Finnabair: Little Thoughts Art Journaling by Emilia Tapiola

Monday, 18 April 2022

Little Thoughts Art Journaling by Emilia Tapiola

Hello friends,

I made tiny little art journal covers for Finnabair March Art Recipe and wanted to start filling them with a tiny little journal, size approx. 7 cm x 10 cm. I love using leftover bits and bobs and decided to create a sweet little something from those. (Because scraps are a force of nature every crafter encounters all the time.)

I chose some scrap pieces that were soft, gentle, and sweet looking, to match the pretty cover, and started to create. Here’s what I did…

I dyed some silk ribbon, cheesecloth, and lace with Mica Powders from the Vintage Roses set (a lot of water, a little colour, and some dapping between palms, a very sophisticated and complicated process, indeed, but if you need more specific instructions, I do have a video of the process here. I let the fabrics dry.

First, I layered some vintage paper scraps onto my tiny little journal and glued them in place, primed them with Clear Gesso or whitewashed them with white Heavy Gesso, and let them dry. I wanted to have a gentle vintage look throughout the pages, so I mixed some Impastos Pitch Black and Dark Chocolate and added some paint around the edges of the pages, with a lot of water, and just a little paint.

After adding dimension with white gesso and Iris Tapestry and Passiflora stencils, and letting everything dry, I made tiny collages with print leftovers, die-cut leftovers, tiny bits of cheesecloth and lace, and primed every print with clear gesso to protect them in case I want to add some medium later.

As these pages were the first of the whole journal, I wanted to leave them in a state I always leave the first pages; I do not add as much paint or decorations at this point, where we are still getting acquainted. I leave room for them to become part of the whole journal emerging, page by page, and I will go back and finish them only much later, when the whole journal starts to emerge and take form.