I had a peak at the Scrappies galleries the other day, just to see which layouts had already found their way to the contest and I was sad to see that not a single layout had been moved to the art journaling category. I wondered if perhaps the excitement we all felt last year about art journaling had somehow faded. Perhaps it had just been a passing trend much like steam punk and fantasy. I felt a little sad until I realized that I hadn’t even made a page either for quite some time. How could I expect others to share their art journaling pages when I didn’t even do it myself? I had been so excited about art journaling but for some reason I wasn’t doing it any longer.

I was listening to Joshua Radin’s I’d Rather be with you and decided to try and create another layout for the ‘Soundtrack of my Life’ project. A song that so reminds me of many of the thoughts I struggled with when first meeting my now husband.

 

The soundtrack project has been my main inspiration for my art journaling pages but every now and then a page has evolved into being something completely different. I suppose that is what art journaling is all alone. Letting your creativity show what your heart is full off.

 

 

When I look back on the layouts I made in 2011, the art journaling stands out as my absolute favorites. Sure I’ve made pages about what we did and what we saw but nothing says more about how I was feeling in 2011 than my art journaling pages. If I feared that I had lost my inspiration and desire to explore art journaling more it was gone once I realized this. 

 

 

I still very much enjoy art journaling and wish to spend more time exploring this fascinating discipline. People who have visited my home will know that I am not the most tidy person. Okay let us just be honest about it – I’m very messy. Things rarely find their way back to their designated place, glasses are left everywhere. But when it comes to my computer and to my scrapbooking I am a neat freak and honestly Art Journaling was simply too messy for my taste for a long time. That was until I found a style that I not only liked to look at afterwards but also enjoyed doing. Now I can look at paper crafters art journaling pages and feel excited about their apparently random spill of colors all over the page.

For a short moment I even felt tempted to try it out myself but don’t worry – I am a digital girl no matter what. I would never feel comfortable doing something where there’s no ctrl+z.

So be prepared to see much more art journaling in my gallery in 2012. Hopefully I can inspire others to start exploring art journaling.

P.S. And now you might be asking yourself; How many times during a single blog post did I write art journaling. The answer is 14 give or take a few.