Decorating my art notebook cover

In the past, while watching videos or reading books, I have scribbled notes on pieces of paper. You know the kind of notes – how to bind that special journal, a special painting technique that I know I won’t remember, or just ideas that pop into my head. I ended up with lots of pieces of paper. I have folders of pdf printouts that are organized, but these notes were a mess. I knew there had to be a better way of corralling them.

Then I came up with an idea. Why not put them in composition notebooks?

I bought several when school supplies were on sale and they are perfect. Since they are cheap, I’m not afraid to write in them and if I screw up I can tear a page out. No big deal. So since August I’ve been gathering all of that artsy stuff in this composition book. But wait, if this is about art, shouldn’t it look artsy? So on these past few snowy days, I decorated my art notebook cover.

I’m really getting into layering. Here’s what I did. I started with gluing pieces of book pages on the cover with gel medium.

Then I sprayed Jane Lafazio’s Eucalyptus stencil using Adirondack Color Wash Stream and Inkadinkado Terra Cotta spray ink. I love those two colors together.

Then I brayered over the cover with a white craft paint to lighten it.

I added texture by using Golden Molding Paste with the Crafters Workshop Mini Gears I purchased from Kathy when we were playing with Indigo dyes awhile back.

Here is a closeup of it dried. It was neat how the Color Wash color came to the top of the paste gear.

Then I finished it off by adding a gear to the center of the large gear.

And the finished notebook.

That’s much nicer than that plain ole black and white cover. You will notice there is still some of the black and white cover showing around the edges. That was on purpose. I wanted it to look pretty shabby. That was fun. Now all of my notes are in one pretty place – Sweet!