her web shop and will carry the highly anticipated embossing powder line from Seth Apter in January.  Be sure to follow her blog for updates on this exciting new product.)

 

The pouches were embossed using Emerald Creek Powders, Versamark, and Gwen's Ornamental Circle Cluster and Decorative Folk Flower stencil designs.

I made marks with a flea market find over Gwen's Ornamental Flower Screen Stencil

And stamped my own #CarveDecember design over Gwen's Ornamental Floral Screen.

Here are some pics with some of the many Journal Pouches I've made: (In addition to Gwen's stencil designs, I snuck in a stencil by Mary C.Nasser from Stencil Girl) 

 

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Back to my journal page......  

When my pouch was dry, I applied YES! Paste to the back and adhered it onto my journal page.  The deli paper proved to be key in this step.  Without it the front and back of the pouch would have become glued together.  

The background for my journal page is a collage of vintage wallpaper, Yuzen/Chiyogami Japanese paper, and some of my precious hand-stenciled tea bags made by my Artist Tribe Sister, Linda Edkins Wyatt.

I used YES! Paste to adhere the pouch to my journal page

Next I decided to embellish my page with some stamps that I had carved during #CarveDecember.  I stamped onto old book pages that I later tore out and adhered to deli and card stock, giving them more body.  

 Once they dried I cut them out, glued them onto my journal page and painted them in. I felt that the tie string original to the fabric bag was too bulky for my art journal.  So I cut them off and restrung the pouch with some Novel Yarn, made by my Artist Tribe Sister Lynda Shoup.  (OMG - Have you seen this yet?  She actually makes this herself by hand spinning wool with bits of silk, pieces of lace, and bits of text from classic novels.  I'm seriously in love.... Check out her blog to see the yarn she made to celebrate Jane Austin's Birthday....) Then finally, I stenciled the bag with Gwen's Sunburst Background Stencil and embossed it with 2018 to celebrate the new year using  the Alphabet Stencil. (Both stencils are from Gwen's Art Deco Stencil Collection). 

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The only thing left now for me to do was to add something into the pouch.

This past year I’ve been fortunate to come to know through social media some extremely talented artists that I consider inspirational.  Some of them I have been fortunate to meet in person, while others I look forward to meeting in the future.  During the year, I collected bits, bobs, and ATC’s from a few of these artists and have been making Artist Inspiration Collage cards with them.  Up until now, I have not had any place to keep them in my art journal. I think that these journal pouches will make a perfect home for them. Of course I'm going to include the collage I made with some of Gwen's inspirations on this page.  

And here is my finished page and Inspiration Card:

 

Now that I have a few pouches done, I'm going to have fun creating pages and making homes for the rest of my Artist Inspiration Cards.  I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to leave questions and comments below.  I wish you and yours a happy, and healthy New Year.  Hugs, Jill