Elaineabella here with something a little different for this week’s Stamp It Saturday post – I’ve been playing in my art journal!

Art Journal fun with Danielle Donaldson Stamps

It has been FOREVER since I played in my art journal, and I am so glad I finally decided to stop and make some time to do it. So therapeutic!

I thought you might like to take a little look at how this spread came together.

The book I am working in is a 8.25″ x 5″ hard backed Moleskine journal.

Stamps Used: Danielle Donaldson Collection – almostElla stamp set, altogetherEvelyn stamp set, utterlyViolet stamp set, onlyGretchen stamp set, veryHazel stamp set

Note: You can grab all of the Danielle Donaldson CreativeGirl stamp sets in one handy bundle HERE with a 15% saving compared to buying them individually.

Unfortunately I didn’t think to take photos when I started playing! To get to this point I first glued together a few of the pages on each side to create a sturdier base for my spread. I used matte medium for all of the gluing.

Using matte medium again I glued some Tim Holtz tissue paper with a musical note pattern to the pages to add some texture and interest. Once this was dry I added a layer of clear gesso over the top to create a nice surface for painting. When the gesso had dried I painted the pages with some ColourArte Silks paints, which give it the gorgeous shimmer you can see in the photo.

I stamped the larger UtterlyViolet stamp from the set and the mini versions of almostElla and altogetherEvelyn on hot press watercolour paper then coloured them using Prismacolor pencils. I also stamped some butterflies from another stamp company (I think they are Stampendous – they have been in my stamp stash for ages) and coloured those in too.

I then carefully cut the images out and used a black PITT pen to colour the cut edges for a finished look.

A closer look!

I then played with the pieces for a while, figuring out how I wanted to position them on the page.

Between this photo and the next I decided I wanted to add a little more interest to the spread, so I took a white paint dabber and a baby wipe and added some subtle clouds to the background, you can see this better in the final few photos.

I also added some splatters with a Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam gold glitter paint from my stash, for a little touch of magic!

When I was happy with the placement, I took the matte medium again and glued the pieces down. I use the matte medium both on the back of the pieces to glue them to the page and then over the top to help seal them down. I didn’t cover the whole page in matte medium because I didn’t want to dull the shimmer from the ColourArte Silks paints.

I stamped some words from various sets (all linked at the top of the post) to create the wording for my spread. These were chopped up with scissors and glued down with matte medium in the same way as the images. I also added a little of the Silks paints over the top to help them blend in.

Using a dark grey PITT pen I went around the images and words and quickly blended the ink out with my finger – this helps to ground the pieces on the page. Finally, I went around the edges of the entire spread with some Archival Ink in Manganese Blue to finish it off.

To help stop the pages sticking when the book is closed, I rubbed some Ranger Distress Micro Glaze over the top to seal them.

If you’ve been playing in your art journal with some of the stamps or are thinking of getting started, let us know in the comments!