SOME OF YOU MAY KNOW that I have kept journals/diaries for many years. I like to write things down. It clears my head, it’s like self administered therapy. My kind of therapy. I don’t have to go out and speak to people about my private life. I simply take some time for myself and I start writing. As the years passed and the diaries piled up, I began to feel more creative. I wanted to add pictures, clippings from magazines, little sketches, some coloured pencil drawings etc. I noticed how much more interesting the journals were to flip through when I did this and I was hooked. I began to notice how the time would fly by while I was lost in the process. I used colouring pencils, watercolour paints, stamps and ink, washi tape and anything else that I could find.
I didn’t know until recently that what I was doing was called Art Journaling. Hours spent on Pinterest has revealed some amazing Art Journaling. I have a Pinterest board “Create With Barb” full of fantastic artworks by dedicated art journallers.
Kristal Norton www.hello@kristalnorton.com offers a free ‘Art Journaling 101’ course. Simply sign up and you will receive a daily email explaining everything. It is well worth signing up for. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

This is a fabric journal I made during an online course with Mary Ann Moss, I will provide a link at the bottom of this blog post. I used some scraps of Japanese kimono fabrics to make the cover, the inside I lined with calico which I stamped. I quilted the whole thing together using embroidery stitches on my sewing machine. I loved the process of making this album, I filled it with junk from my paper stash, used envelopes, programs for shows I had seen, die cuts, stickers, washi tape, photo’s and even notes from my now grown children. I loved making this album and it is so unique. I made pockets with transparent envelopes and put photographs and stamps inside, recipes and magazine pictures. Anything goes really.

Go to http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/ to see Mary Ann Moss’ work. She has some very interesting and inspiring ideas on travel journals and you can buy her online courses to make your own.