Hey paper nerds!

Oh, what’s this? A ring-binder with my art journaling in it? Sure is!

For the longest time I’ve been a bit jealous of other crafters who had art journals with interchangeable pages. So I’ve decided to use my mint Kikki K. planner to house my art journal pages.

This way I can easily take some pages out, get REAL messy without ruining the rest of my journal and click ’em back in when they’re dry. I can also easily add scraps and bits to the rings – no glue, just a hole punch.

By the way, I’ve been waiting to do this journal switch until I got the Filofax A5 hole punch (UK | US). It’s a pricey punch but so worth it for me – being a planner enthusiast and all. :) I heard that you can get them a bit cheaper on Amazon but I wasn’t able to find one that ships to Denmark. You’ll have to look into that yourself, depending on your location.

Enough blabber! I’ve taken some pretty macro shots of this baby ’cause it just makes me happy!

I’m kicking off with a bit of brush script and a lovely gold splattered page. (Squeeeeeal!)

The photos do not do the gold paint justice. It’s so delish!

I made it using this combo of products:

• Distress Ink Pad in ‘Scattered Straw’
• Heidi Swapp Color Shine spray in ‘Gold’
• Studio Calico Mr. Huey in ‘Lemonade’

I smeared all these liquids onto a craft sheet, misted the craft sheet with plain water and dunked the page into it. It dried nice and flat by itself.

Ack, it’s just so beautiful!

The paper I’m using in the journal is Clairefontaine Paint’On 250 gram/115 lb paper in A5 size which I happened to find in a local book store. I can’t find a good link to it online sadly, ’cause it’s the bomb. It’s meant for getting messy. You could likely find something similar though, if you look for that nice quality, heavy, matte and pure white paper.

I love the bright white pages! They take mist so much better than fx. my Moleskine art journal… the colors always looked off on that.

Mmmmmmmacro.

I’ve been getting a few questions about how the cover of my Kikki K. is holding up. If the gold dots come off and that sort of thing. I can happily report that it’s looking good as new. Even the elastic isn’t discolored which tends to happen. If’ you’ve had an older Filofax Domino you know this. #firstworldproblems

So uhm, you may have noticed that this journal spread has absolutely nothing to do with the monthly Get Messy prompt: Gratitude. This happens to me all. the. time. I sit down to make something from a prompt or a sketch and end up forgetting all about it.

I think my mind is failing me a bit lately, at least in some regards. I’ve been doing exactly what’s on my page: Getting busy doing what matters. And right now that’s working my butt off. I’m in love with being self-employed and even though every new romance has it’s ups and downs, I can tell this’ll be a lifelong love.

I’ll be sure to make a gratitude spread next time and share with you. Until then, have a lovely day and thanks for stopping by!

xo Nina

This project is part of the Get Messy Art Journal Challenge created by Caylee and Lauren. You can join too! #getmessyartjournal