Hot pink is my jam. I don’t know if it was a rebellious thing, loving pink so much, since I grew up between 2 brothers, and having a tom boy mom, but I have always loved pink, whether secretly in childhood, or overtly in adulthood. I remember for years in school deciding I loved purple and teal because it seemed uncool to love pink. How silly. I know there are still people who have a distaste for it, but I say if you love it, embrace it! The hot pink on this spread was done using Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay Magenta India Ink. I dropped some on with a dropper and then used a paintbrush to spread it around. That is why it has a more watercolour effect than my usual acrylic paint.

I think the main highlight of this spread is that there is really no central theme, other than maybe nature. But I think that’s what I love about it. I really love the black and white bold floral pattern near the center. I also love the crazy excess of spray ink, bottom right.

Several years back, I was a bit obsessed with ephemera, even though I didn’t really have a use for it at the time. So I ordered a pack from scrapbook.com, but then wondered if I could make my own. So, I of course went the difficult route, and made colour-your-own ephemera. I found different images that I liked in clipart, or online images, and then printed them in black and white and coloured them in with alcohol ink markers. The strawberry is one of those. It is printed on cardstock, so it naturally stands off a page a bit, but with the charcoal shading, and the size, this strawberry really pops! I’m not normally too focused on following the rules of composition (at least consciously) when I’m creating, but there is something so satisfying to the eye about the bird, flower, and strawberry and the triangle they form.

So far for most of my spreads, I have been using a combination of homemade fodder paper (old welding text pages drawn on with Sharpie), botanical ephemera kits order online from ali, old black and white quilt images cut out from old quilting books I got at the thrift store, some freebie printable images from Everything Art, and some free printable images from The Graphics Fairy. She has a lot of great stuff on her website.

If you are wanting to try and make your own collage fodder* paper (*a term Willa Wanders aka Wendy Solganik uses to describe anything you make to use in your own collages), it is really quite simple and satisfying. You can use any manner of paper: deli paper, kraft paper, tissue paper, wrapping paper, printer paper, etc. etc. etc. And you can use any manner of things to decorate said paper: sharpie, tea bags, coffee, paint, ink, spray paint, etc. On the Everything Art freebie page, she has a great resource about making your own papers, it is definitely worth a watch. I have also recently begun to get into gel printing. I have learned from watching videos that you can print onto deli paper (commercial sandwich wrap), and it functions like tissue paper in that it disappears when adhesive is added, but has the added bonus of being more sturdy than tissue paper, and much more user friendly. So you can gel print right onto it, and then glue that or rip and glue that right into your art journal (after it dries, of course). Which means that the creative possibilities here are literally endless. I may have to do an entire blog post dedicated to gel printing techniques.

And just remember: God Himself, in 1 Peter 5:10 promises to restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us after we have suffered a little while. And I think all of us can attest to feeling we have suffered perhaps a long while. The last few years have been a roller coaster. So much going on, and the enemy doing all he can to try and discourage the body of Christ on top of everything else. But then we hop into the word, and read golden delicious promises like this one: {RESTORE/CONFIRM/STRENGTHEN/ESTABLISH}. These are GOOD words, and great and precious promises. Hold on to them today, for our Lord never fails, and He never loses! So take hold of your victory in Him today. God bless, and happy creating!