Art Journal Cover - WITH Tutorial - Gabrielle Pollacco

So I've made August my "spend time with family month", just wanting to take advantage of the time the kids have off school and make the most of it!  But I have taken a few moments out of our fun time to do a little video tutorial of an art journal cover that I made up as a sample using stencils I recently designed for The Crafter's Workshop!

I created both a positive and negative stencil design for this stencil that I named "Organic Matter". For this project I used the smaller 6x6 inch stencil (for the back) and the 12x12 inch mask style stencil for the front of the book cover. (You can find all my stencils online at The Scrapbook Diaries, I just heard that Janene has all the stencils in house now! and has already begun sending out all the pre-orders!! ....you can also use the TCW store finder for a TCW dealer near you).

Dusty Attic Products used on this project:

~ Dusty Attic Journal

~ Skeleton Clock Frames

~ Geometric Corners

~ Nuts and Bolts

~ Rulers

~ Cogs #2

~ Jumbo Cogs

~ Dusty In Color Paint: Hot Chocolate, Raisin, Sunburnt Orange

~ Dusty Attic Rusting Powder

When I was designing my stencils I have to say that I already had all these wonderful Dusty Attic chipboard designs in mind to use with my stencils.  I just love the industrial look of these chipboard pieces and thought they would work well with my Organic Matter stencils.

As I was creating this cover design I decided to flip on my camera and shoot a video tutorial to show how I used the stencils and also to show how I added the rusty finish to my Dusty Attic chipboard pieces.  So if you have time, give yourself and little break, sit back and enjoy!....

I used a whole lotta mixed media products to make this project, to find the list just click on the youtube link (bottom right corner of the screen above....when it's playing).....you can find the full list in the Youtube description area underneath my youtube video (click the down arrow beside the title to open up the description area).

I always like to keep the back of my art journal book covers free of a lot of 3D elements as the back seems to take a lot of wear and tear.  So I stuck to just adding some texture with my 6x6 'Organic Matter' stencil.  I added some stamping and used the same mixed media colors and sprays I used on the front of the journal cover.

Here is a view of the front and back of the journal cover.  I like that you can open up the spin of the journal cover so that you can remove the front and back to work on them.  Then you can reattach when the painting is done. NOTE: this is more of a notebook journal.....if you are looking to have an art journal where you can paint on the papers you will want to order a art journal that has watercolor or manila papers inside them.

I used Dusty Attic's Rusting Powder on all of my chipboard pieces for this project. I so much love the effect of the rusting powder.  All I did was paint the pieces with some of my Dusty Attic paints and while wet, sprinkled on the rusting powder.  I then sprayed the pieces with a solution of 75% white vinegar and 25% water.  I gave it about 20 mins to a half hour to dry/rust.  I then lightly brushed with some Sunburnt Orange DA paint to add to the corroded look. (see video above for more details)

I used Golden Molding Paste (but really any texture paste will do the trick) with my TCW Organic Matter Mask Stencil (12x12 size) to create the veined look on my background design.  After applying all my background spritzes and inks, I hit the relief areas of the stencil with some Luminarte H20's in Egyptian Gold,  and Pearlex Mica Powders in Aztec Gold and Turquoise (see video for application).

This journal cover was so much fun to create!  I hope I've inspired you all to get out your DA chipboard, TCW stencils and mixed media products to get creating your very own mixed media project!  Thanks for stopping by today!