Decorative Journaling: Part 1

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I mentioned in my previous post that I'm currently dealing with a slipped disc in my back.  It's been a slow road to recovery (not quite there yet, but doing much better).  I'm really, really missing my new hobby, journaling.  My sister had been wanting to get into it for a while and did so last year.  She's always been a big stationery buff, notebooks and stickers are definitely her thing.  We watch a lot of Korean journal videos on YouTube (pretty much daily) and the thought of trying it myself has been bubbling away, until I took the plunge last month and now I'm completely addicted!  It's so much fun and for me, I haven't found something truly enjoyable and manageable, in decades.  Obviously I love being creative, it's in my blood, but my M.E. has pretty much destroyed that over the years.  Everything I used to love doing; sketching, designing, sewing, I can't do, so it's been bits of colouring and dress-up sticker books over the years that have kept me going.  

I've been keeping skincare and perfume journals for a number of years now, but they are purely written journals.  The skincare, I write down when I start a product, when I finish it, what I use in the shower, if I do extras like face masks or scrubs and note if I have a break-out or my lips are particularly dry etc, it's all dated and organised by month.  I take note of hair, body and skincare in there.  In the back of that book, I write which perfumes I buy.  Since I got really into fragrance again, I thought it was useful to see what samples, full size perfumes or miniatures I buy or get free in a month.  Then I have an actual fragrance journal where I document the perfumes I wear each day and night.  I use a 2-colour pen for this, write the date and daytime fragrance, then a star in the next line and what I wore at night in the other colour.  I actually finished a really thick book last year doing this, so am now working in a new hardback journal.  They're not really aesthetically appealing diaries, more just information for myself, but I've been itching to try my hand at something much more creative.  I'm calling this "decorative journaling", but I think others refer to it as "art journaling" or "visual journaling" where you don't write, but decorate the pages with stickers, papers, washi tapes etc.  

Since I began at the beginning of September, I've been doing a little bit every day.  It's so exciting for me to be able to get my stuff out (I currently have a big tote bag and box with all my supplies in), do a page or two and then be able to tidy it away on my own, without asking for help.  Seeing my finished page at the end is so satisfying and a lot quicker than the likes of drawing or dressmaking, where you need several sessions to complete something.  My worry now is that journaling has exacerbated my back condition and I have to give it up.  I really hope not because that would be too cruel, but also typical, because M.E. is cruel.  To somewhat soften the pain of going journal-free for a few weeks I thought I'd share the pages I've done so far.  There's quite a lot, so I'm splitting it into smaller posts.  I'll go in order and start with my very first page.  

I've been working in a loose-leaf binder, A7 size and using grid paper (I bought a refill paper pack with pre-cut holes).  I thought she was kind of Alice-esque, so added the clock (3.33 has no meaning!) and the playing cards were taken from different books along with the transparent key, but the majority of stickers came from the page the character was on.  I used polka dot vellum paper for the background and added a pre-cut tape strip along the top with red stick-on jewels to finish it off.

Next, I decided to try a double page spread.  It wasn't too matchy-matchy, but a vague diner/maid/pastel theme with lots of food items.  

I have a small notebook of background papers, all different patterns.  I think there's 120 sheets in the pad.  They are small (perfect width for this A7), the only downside is they aren't sticky, so you have to glue them in yourself, but I'm using them so much, there's such variety. I used that for the pink heart check background and ripped it to use across both pages for some cohesion.  The blonde girl eating the ice-cream and the one in the bottom right of the next page are some of the most beautiful stickers I've ever seen and actually part of the reason I wanted to get into journaling.  There were 4 different themed packs and they are just right up my street, they're so pretty, I love them (there's a harlequin/pierrot set that honestly took my breath away).  I actually ended up buying second packs of them all because I love them so much.  There was definitely a bit of apprehension using them here as I worried I wouldn't do them justice.  

The character stickers throughout this post are from various sticker books, if you search something like "Japanese (anime) sticker book" you should find similar.  I actually took videos of most of them prior to using them-I don't know if you'd be interested in a flip-through of each?  Lots of ice-cream and delicious treat stickers, again from various books and my jewels to finish.  As for the text stickers, I've given up on translating!  My sister has an easy way to do it on her phone, mine is more complicated and only works sometimes, so I'm just choosing for aesthetic reasons and don't care if it says something silly.  Most are in Japanese or Korean and whilst I can understand and speak Korean (years of watching K-dramas), I can't read or write it.  The English in some of these books is...interesting at times, so I think a lot of it (in any language) might not be accurate.  If I feel it looks like it fits the page, I'm adding it or I'd never get it done for checking each and every thing.  

Another double page spread, sea themed.  Both of the main characters were from the same page/book but the mermaids were loose stickers I've had for ages that I really wanted to incorporate here.  Again I ripped a background page from that book to use across both pages and added various beach and sea related stickers from many different books.  In a lot of the videos we watch, they rip background papers and so I was asking my sister if she'd tried it herself.  She has OCD, so everything has to be very precise and neat and balanced, so no, she can't bring herself to do it as it won't be "perfect" and she worries about both ruining her precious background papers and the journal turning out not pretty!  I'm loving doing it, I like it being a little rough and I feel sometimes you need a bit of grid/plain space instead of a fully covered page.  

Next, polka dots! I've loved polka dots since I was wee, so I wanted to combine my vellum papers (I bought loose sheets in a variety of colours from pin dots to large spots, which again are proving invaluable and are the perfect size for A7) with these retro looking pop star characters and was vaguely going for red and green against the black and white.  The transparent papers I split across the two pages; white with black spots and black with white spots.  I deliberately chose two with similar sized spots, then added lots of musical themed items and profile stickers.  I debated using a proper glue stick or one of those roller, glue-tape type things for journaling, but you really need the glue stick for anything transparent as the tape (or certainly mine) has a slight blue hue, so you can see the blue dotted areas where there's glue.  I use the tape for opaque papers though, it's really quick to use and mess-free.      

I've noticed I tend to choose a different colour scheme each time, so if I've previously gone for something pastel, I then crave something a little bolder or wouldn't do 2 blue sets one after the other etc.

With that in mind, I felt like a really pale pink and hint of light lilac for the next double page spread.  I knew I wanted this to be really girly; pastel, lace, bows, bunnies with wings!

I decided to try a new tactic with the background papers, taking two sheets (one with pink bows, one pastel with stars and a cat-angel cartoon face) and ripped them (together) into 3 vertical pieces.  I switched out the middle one, so the first page has the bow/cartoon/bow, then second page cartoon/bow/cartoon.  You can barely see it, but I think it worked well and I cut a lace tape to fit along the top.  

The teddy bow clear sticker down the inner side of the page below worked well.  It's from a small notebook of transparent patterned stickers, a lot of them look like lace but the dolphin strips I used in my sea themed pages were from this book too.  The Sylvanian Families baby sticker is possibly the cutest I've ever seen (I've found a few Sylvie's in my sticker books), those pink pastries next to it look delicious too!  I added the bow sticker to her ankle and then a real satin bow at the top of the page (from a sheet of adhesive bows/gems intended I think, for the face).  The great thing about working in a loose-leaf binder is it doesn't matter if you bulk up your pages with layers or embellishments like bows and jewels as there's a lot more room to expand and/or pages can be removed.  My sister is working in a Hobonichi and it's incredible to see how it's grown throughout the year, it's bulging now!  These pages came together very easily, actually they all do, I'm rarely struggling, I just know what look I'm going for and what to use to achieve that.

I'll leave you with these 5 entries for now, let me know if you'd be interested in seeing videos of the sticker books I'm using in more detail and I'll see if I can edit them into something presentable.