Just So I Never Forget: Art Journal Spread for Love To Craft Challenge #46

A very merry May Day to you! Yes, it is May 1st and that means today begins a new Anything Goes challenge at Love To Craft Challenge Blog, and my teamies and I invite you to come play with us! Here's my team make for Challenge #46 -- I created an art journal spread to remember COVID-19 and I made a big pocket on it for journaled memories and other ephemera, as this has been the biggest world trauma of my lifetime. At least so far. Ugh.

I keep several themed art journals, and I chose to do this spread in my Wake Me When It's Over art journal. (Click on the link to see all the finished pages in it, if you'd like.) Seems appropriate, huh? This journal has quite a bit of my memories in it so it's a good fit.

The design for this was greatly inspired by an interactive Coronavirus map that I used to watch the pandemic's progress early on. Here is a still pic from it. All of those circles were apparently ingrained in my mind! I actually did some research first, reacquainting myself with the world. I also wanted to use a wooden Hero Arts stamp set I have and that greatly influenced me as well. More about that below....

I began with an already-painted background in my journal in cadmium red acrylic paint.

I gathered some stencils and on the right I used Artistcellar's Venice stencil from their Old World Maps series, because I had looked at a map of Wuhan City, China (aka Ground Zero) and noticed that the Yangtze river made a similar bend like Venice's Grand Canal. Using only what I have on hand, so hey, that works!

I had some gelli prints also made with my cadmium red paint and some Indian Green and Yellow Ochre paints, so I used those to cut circles with my Spellbinders Classic Large and Small dies. I added a heat-embossed background to the prints with a large Prima background stamp. I also cut more circles out of red and yellow vellum.

   

The Pocket: I wanted to make a pocket on my spread to slip in my journaled thoughts, copies of printed ephemera and photos, etc., about this pandemic. Since it's still ongoing and its end date is unknown, I wanted it to be a big pocket just in case. So I decided to use one of my gelli prints. I cut the piece to the size needed + selfage and scored the selfage to make supportive folds, then adhered Scortape to the folds and adhered to the right side of my spread.

And voila! I'm a bit ahead of myself, but here is the finished pocket using my Scortape as a prop to show it does have some depth when made this way. But before I adhered the pocket, I had to do more stenciling, so back to my progress...

I used The Crafters Workshop's 6x6 Chunky Chevron stencil on the lefthand side with more acrylic paints, and I used a TCW 6x6 Crossed stencil with yellow ochre and then gold metallic acrylic to stencil crosses.

I continued on until I had this. I finished stenciling the lefthand side of the spread and then continued adding cross stenciling to the right side and also to the pocket after attaching it. I adhered some cool postal washi tapes I had to the top and bottom of the spread and also around the pocket.

Time for the circles, which I adhered after running them through my various-sized Xyrons. Where I had circles overlapping the pocket top, I cut them so once attached it looks seamless.

Then, I really got into it and quit taking photos, but I have this Hero Arts wooden stamp set called Tour de Force with several structural icons of global sights plus a Fiskars clear stamp set of same, so I die cut circles out of my gelli-printed sheets, stamped them to represent different impacted places around the globe and heat-embossed because no inks are really permament when stamped on acrylic except Stazon which I did not want to use. I relied on VersaMark and Versafine Clair and Ranger's detail black and clear embossing powders. This of course causes the spread to be extra-glossy when photographing but at least nothing is going to smear.

I also wanted to include this Technique Junkies Einstein quote. Oh, you see that round geometric shape along the edges of this circle? I stamped and heat-embossed a very cool spherical shape from WaWa Staionery's Math Equations set on all the gelli-printed circles. I also used a wooden Inkadinkado USA stamp.

 

Here are most of the stamp sets I used on my gelli-print circles. I've linked the 2 stamp sets still sold today, the Math Equations set, and the Einstein quote stamp from Technique Junkies, in the paragraph above. Ebay may have the others, which I've had a very long time. Finally, I used several alphabet stamp sets to add to all the places and the alpha stamps were made by Lawn Fawn, My Sentiments Exactly, Maya Road and Quickutz.

Thanks for visiting and hanging in for my step by step. Please check out Love to Craft Challenge Blog for May's Challenge #46 to see all the fab creations my teammates have created and how you can play -- we'd love to have you! Stay Safe! XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:  (will add more once this post goes live)
1.   Stay Crafty with Hero Arts #6: Out of the Box -- I used Hero Arts Tour de Force wooden stamp set and in an out of the box way, I think! See post above.  

2.   Scrapping 4 Fun #165: Die Cuts / Embossing Folders -- I've used Spellbinders Large and Small Classic Circle Dies to cut all of the vellum and gelli printed citcles.
3.   The Creative Crafters #27: AG
4.   613 Avenue Create #232: AG + Opt. Geometric Papers -- I have played the option with handmade papers, I believe!  
5.   Sparkles Monthly Challenge #127: Spring Is In The Air -- well, perhaps an ironic take on the theme, but COVID-19 is definitely in the air this Spring!