Mini Handmade Art Journal

On Tuesday in my post for the StencilGirl and Inchie Arts blog hop, I shared the covers for two mini handmade art journals that I made using the 4x4 Art Squares from Inchie Arts. Today I thought I'd share the inside pages for one of them (I was originally going to put them in Tuesday's post, but that seemed like it was just too much!)

Here are the books again:

I used the one made from the black 4x4 Art Squares (but the other one is going to get filled too!)

Here are the inside pages. I had a sheet torn from the Art Institute of Chicago member magazine for an exhibit with Indian art that I thought was really beautiful. I used imagery from that page throughout the four spreads in my book. There's lots of collage, and of course lots of stenciling too! I'll list all of the stencils I used at the bottom of the post just to keep things simple.

Spread number one:

Here's a close-up of page one - handmade paper in the background, washi tape, my magazine collage images, an old stamp, and stencils, of course! I added some gold Stickles in the centers of my stenciled images.

On page two, I used a razor to cut a window in the page and put a piece of old 7 Gypsies printed transparency on the front (I knew I wanted something to fit into the window from the back.) I added a scrap of embroidered fabric and more stencils.

Here's spread number 2:

Here you can see the back-side of my window, but as I mentioned, the transparency is on the other side so that the 2x2 art square on the right side page will nest right inside of the window when the pages are together.

On the left side, I used a patchwork technique that I learned in my class with Seth Apter back in October. With a collaged butterfly and some stenciling on top.

On the right, I stenciled over the background in gold. I placed the 2x2 Art Square so that it would fit into the window, then I stenciled on top and added glitter and Liquid Pearls. I cut out some gold and silver metallic and glittered circles from a piece of handmade paper and added some other collage and stenciling on top.

The third spread:

Back to my Indian imagery with this one (I seem to be very drawn to this lately.)

More stenciling in the background with gold, then collage images. On top I have Liquid Pearls and rubons, then more stenciling. I'm loving the effect of the different stencils layered on top of each other in gold and then white.

On the right side I used a red paint marker to bring out some of the stenciled design in the background and tie everything in a bit more.

Finally, the fourth spread in my mini art journal:

Lots and lots of stenciling on this one with just a little collage.

More of the layered stenciling that I'm loving, and a gold diecut from a Spellbinders set with Persian motifs. I distressed it with ink and added lots of Liquid Pearls, naturally.

So we come to the end of this quick little mini art journal! I loved working with this size... so fast and enjoyable, but still lots of room for experimentation. Using the Art Squares on this project was really fun too - they're perfect for making a good solid book, and take all kinds of media really well.

Here are the supplies I used: