The completed book

I made this book out of Behr brand paint chips I got in CA at Home Depot. I also brought home a lot of found objects, ephemera, trash, and the type of souvenirs only an altered artist could appreciate.

Originally, I started this book for me, then realized it would be a wonderful thank you gift for my friend Joseph, who made the trip possible. By making this gift, I was able to relive that time in CA. It put the trip into perspective and I was able to appreciating how much Joseph did for me while I was there.

I have never made an art journal before. I have seen many examples in many art magazines and artists' blogs, but this is the first time I've recorded my true thoughts and experiences interspersed with the flotsam and jetsam gleaned from my experiences.

Although the paint chips, ephemera, and most of the materials cost me nothing, I went through two and a half bottles of Elmer's glue, 11 glue sticks, pop dots, dimensional tape, double sided tape, staples, masking tape, and . . . . Well, you get the picture!!

Enjoy

June 3 and 4

The front cover of the book without the metal frame started life as a lowly orange bag.
This is the inside front cover. It is a personal message to my friend Joseph "Panhead" Peck.

An airplane from a TraderJoes bag, my boarding pass, and the Minneapolis/St. Paul transfer tag from my luggage make up this first page.
I had hoped the silver pen would show up better in the scan. The images are from a TraderJoes' bag and a dried petunia from Joseph's yard.
This was a difficult page to scan because the violin was so thick it didn't scan well. I raised the small circles using pop dots. I drew the steel drum (yes, I know, I can't draw at all).

I'm not sure this is much better, but at least you can see the dimension.
Our first sightseeing outing was Griffith Park Observatory. This is an actual photo that I mounted on green card stock I ran through my printer.
The upper image is from River City Rubber. The lower image is one of my photos I took through Joseph's car window.

June 5 and 6

I printed this on shaving cream paper, then embossed the journaling.
I used shaving cream paper for the background, a gold paint chip for the pocket, and a magazine image. The ATC is left over from the texture swap.
I actually assembled these ATCs in CA.
This is a filler page that is probably my favorite in the entire book. I started with a page from a book, added color using a credit card, then put HVAC tape around the outside. I used an awl to punch the holes. Next I made the inside piece using the same book page, a heart, and punchinella. I printed the word "Appreciation" using my printer. I set eyelets in the large and small pieces, then used wire to connect the two pieces together.

June 7 and 8

I found this image in a high end decorating magazine. I swear this furniture looks exactly like what is on Joseph's patio, right down to the lantern. The only difference is the coffee table at Joe's had a glass top. The background is some of my shaving cream paper.
Stickers and a magazine image are mixed with my gold leafing pen to make this simple spread.
This was a filler page. I printed the herb information on regular paper, then swiped it with pigment ink. I added a flower I colored with pigment ink and attached using a brad. I used white glue, which was not paper friendly.
This is the map from the festival where Joseph played, along with his wrist band. The color is horrible because it is holographic. The color is much more realistic in the photos of the completed book.
I attached the wrist band with a heart shaped brad and it swivels out of the way to expose the journaling.

June 9 and 10

It's Joseph's birthday, and I used die cut balloons, rick rack, a dark chocolate wrapper glued over vintage sheet music.
I got these lovely die cut candles from a friend. She also sent the piece she cut the candles from. I used that as a template for the "H" and the short leg of the "Y." A die cut balloon and fiber complete the spread.
All images from this spread came from a gardening magazine. I used my 1" punch to make the two circles.
This coaster is from the restaurant we went to when we celebrated Joseph's birthday. I didn't realize what a problem it was going to pose when I punched holes in the paint chip. I ended up using my Crop-a-dile to punch holes in this spread. I also used small gold paint chips to journal on.

June 11 and 12

You have to turn this page round and round to read the message. I used a leftover assembly from a swap, then added the journaling. I glued the extra piece at the top to cover the back of the Home Depot card holder I used on the back side.
I got this card holder (and card I use in a later spread) at Home Depot. I added the die cut file folder.
This is the layout of the herb garden I planted for Joseph while he was in NYC. It accordion folds into the file folder.

June 13

I had these paint chips and postage stamps left over from a patriotic swap I participated in, so used them as a background for this spread.
Everything in this spread, including the ATC, is recycled. Here the ATC is tucked inside the slit in the paint chip.
This photo shows the ATC (sideways) and the spread minus the ATC.
The background for this page is a paper towel I dyed using strawberry juice. The tape transfer uses an image from National Geographic. I stenciled gold paint along the top corner using punchinella.
This was created on my computer and printed, then embossed using various colors of embossing powder.

June 14 and 15

A paint chip, flower, and magazine image were used in this spread. I journaled with a black felt tip pen and a lavender calligraphy pen. I glued the paint chip off the page to reinforce the image on the back.
I printed the journaling on scrapbook paper, then cut it up. I used an old photo to signify Father's Day, then made it vintage by adding a flower petal I spritzed with Color Wash, paper I painted, and two skeleton leaves. I finished it off by trimming the edges with my gold leafing pen.

June 16

I printed the text on the paint chip after I glued the two postage stamps on. While the ink was still wet, I embossed using both turquoise and gold embossing powder. I added photo corners to the photo to complete the page.
I used magazine images and a photo of Joseph on this spread. I used a fine tipped felt pen for the journaling. I don't think felt tipped pens are good for journaling.
This is another page I ran through my printer and embossed. The photo sticks slightly away from the page because I used pop dots. I rubber stamped the frame because I thought the page needed something else. I don't print small well, so "Hollywood" was a real challenge.
These are both photos that I attached with photo corners.

I printed the journaling and embossed it using black embossing powder, then stamped the "subway train" and embossed it in gold.
A few weeks ago, I tried a technique where you squiggle colored sharpies on plain paper, then add rubbing alcohol to move the ink around. Well, it didn't work, but it still made a great background for this colorful restaurant.
I planned to add the chop sticks after I assembled the book (due to bulk), but forgot them in my haste to get the book out the door.
I took this photo of Joseph in a restaurant. If you click to enlarge the photo, you'll see scratches on it. Bleubeard used his photo as a scratching post!!
I couldn't believe that I found two pictures in two different magazines that were exactly the same. I placed the small one in a slide mount that I painted using my gold leafing pen.

June 17

I dried some flowers in Joseph's yard, and added one to this Home Depot card Joseph teased me about.
I was pretty happy with this spread. If I just liked my handwriting better, this spread would be great. The butterfly is from a brochure from the Getty, and the basil image is from a gardening magazine.

June 18

This was the day for picking up trash, and the first place we stopped netted me the business card. I also saved the receipt for tea at Hugos.
This was a filler page because I goofed on the layout placement of the edge of next spread (see below). To compensate, I used a heart cut from a napkin and a flower petal I colored using a Sharpie.
I made this page to accept the holes on the left, but realized my mistake when I started to assemble it to the "Hugos" spread. I cut a wavy line on paper, then penciled in lines both above and below for the journaling. I tried to erase the lines, but some of them still show. I also used dictionary words to break up my handwriting.
This is another filler page, since I needed something to go on the back of the one above. I used an image from the Getty brochure I got while I was there.
More Getty brochure images were used on this page.
The background for this page was cut from the sack I got at the gift shop. Since I really couldn't write on the slick sack, I printed the journal entry and outlined it, as well as the entire page, with gold leafing.
I used thick dimesional tape to lift Joseph's image away from the page.

The rest of the gift shop sack, as well as some white flowers I spritzed using Color Wash.
Everything on this page was cut from a Getty brochure.

I had all this blue paper left over from printing, so used it for the background. I cut the background away from Joseph, and like how it looks.
My latest gold leafing pen (I've gone through two since I left for CA), is a mess. First, the tip messed up when I was printing the title, then it globbed all over the bottom, so I had to try to disguise the drips.
All images are from various brochures at the Getty. I have to admit, of all the museums we went to, this one was the most generous with its many brochures.

For this spread, I used more Getty images and a travel brochure image. I was glad I scanned it before I added the shell.
The shell is visible, but the rest of the paint chip is distorted in this scan.
I love Topanga Canyon, probably even more than the ocean. I had to include this memory, using only a map.
I glued the Whole Foods napkin to the front and the back of this spread, then ran it through my printer. Although it didn't print exactly straight, I was pleased with the way it turned out.
When we stopped at Whole Foods, we sampled some gelato before Joseph made our purchase. I saved my spoon, a napkin or two, and was able to make this spread.

What do people do when it's hot in the valley? They go to the movies. And I got treated NOT to a second run or cheap movie, but a first run movie. We went to Burbank and saw the new Indiana Jones movie.
To show my appreciation, I made this Indiana Jones lost diary. The key is a charm and the lock is made of polymer clay. It is held in a vellum pocket.
This is what it looks like without the diary. I colored the background using oil pastels. You can also see the pen nib I glued to the vellum pocket. The titles are vinyl stickers I painted gold.

The cover is made of cardstock, but I really beat it up. I first coated it with uneven gesso, then used oil pastels, ink, and shoe polish to get the worn look.
This was a challenge on Michelle Ward's monthly site. She explained how you could rub a crayon over a rubber stamp, then add watered down acrylic paint to act as a resist. I couldn't get it to work right, even though I used very thin paper, like she suggested. I used the same technique for the right side, but left off the paint. The pages were so thin, I had to glue them together.

I always joke that I can't draw, but that may have been to my advantage when I made this child like map.
I was horrified when I added an image from a magazine and the back showed through. So, I coated each image with gesso on the back to obscure the words.

I thought this guy looked like Indy's dad (played by Sean Connery in the movies), so included it, using masking tape I aged with either pigment ink or shoe polish to hold all the images to the pages. I used a rubber stamp on the right side, then added an image from the Getty brochure.

More stamping and images for this page,
and this page, too.
When I had written this, I realized the sentiment should have read Muggs', not Mugg's. However, the paper was so thin, I had to live with the error.

Yes, I broke the toilet paper holder. What luck when I found this die cut gifted me by a dear friend. The bottom image is a tape transfer over another image.
These came from a tea box I dug out of Joseph's recycle bin and brought home.
Tags, fibers, charms, punchinella, and a bottle cap with image make up this spread.
I used a sponge and paint to make this background. I covered a CD with vintage sheet music and colored it to match the background. Next, I used alcohol inks to outline the image that I layered over the sheet music. Although it's rather plain and not a bit fancy, it's one of my favorite spreads.

June 20

It was another hot day in southern California, so we headed for the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Design). We began at the Pacific Design Center with its nine floors of showrooms. If you want to see cutting edge designs, this is the place to go. The views were spectacular, too, since the building was mostly glass.
In one of the buildings was a traveling exhibit that had just started the day before. We weren't allowed to take photos, so I made my interpretation of the exhibit using Starbucks stirrer sticks, wood touch-up pens, and paint. To see what I interpreted, please go to the Ruby Sterling exhibition at the MOCA Pacific Design Center.
Although it never really cooled down, we worked our way to the La Brea Tar Pits, which are in downtown LA. Joseph had never seen them, and I was tickled that I could show him something in LA that he didn't know about. I used a small pewter ox that I embedded in black fabric paint for the embellishment.
I tried to print an image from the museum's web site, but it didn't print well. I tried to enhance the mastodon with colored pencils, but I should have left it alone. this is a closeup of the journaling that I printed on my computer, then embossed using black embossing powder.
Our next stop that day was LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). My admission ticket is at the top and it sticks out from the book. When we got there, I told Joseph many of the things we saw were things I had read about a month or so earlier in an art magazine. When I got home, I found the images in Art in America, a magazine I get free.

This was the actual tea bag Joseph got when we ate at the LACMA restaurant. I jazzed it up a bit with a Dover image.
This is another image from Art in America, as is the paragraph at the top.
I couldn't believe my good luck when I found all these images of things we actually saw.
More images from the same magazine. I outlined them in silver leafing pen.
Now here's the rub. Some of the images were on back to back pages, and I really wanted to use all of them. So, I carefully measured and cut (using an exacto knife) windows to expose the photos on each side of the page. I sandwiched them between two paint chips.

If you look closely, you'll see the two windows from the other side. Can you blame me for wanting to save both sides? These were very memorable images.
I used the same technique for this spread, too, but fortunately, I was able to use this entire side.

That meant I only had to cut one window for the reverse side.

June 21

I'm always trying to come up with ways to use these pop tops, so I turned them into parking meters. I used Starbucks stirrer sticks that I painted silver for the posts.
I apologize for this spread. It is very blurry because that is an actual pin I got in a swap. It is not only heavy, it is dimensional. My scanner had a hard time with it. I used it to represent the craft show.

The journaling reads: "After Panhead returned from his rehearsal, he drove us back to Burbank and quickly found a parking spot. We walked through the craft show, but it was nothing I hadn't seen before."

I took this photo after the page was in the book. You get a better idea of the size of the pin.
For this spread, I used my actual receipt for the nightgown I purchased at a store called Ross. They are everywhere in LA, but I'd never heard of them before.
I took lots of photos that my camera didn't record when I saw Joseph "Panhead" play at the Tangiers, a hot nightclub in Hollywood. I used a stencil I was gifted with to write the word "Playlist" on the file folder.
I kept the actual play list and tucked it in the die cut file folder.

June 22 and 23

On Sunday, Joseph went to play a gig on a beach. I skipped the hot sun, but collected his wrist band when he got home.
I really did pack and repack my suitcase in the air conditioned studio, but it didn't look like either the magazine image (above) or the vellum image (below).
I can't remember what these sticky postage stamps are called, but they are made of a gel like material with a sticky backing.
I used various images, including my actual receipt at the souvenir shop and a tiny bag that opens for this collage.

June 24

We started our day by attending mass at the new Catholic church in downtown LA. One of my internet friends said some called it the "yellow armadillo" and I can see why. If it hadn't had the large cross on the outside, I would never have guessed it was a church. Since I'm not a catholic, I haven't been in many cathedrals. This one was huge and almost sterile with its limestone walls and small, high windows. At the end of the mass, I was introduced to the priest, who is a good friend of Joseph's.
We toured the building and made our way to the basement. This image is one I got from a brochure of the building.
The words are from the brochure, the tiny image at the bottom is actually from the Getty brochure. We saw many icons and triptychs that looked like this, though.
I picked this card up at a kiosk outside the church gift shop. I actually sent the postcards I bought in the gift shop. Although I was unaware that my camera was no longer taking photos, I continued to snap away, focusing on these lovely bells that reminded me of the many missions up and down the California coastline.

Joseph asked me what I wanted to do that day, and I told him I really just wanted to drive around LA and see things not on a typical tourist map. We started by driving around downtown,
then worked our way to Chinatown, where I did more shopping.
I picked up a business card from the restaurant where we ate, along with our fortunes, which I stapled to the side of the page. I found a magazine picture of a woman using chopsticks, and cut it using deckle scissors.
I found this photo in a travel magazine and remembered we had seen similar sights in the courtyard we walked through before we ate. I sketched around the the image using a zig pen, and added mah jong tiles and an oriental embellishment to the spread.
The jacket, representing the fashion district, is a tape transfer I took from an altered art magazine. The lower photo is from Olvero street that I found in a travel brochure.

I wanted to do something new with my journaling for the Art district. Not sure it turned out as I expected, but it's colorful. The "roof" is a paint chip.
I tried to intersperse the journaling with words and images cut from magazines,
as I did with this spread, also.

This image was taken directly from the guide I got at the Americana. I loved the retro feel of the graphics.
This is part of a map of the layout. This "mall" is so large, the map would have taken two pages. We walked around the perimeter, which is denoted in white. The blue is a fountain, the green is a lawn. This was a beautiful place.
We had wonderful Thai appetizers and veggies at the Cheesecake factory. I used my variegated handmade paper and a font that looks like it could have come from the middle east for the journaling.
The hotel at the Americana was spectacular with its lovely warm wood and elegant chandelier. I used the restroom and have to admit it's been a long time since I had a person in attendance, even offering cloth towels to dry my hands.
We returned to Joseph's house late, and stayed up way too late. We could have easily overslept, had Rocco not kept waking us.

June 25

We had to be on the road shortly after 4:30 am to make my flight home. We took Interstate 5 from Glendale to the Santa Ana John Wayne International Airport. We drove through Anaheim, where all the theme parks are located. I found these images in a magazine and used them to guide my journaling.
This page started as a boo boo. While on the plane from CA to Minneapolis, I was working on some patriotic themed pieces when my gold leafing pen lost it. The gold went everywhere, including on the tray table in the airplane. I didn't want to lose any more paint than possible, so I found the closest thing which was a couple of paint chips and mopped up the excess gold leaf. When I got home, I added the hearts that I cut from napkins and the lovely magnifying glass using a brad, that a friend gifted me with. I wrote the sentiment using a lavender calligraphy felt tipped writer.
On the way to CA, I had lots of time in the Minneapolis airport, so found a map of the concourses. I used the part that applied to my flights, then wrote the journaling around the photo that sort of resembled Kansas (although there are NO mountains in KS). I used a part of my luggage tape which had the holographic "cleared" sticker attached to it for photo corners.

I had so many extra images that I couldn't fit onto the regular pages, I made a montage of flashbacks.
More flashbacks of the many things we did and saw.
This shows the tag spread out, which came from some wonderful salad dressing I used. I turned a magazine picture of Rodeo Drive into a packing tape transfer and put it on the front of the tag.
My final flashback page. No journaling, just a LA area map, some local tourist attractions, and a photo of my friend in a slide mount.
I used my itinerary as the background for this spread. I used pigment ink to color the page and added a photo of my overgrown garden as I found it (complete with weeds) when I got home.

This is the inside back cover and a photo my friend took of me in front of Virgin Records in Hollywood.
For the back outside cover, I used the same color paint chip as the front, and another part of the same orange bag I brought with me from CA. I also added a dried flower from CA. I used my lavender calligraphy felt tipped pen to write the sentiment "Dreams do come true."