Art journal therapy

Last year was a very dificult year as we had to say goodbye to both of our "boys", Sam was 17 and Skyler was 16 1/2.  They had good long lives but for anyone who loses their heart to a pet (family member really!) it is never long enough and I miss them dearly.

One thing I love about art journaling is that I can chronicle or put down on paper what I'm feeling so for this art journal spread I dedicated it to our boys.  Here is my journal spread and then I will show you how I made it!

I started out with two pages that I had cleaned my Gelli plate off of as well as different Viva Las VegaStamps! stamps stamps (looks nothing like the journal spread above right??) and I appologize for the blurry pic but I took it at night and didn't realize it was so blurry...

 Then I took a stencil and used blue paint to create the design over the two pages and then poured some orange paint in a line and used a trowel to spread it

leaving it now looking like this

I sat there looking at it and didn't care for the in your face colors... so I took the same stencil and used cream colored paint and "bumped" the stencil, leaving it now looking like this (amazing how different it now looks right?)

much better! I now added some turquoise and pink paint and words as well as a bunch of stamps (can you spot them all?) and then glued a picture of my cherished boys on as well.

Once again here is the finished journal spread

 I used the line of chevrons stamp, the You are here stamp, Waybill/invoice background, the design open circles, solid star in circle, smear/smudge, writing triangles, tape, double coffee rings and last but not least the bubble wrap texture!

Here are some close ups of the different stamps

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my project!