Art Journal Prompt Cards

 Hello everyone,

Today I have some journal prompt cards for you, made from the gel prints I made a few weeks ago. So first we make the backgrounds and then we turn them into the cards.

Introduction and Collage

If you do a lot of art journaling then it can be helpful to have a set of journal prompt cards. 

Start by gathering the monoprints from the previous tutorial.  I had nine prints but I will only be using three prints on each page.

I made two bases using 300gsm watercolour paper.  For the first one, I chose three of the backgrounds in complementary colours and torn them up and arranged them on the watercolour paper.  I took a photo at this stage to remind myself of the layout in case any of them moved.

When I was happy with the layout, I pasted them all down using matte gel medium.

Next, I moved on to the second background and repeated the process. 

Repeat the same process as above, tearing up the prints and laying them out on the watercolour paper until you are happy with how it looks and then paste them into place.

Once they are dry, use some gold size to cover all the white bits not covered by the collage.  If you don't have gold size, you can use glue that dries tacky.

Adding Gold Leaf and More

If you don't have gold leaf you can use gold acrylic paint.  Add the gold leaf, pressing it down on top of all the parts that are sticky from the gold size/tacky glue.  

I use my hands for this and then brush off the excess with a paintbrush.

Use the brush and your fingers to rub the gold leaf down into all the sticky bits and off of the collaged bits.  I felt like my backgrounds needed some black so I took a black stabilo and scribbled on it.

Then I activated it with water and a brush.

I did this to both pieces and left them to dry.  Please note:  stabilo pencils are water activated so you may want to seal them with a spray sealant at this stage or you may want to wait till the end and spray both sides.  

Decorating the reverse side

As the reverse side is where the journal prompts will be written, I decorated them too using some chalk paints in complementary colours.  

I added the paint and then smoothed it out using a brush and then a brayer.

Then when they were dry - they dry very quickly on their own or you can speed it up with a hairdryer - I added some stencilling in white chalk paint using a sponge.

The stencil I used is A4 size, the same size as the paper.

Here's a look at the pages after stencilling.

Making the Cards

Now to turn these pages into cards. If you are also using A4 paper you will be able to get 10 cards out of each sheet if you cut your cards to be 2.25 x 3.5 inches.  This is narrower than the standard ATC size which is 2.5 x 3.5 inches, but I wanted more cards and less waste.  If you want ATC size, you will only get 8 cards per sheet. If you are using a different paper size, you will have to do some calculations!

I cut them at the smaller size by first cutting them into 5 x 2.25 inch wide strips, and then cutting those into cards that were 3.5 inches long.

So now I have 20 cards ready to go.

And the reverse side looks like this...

I like to round my corners, so if you have a corner rounder, do that now.

To hide the white edges and tie them in with the front of the cards, I dry brushed some gold acrylic paint along the edges.  This is easy to do if you hold all your cards together and using a brush with very little paint on it, carefully brush along the edges.

Then just leave them to dry which should only take a few minutes.

Journal Prompts and how to use the Cards

Using a black waterproof pen, write your prompts on the cards.  Here's a look at the prompts I chose but yours can be anything you like.  There are two colour cards, one offers a choice of black or white and the other has six colour options - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet - or any colours you prefer.  For this one you can either choose your favourite or roll the dice!



To use the cards, shuffle them like a regular deck of cards and then select one or more and follow the prompt/s. The cards can also be hole punched and stored on a ring or you could keep them in a box or a small bowl.  They would also make great gifts for a crafty friend.

Hope you like this project.  Let me know in the comments below and I would love to see your cards if you decide to make a set.

Till next time,

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe:

PE126ES Seaweed Circle *coming soon*
PE129ES Oceanic *coming soon*
watercolour paper, matte gel medium, gold leaf, gold size, stabilo all, Paperartsy chalk paint, stencil, black waterproof pen, gold acrylic paint,
Other: paper trimmer, corner rounder(optional)