Art Journaling

I have been in the throes of a creative mania lately with Art Journaling. I love everything to do with the messy and joyous process of making art with no rules. I purchased my most recent stash at Michaels arts and crafts store. I got a 5x8 Strathmore Journal in the fine arts papers department. It is called the Mixed Media Visual Journal so the paper will hold up to watercolor as well as simple drawing methods and it holds up to gluing as well if you are collaging. The pages do warp a bit but you could lay heavy books on it when everything is dry to help flatten out your pages.
The next thing i got was Liquitex Gel Medium, that holds down all the layers of collaging. Today I got a can of Mod Podge sealer spray, when im sure a page is finished and really dry, I spray It with the sealer so the pages wont stick together. If you have any doubts that its dry put waxed paper between pages till its had plenty of time to dry. Since i live in Las Vegas now, it drys fairly fast, but in the wetter parts of the country or world it takes work to make sure things really are dry.
The very first page of my new art journal I used a dark purple Studio G ink pad around the edges of the page to give it some color. Then I used a sheet of paper from a K and Company pad of card stock.It was mainly a floral design in aqua and lime green , with a purple butterfly printed on it. Then I took a Ditto mask of a bird and lay it on the page and sprayed over it with a dark purple glimmer mist. The mist did creep under the edges so the image isnt perfect, but it has character. The mist was also by Ditto and it took quite a while for that to dry. I also found out if it gets wet again it runs so that needed sealing before i went on with other steps. In the bottom left I placed 3 white flowers from Recollections and some lime green leaves i cut out myself and I finished off the Image with a single hydrangea flower at the top left which is a rich purple color.