Summer is moving along quickly and I hope you’ve been creatively engaged in one way or another. If you’ve been working on collage, good for you! If you need some motivation/inspiration, I’ve been working on a junk journal project for Megjournals and I made a video about it. The point is to mail it to yourself and then when you get it back, place it in your journal. The neat thing about making a small postcard is that you can use some of the scraps that are currently sitting on your workspace from creating your art journal, or gluebook, or junk journal. You can always use more and different kin ..read more

Our big summer trip of 2023 has come and gone. It was a success, something I was worried about, but with careful planning, it all went well. This year, we invited my two nieces, ages 13 and 16, to come with us to visit Slovakia, the country where my spouse Igor is from, and then go to Portugal (first time for all of us), and then London. Igor and I have been before, but none of the kids had. After we landed in Vienna, we were picked up by my brother-in-law and driven two hours to our destination in western Slovakia.  I love when we get to the border crossing between Austria and Slovakia ..read more

Several weeks ago I posted the question, “If you are someone who doesn’t create much, why is that? What stops you from creating?” I read through the many answers and looked for themes that I could identify. Here are the problem ares most people identified with: I have many process videos for creating collage and will continue to make more going forward, so I won’t address that now in this post.  With workspace issues, I broke that down into two sections: mental and physical workspace. With mental workspace, sometimes your brain gets crowded with too many ideas. Also, finding the time to ..read more

For me, art journaling through working in a glue book has been one of the most satisfying kinds of art. Why is that? Because it ticks all the boxes for me: It’s pretty easy to do as far as just needing a glue stick, some papers and something to glue it in I get to work with papers that I like in themes that I enjoy, for example I get that feeling of satisfaction of having completed something when I do a page or do a spread in a glue book If you are curious about playing around with a gluebook or are looking for more ideas or inspiration for what to do with them, I’ve got some glue book tips ..read more

I started the new year working on several collage projects that I could share through videos. First, I worked on a collage, all inspired by this beautiful British postage stamp. What a winter beauty! I wanted to show you precisely how I put this collage together, layer by layer. It took me several days for me to gather all the right pieces and place everything. Before I glued it down, I turned on the camera and recorded my process of paper selecting and placement. Here is the video:   Next, I got to work on a junk journaling project called  Junk Journal January , sponsored by M ..read more

The holiday season is here and it’s a good time to find a Christmas-themed project to work on. I’ve got one for you, and I’m calling it The Twelve Pages of Christmas. I often save tags from Christmas presents, pieces of pretty wrapping paper, or greeting cards. I’ve got a large envelope filled with these things, waiting for an opportunity to use them. Wouldn’t it be nice to pull them out and use them to collages some holiday-themed pages? This is what I was imagining when I put together The Twelve Pages of Christmas. ​ The plan is to use 3 sheets of paper, folded in fourths, to creat ..read more

For the first time in the existence of my online shop, I am going to be having an end-of-the-year sale, for two seeks in November! This is definitely big news. I typically don’t discount any of my materials but I’ve decided to this year because: I want to promote my Collage Art Basics online course. I need to reduce inventory before my (two) new titles arrive from the printers. I want to clear out inventory of a few titles that I will not be offering again. What’s going on sale? My Collage Art Basics online course is on sale for 20% off. This course teaches you the basics of collage and giv ..read more

The new Days of Observance Journal and Gluebook is available for pre order now. Take me to the order page If you remember the Christmas gluebook from last year, it’s in a very similar style, and is the same size. It has 30 assignments, each one dedicated to a specific day. This one has you thinking about days throughout the year that are observed but not particularly holidays, though some are. For example, there are assignments for Valentines Day, Easter, Memorial Day, and Halloween but also assignments for National Bird Day, International Day of Mathematics, and World Teacher’s Day. On ..read more

I am home with lots of memories and photos of my quick trip to The Netherlands. It was awesome! I felt totally relaxed and comfortable there, and always felt like I could find my way around when I was on my own. I went to visit my friend Bonnie who lives near Haarlem, which is in a nice central location, not far from Amsterdam and Utrecht. She’s originally from Texas so it was neat having another American who was interested in doing things in a different way.  Of course I was also fascinated with people biking and the incredible infrastructure that is built to support the use of bicycle ..read more

One of my main beliefs about collage art is that it is not a talent, but a skill. This means that the more you do it, the better you get. But how do you practice collage, and where can you find exercises to help you? Before I get into the resources I offer to encourage people to create, I want to mention those that I have discovered or heard about. First, there are art groups. There are groups that you can find in person in your local art communities, or groups such as Facebook Groups, which can be good for finding structured challenges. There are so many Facebook groups for all different kin ..read more