You guys already know that I’m pretty evangelical about the art classes that I’ve been taking at the Melbourne Studio of Artover the past few months.  Sometime soon I want to write about all of the things that I learned in our life drawing class today, but tonight I thought I’d share an unintentional side effect of these classes on another part of my life.

At different times in my life I’ve been addicted to my paper journals.  They used to be purely for writing in and recording the stuff I was thinking and doing, but over time I started to be a little more creative with my little books.  I started to use them as albums for the ephemera of daily life that accompanied my stories, and sometimes even created paper collages that represented my day rather than writing about it.

I’m really proud of some of the creative stuff in those journals, but I’ve always felt too intimidated to actually draw in them.  Now that I have a couple of months of drawing & painting classes under my belt I’ve been dying to fill my journals with paint and ink and COLOUR and there doesn’t seem to be an off switch!

So while I’m busy learning how to draw from real life in my Saturday classes, I’m also thinking a lot about drawing from imagination for myself.  With that has come a bit of an obsession with new art supplies that my favourite art journaling heros are using, such as Peerless watercolours and Aquamarkers and Aquash pens.  They’re all things that can easily be thrown in my bag and used on the run, and since colour pretty much rules my life I am completely hooked.

When I saw that today’s theme for the 30 Day Photo Challenge was Purchased I knew that I had to share some of my newest discoveries.

Art supplies are my crack cocaine, and fortunately for me they’re much better for my complexion.

Day 14 in the 30 Day Photo Challenge is Purchased.

I have this terrible habit of keeping my favourite posts “unread” in Google Reader for weeks at a time.  I always mean to come back and share them with the world, but for some reason I just never get around to doing it.  My newest resolution is to stop being such a selfish blogger and share more of the beautiful things that I discover on my online travels!

I hope you enjoy these little gems.

Kellie from 74 Lime Lane is sharing a printable “thank you” card in a couple of different colourways.  They’re stylish, they’re pretty, and they’re free!

The lovely Pip Lincolne shared a link to a DIY wooden washi tape dispenser.  So cute, and really practical too.  Although, I’m really not sure that there is a dispenser in the world big enough for my collection…

Lou from sunny + scout shared this photo of her gorgeous new vintage table that she found at The Vintage Shed on the Mornington Peninsula.  I keep reading about this magical place, and I think Tim and I really need to take a quick trip there soon to see what treasures we can find!  So in love with Lou’s new hall table.

Natalie Malik is a creative journal artist who has generously created a blog full of free prompts and inspiration for summer.  The course is finished now, but the timing is still great for us Aussies who are just getting ready for summer to begin!

Her main blog is Awkward & Beautiful, and documents her artful life.  So much inspiration here, and it makes me crave my poor neglected journal more than ever.

Just one more for tonight – a delicious looking recipe for Liz’s Luscious Lemon Cake from the very stylish Salvation Jane.  I was so excited to discover this blog over the weekend, and to discover that Jane Hall kicks butt in real life as well as on Neighbours!

What treasures have you found online lately?  I’d love to know!

31 Photos in 31 Days

So “problem” might be too strong a word, but I should maybe not buy any more washi tape for a little while…

Last year the girls from Red Velvet Art ran an excellent paper journaling e-course called Tell Your Story, and it was full of journaling prompts and mixed media art ideas to get the creative juices flowing.  Washi tape became one of my most favourite ways to embellish a page and get quick results, and some of my favourite layouts feature it pretty heavily.

Aside from paper journaling, it’s just plain fun to have!  I use it to wrap presents, stick prints to my wall (it won’t harm paint, and is repositionable a hundred times) and it’s great for colour-coding organisation freaks like me!

I buy washi tape here, here and here.  And I can totally quit whenever I want to okay?

Okay.

Little blog;

I have a confession. I haven’t always been faithful, and sometimes when I intend to sit down and write you a post I write it in my paper journal instead.

It’s not you…

… I just really love glue sticks, paper and washi tape.

Elsie and Rachel from Red Velvet Girls are running the most incredible art journaling class right now, and I am so happy that I decided to sign up for it. I’m feeling so inspired to create again after a fairly lengthy case of “the blahs”.

The other class participants are all so supportive and encouraging, and I’m picking up little gems of inspiration whenever I look at everyone’s work. I love this stuff.

I promise to try and find some more balance, because I really do love my blog.

It must be true, I wrote it in my journal <3

I’ve just discovered these beautiful handmade books by Natalie Stopka, and didn’t think it was fair to keep them to myself. I love all the work that goes into this style of binding, and wish I had the skill and patience to do it myself!

Natalie is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, and makes beautiful sketchbooks and journals using vintage handkerchiefs, fabric and embroidery stitching. No two books are ever the same, and she also welcomes custom orders on her Etsy shop Natalie As Is. I was surprised to find that her prices are very reasonable.

Photographs of her works-in-progress can also be found at her flickr site.

And, as further proof that the Universe distributes talent unequitably, she just happens to be a beautiful portrait artist as well.

I would love to own one of her beautiful books, and be able to fill it with sketches like these!

You can see more of Natalie’s work at her portfolio site, www.nataliestopka.com.

Thanks to Paper Crave for this discovery!

2006 was the year that I successfully kept a journal. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do from the time I was about 6 years old, but I never had the discipline to keep at it. The perfectionist in me was probably most to blame for failing, because any sign of slacking up just caused me to wave the white flag. I have so many beautiful journals that were abandoned 20 pages in.

Embodiment is a project that was started by Crissy of dearcrissy.com. It is a community of people who have resolved to write in a paper journal once a day for a year, and was a wonderful source of inspiration for me. Members discuss their progress, offer writing prompts and suggestions, post scans or photos of their journal pages and so on. There are many very talented visual journal-writers in the community, which always makes for eye-catching posts, but I’d say that the majority are text-only or text-mainly people. Of course, you’re not required to post your stuff or contribute in any way – but if you’re somebody who has always wanted to keep a journal, or improve your journal-writing habits, you’ll find it to be full of people just like yourself.

Membership was opened on December 1st, for one month. After that time you are able to read public posts, but you can’t actually contribute. You need to have a livejournal account to join and participate, but accounts are free and full of other great sources of inspiration (and procrastination).

Here are a few scans from my journals this year: