my art journal

At the beginning of this year I read about a new e-course called 52 weeks of art journaling over at A Beautiful Mess. I really admire a lot of art journals and the trailer for this e-course was very interesting. In April I finally bought that course and I don't regret it at all. You get 52 journaling prompts and a  prompt how you could use it in your art journal. The idea is to follow the course week by week and do the same as they teach you. 

I do it a little bit different. This course is a source of inspiration for me. With some prompts I immediately know what to create and others I can't think of how to make them work for me. But that is totally okay. You don't have to force anything. Creating has to be fun and you should really enjoy the process. If you want to get started with art journaling, I really recommend to start with this awesome e-course.

There are always questions about what the difference is between an art journal and a scrapbook page. They're actually very similar. For me is art journaling about trying new techniques and scrapbooking about creating beautiful pages. I use less photos while art journaling but more paint. I use less words on a scrapbook page but more beautiful embellishments. I use more photos for my scrapbook pages and more scraps for my art journal pages. I just try out new things on my art journal page and if it's not perfect (in my eyes) I still have no problem with sharing. But I only share a scrapbook page I really like. Art journaling is a little bit like painting. I just go with the flow. Before I work on a scrapbook page I think about how I want to do it, what I want to use, what photo I take, just everything gets planned. An art journal page is also more at the moment while a scrapbook page covers special/exciting things.

In the end, it isn't important what the differences are, you create something with your hands and that's all that matters.

These first pages follow the first prompts from the e-course. I had so much fun creating and sharing them online on Instagram. Around the same time Lauren and Caylee started a art journal challenge: get messy. The goal is to create 2-3 pages per week and share them online every Thursday. This way they keep working on their art journal. In June Caylee asked me to join the get messy gang and of course I said yes. At that time I didn't have a blog. So I shared my pages on Flickr and on Instagram. 

This challenge really helps me to stay on top with my pages and really create two pages per week. I'm not sure if I'd be still doing it regularly, if I didn't join get messy. The group is constantly growing and I love to see everyones pages and what they've done in the previous week. 

Get Messy is an art journal challenge where a gang of crafty vixens are sharing art journal pages we have created to practise our skills and push past our creative limits with hopes to inspire. We share our pages without restraint every week, and once a month we create around a prompt. Go check out these crazy talented ladies who are creating pages who each have a unique perspective and style. We will be sharing our work around social media so follow the hashtag #getmessyartjournal.