The Art Journal Starter Kit with Caylee Grey

Hello Mei Li Paperie darlings. It's Caylee here and I'm sharing a paper art form that's close to my heart. Art journaling. A while back, my internet bestie, Lauren, and I, had a chat about two things - that we had all these creative classes that we never finished, and how we wished that we were creating continuously. That's how we came up with the idea of art journaling every single week. Initially we used our art journal classes to guide us, but we passed the prompts, and we've been posting for 25 straight weeks now. We each have books bursting with art journal goodness, and are on our way to a mini art journal library.

Art journaling is great because it has no rules. I mean, I know scrapbooking has no rules, but you really feel so free when art journaling. If you want to paint a smear across a page and call it a day, you can. Art journaling also helps my creativity in other realms. It has helped me make better layouts, better mini books, and better Project Life pages. I've had a lot of emails asking about starting art journaling. The toughest part of most things is getting started. And so I put together a "starter kit" including the tools I use for art journaling. You only really need a paper, pen, and your brain, but these tools will make it easier.

First things first, you need a place to put these gorgeous pages. You can simply bind loose sheets of paper together in a way that you like, or you can use a bound book, or binder. I'm currently using a Moleskine and it's been my favourite choice... but I'm pretty much biased.

Old second hand books are one of my favourite backgrounds for my pages. 

Pages from super old books give a beautiful vintage look.

Dictionaries, thesauruses, and silly books are some of my favourites.

And then you get old school illustrated books. Birds and flowers are my favorite. You've got to really search for treasures like these that are still cheap.

Oh, how I love old book pages.

Other great paper bases are magazine cuttings. My favourite magazines for these are Flow, Molly Makes, and National Geographics.

Whenever I visit the hardware store I take a bunch of paint chips. They're free and they're freaking gorgeous. Natural ombres.

I don't have many pages because I'm always moving homes, so I keep everything in a clear plastic envelope.

Wrapping paper makes for some great solid backgrounds.

Doilies bought from a grocery store are my favourite embellishments. They add a soft, feminine touch. 

So I have a thing for alphabet stickers. I honestly can never have enough. They make my pages a bit more cohesive and tied together. I could use my handwriting, but little stickers are just so much prettier.

Speaking of handwriting, this is a very important part of my art journaling. Sometimes the art can't say everything you want it to, and then you use words.

Plain paper and vellum are fantastic for adding extra dimension. Often I write a heading onto the plain paper, and cut around it and stick it onto the page.

Washi. I mean. Of course this list would include washi. You can create entire pages with just washi. I like using it as something to write on, or to hold an image down. I also loate using glue, so I like to use double sided tape as often as possible.

Ribbon and lace also looks beautiful on pages. I buy my lace from a material shop because it's so cheap.

I use a variety of pens in my journaling. Copic Markers for headings, and Uni Pin Fine Lines for journaling. I've recently started incorporating paint.

My scanner and my Silhouette Portrait are really helpful when making a page. I love the ability of cutting out words and titles easily, and I love superimposing my handwriting onto a digital image. I use Photoshop to add depth.

The ultimate. A great pair of scissors.