Creative Art & Junk Journaling - Explore 10 Layout Ideas + Exercises & Develop A Daily Habit

1. Welcome!: Hi everyone, and welcome to this class on Creative Art and Junk Journaling. Creative journaling is a great way to use both sides of your brain in a productive manner. Not only does it act as a great hobby, but it is also great for self-care and mindfulness. There are many benefits to creative journaling. And the best part of it all is that your journal can be whatever you want it to be. You can use it to reflect upon your everyday experiences, to make plans and to-do lists, to make a vision board or goal trackers, to keep a record of your creative experiments, to preserve memories from special occasions, or to simply relax and have fun. However, as exciting as all of this may sound, I know that starting a journal can sometimes become a little bit overwhelming. Especially in this day and age where everyone is sharing beautiful journal spreads on social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest, one can often feel a little lost. So if you're wondering where and how to get started, then this class is perfect for you. I'm here to simplify the process of journaling for you and also to help you develop skills that make it fun for you. In this course, we will be exploring ten different layout styles and exercises that include a combination of techniques from art journaling to junk journaling, scrapbooking, as well as travel journaling. We will also be looking at interesting paper crafting techniques that you can use outside the scope of this class as well, such as to make greeting cards, bookmarks and more. And all in all, this class will serve as a great creative boost for you and will give you a lot of ideas to choose from. My name is Ridhi, and this is my sixth Skillshare class. I'm a multi-disciplinary artist, an art educator and a creative entrepreneur. I run four creative brands under which I sell jewelry, home decor products, surface design prints, stationery, wall art, and different kinds of lifestyle and gifting essentials. I have been making creative journals for over a decade now. And today, in this Skillshare class, I'm gonna be sharing all my learnings with you. From the supplies that I purchase to all my favorite tips and tricks, I will share all my secrets with you. So put your seat belts on because we are about to begin a wonderful adventure together. See you in class! 2. Before You Begin : Before you begin, I would encourage you to watch my earlier class on "Introduction to Creative Journaling", here on Skillshare itself. The class covers some basic similarities and differences between junk journaling, art journaling, travel journaling, bullet journaling, and scrapbooking. So if you're new to the world of journaling and are confused about what each of these terms mean, then the introductory class is a great way to get started and put yourself in the right frame of mind. It is not mandatory to watch that class before this one and you can watch it later as well. But from general experience, I know that students benefit a lot better and understand the context of this class a lot more when they have already seen that class. 3. What is a Layout?: Now one of the questions that I get asked a lot is what exactly do we mean by the word layout or what even is a journal layout? So very simply put, a layout basically refers to the placement of all the items you want to include in your journal spread. To understand this better, think of your journal spread as divided into two parts, images and text. Now your images will have focal images. These are basically the images that draw the viewer's attention and are usually larger in size as compared to other elements on the page. They are basically the hero element on your page, so to say. So sometimes you will have just one hero image and other times you will have multiple images making a focal collage. And we will explore both of these styles as we go ahead further. Now, apart from the focal images, other items of visual interest include embellishments such as lace, ribbons, beads, tapes, etc. So basically smaller items that are either used to fill up the gaps on your page or to make a background layer before you can place your focal image on top of it. Then the text is also divided into two parts. So think of it like headlines and body text; just like you see it in magazines and newspapers, there's always a headline or a catchphrase written in big bold letters that kind of like catches your attention. And then you have the body text. So similarly, your headlines will be like certain quotes, keywords, or phrases that you want to use in your journal spread to draw the viewer's attention or the ones that communicate the theme or the idea of your spread. And then the body text will mostly be your thoughts that you want to write in your journal spread. So these could include personal thoughts or certain details of, let's say, a holiday that you went... you went on. So you have the name of the city or the place as the headline. And then you have your experience written in a smaller font, in a smaller size to fill up the gaps on the page. Now every journal spread will have a combination of visuals and text, but it doesn't mean that you will always have a headline or that you will always have focal images. Sometimes the text itself can become the focal image, or you could have a spread made up of just images with little or no text. Basically, your layout is a combination of visuals and text in a way that it communicates a thought or a theme or an idea in an easy but appealing manner. And so we will be exploring different kinds of layouts where we will be playing with sizes, shapes, and placement to draw the viewer's attention onto the journal spread and make them look aesthetic and appealing. 4. Supplies: For the supplies, I use a combination of found objects as well as purchased ones. Found objects include cutouts from newspapers and magazines, old letters, greeting cards, posters, flyers and leaflets, mail packaging, old stamps, et cetera. So I try to look for pictures of cute animals, flowers, interesting pattern designs, some quotes and phrases, basically anything that is of some visual interest or value. And I just cut those out and save them with me. And in the purchased objects, I usually use a combination of stickers, washi tapes, textured papers, faux vintage ephemera, vellum cutouts and basically a lot of stuff that journal shops sell. I mostly end up purchasing my supplies from this shop called Kioku Creations, which is based over here in India. And they also ship worldwide. So in case, you want to use the exact same supplies as me, I will put it in the projects and resources section so you know where to find them. But otherwise, you can use pretty much anything that you have with you and still follow along well in the class. Now, just remember that purchased items can be found at home as well. So for example, I like to buy a lot of floral stickers because I use flowers a lot in my journal spreads. But that does not mean that I cannot find pictures of flowers in magazines and newspapers or print them straight out of the Internet. So what I mean to say is that you don't have to have the exact same supplies as me. You can start off with whatever you have and still make a beautiful journal spread. As we progress further in the class, I will keep throwing in suggestions of alternatives that you can use to the supplies that I'm using. And I'm quite confident that you will be able to create journal spreads with the materials around you. Now apart from the supplies that I have mentioned, I also use stencils, acrylic paints, watercolors, brush pens, markers, and stamps. But then again, you can achieve similar effects with just a few items and you don't need to purchase as many things as me. You can also use items that are different from the ones that I'm using. So for example, if you use wax crayons or let's say, soft pastels, instead of acrylic paints and watercolors; or if you want to use gouache, you're welcome to do that. And so you don't have to use the exact same supplies as me. You will also need a couple of standard things like craft glue and a pair of scissors, as well as a paper cutter. And since we are going to be working on different layout styles in each of the lessons further, you can always go back and forth on the order of the lessons if you like. So for example, if you feel like you don't have the supplies ready yet for the first layout. Then go ahead and watch the video for layout two, and then come back to layout number 1 when you feel you have the supplies ready. Sometimes when you are reading new magazines and newspapers or going through your stash of old greeting cards or invites, you will realize that you suddenly have found something really pretty and you want to use it in your journal spread. And it might just, you know, it might just click an idea and you might feel that it would work better for a particular layout. So you can always come back to the videos and just make your spread that time once you have the supplies ready. So the good thing about the courses here on Skillshare is that you can watch them as many times as you like. And you can also pause the videos, take a break and then come back and pick up from wherever you left off. However, I encourage you to watch all the videos and not give up in the middle. Because the more you watch, the more comfortable you will get with the process of creative journaling. Very soon you will be able to come up with your own ideas as well for creating interesting layouts. And it all just comes with practice. So make sure that you watch all the lessons. And I promise you that it's going to be a lot of fun. 5. Layout 1 - Centre Band Approach: Hi everyone and welcome to our very first layout video together. So I've got all my supplies over here ready with me and I'm just going to walk you through all of them one by one. Just so you know, my process when it comes to selecting the supplies. And you don't need to have the exact same things as me. You can have different ones. That's totally fine just as long as you understand the concept. So don't get overwhelmed by the amount of things I have over here with me. First things first I'm going to be using four pictures which are going to be my focal images. So I've selected four images, which are basically these sunflower pictures. So my color palette essentially is yellow and green because of obviously the sunflowers on my focal images. So I've selected a bunch of supplies in that color palette. So everything's in yellows and greens right now. Now I've got some washi tapes, which are basically in the shades of green to match the leaves of those sunflowers. Then I have these transparent stickers which basically have leaves again on them. And I'm not even sure I'm going to end up using all of this, but I just collect everything yellow and green to begin with. Then I've got these vellum paper cutouts with me. Vellum is nothing but like a transparent, translucent sort of paper with like printed pattern on it. You also get plain versions. So I've selected a few printed ones. And then I have these dots stickers, which are basically just like circle-shaped stickers. And I also have these plain ones and I buy them from this brand called Kioku Creations, which is easily available here in India. Then I have this, this roll of tape which is basically kraft paper tape. And you don't need to have the exact same tape, you know. You can actually just use kraft paper, like any old wrapping paper, like packing paper that you get in your Amazon packages or anything for that matter, any of your standard shipping packages will have that. So you can use that instead of the kraft paper roll. And instead of the circle stickers, you can actually use just colorful papers and just cut them out into small circles. So that's fine as well. For the pictures, even though I have selected these pictures from the craft store, which basically have these sunflowers, like I said, made on them; these are actually stickers. But you don't really need to have them in the same size. You can actually use pictures of anything from magazines or from newspapers or from old books. So you don't even need to have them in a rectangular form, the way I've shown them over here; you can have circle pictures or square pictures... any other shape is fine as well. So basically, this was just like an introductory video to show you how I select my supplies. So I select my focal images first, and then I select all my supplies based on the focal images. So just to repeat it once more, since the images had sunflowers and everything was in the color scheme of yellows and greens with a little bit of browns; I ended up selecting everything in yellows, greens and browns. So that's about it. Now, as I told you guys earlier, I usually use a black journal, but it doesn't really mean that I always end up using the base as is. So I keep changing the base color of my journal spread depending on the color palette that I'm working with. So it's pink over here. Then I have this printed green thing over here, aqua blue here. So basically my base color kind of keeps changing depending on the color palette that I'm working with for that particular project that I'm developing. So in today's project, I actually don't want a black base again. And so I'm going to take some, some of this cream-ish white paper and use that to create my base layer first. So the way I usually do it is that I basically take like a lot of liquid glue and just spread it out evenly onto my journal. And then I stick white paper on top of it. Now I'm using this spatula to spread out the glue, but you don't really have to be as extra as me when it comes to using the glue. You can use the roll-on glue sticks and that, that'll work fine as well. But because I use this liquid glue for so many of my other projects as well, I have like these really big bottles and the spatula kind of allows me to sort of spread it out evenly, which is why I use the spatula. Plus it also makes sure that I don't have like sticky fingers and then I don't end up leaving glue stains on my stickers, my washi tapes and other pictures that I'm using on my journal. So just for cleanliness sake, I use it, but you don't have to use the same thing. So now I'm going to speed up this bit of the video to show you how exactly I ended up pasting the white base first. Now there's a chance that your journal is already white and you want to use a white base itself so you can probably skip this step. But in case you want to change the base color, then this is like the easiest way to do it. Now since my paper is really, really big, I'm actually going to trim it out from the edges. And I do this in the beginning itself most of the times because then it kind of just doesn't interfere with my hand movement. And I can get rid of all that extra stuff so that I can move around freely. Once I'm done with the cutting, then I begin to actually form the layout. So in this lesson, we are working with a center band approach, which basically means that we are going to create a band right in the center of the journal spread, right in the middle. And this is going to be like a horizontal spread. Now, to make this easy for myself, I have this pre-made sticker roll of kraft paper with me, which I can actually just sort of paste right in the center. But if you don't have the sticker roll with you, that's completely fine. Like I said, you can use kraft paper or any other colored paper that you have with you and use that to create like this rectangular patch in the center. Now one of the things that you will see me doing frequently in all the videos ahead is pressing down all the elements again and again with my fingers. So I'll keep running my palms or hands over the journal pages again and again to make sure everything sticks. And I recommend you to do that as well because it just ensures that the glue is sort of stuck on properly and that your elements are not like protruding, especially if you're using a lot of liquid glue, then there are chances that thin papers will crinkle up a tad bit. So you can actually see that my base is already a little crinkled. And so you might want to like keep pressing it down again and again to get rid of unwanted texture. Personally for me, I don't mind the texture. So you can see that my base layer already has like a little bit of texture on it and I don't mind it. So I'm just going to leave that as is. But if you want to get rid of the texture on the base completely, then I recommend using slightly thicker paper which doesn't crinkle up as much; and also sort of like going a little slower when it comes to the pasting process so that you can get rid of the wrinkles. Now, the next thing that I'm going to do is get all my images. And so I have four pictures over here today, which are going to be like the focal point of the layout. Now there are several ways that you can put these pictures. So you can put them all in one row. Or you could put them two up and two down. You could put one up, one down, again, one up, one down. So there are several different ways in which you can arrange your pictures. And depending on the size as well as the shape of your pictures, I recommend you to try out a couple of different placements. But don't go about sticking them just as yet because for example, over here, like I have this leaf sticker that I might want to use at the base, like under the focal image. And so you might want to look for certain elements in your collected stash that you might want to use under your focal images. Now, the way the center band approach works is that basically everything that is of focal interest or the maximum value should be in and around that center band. So that's centre strip that you have just laid out horizontally is going to be like the place where the viewer's attention is going to be centered or focused on. So everything that you do in your journal spread today has to be focused in and around that band basically. Now once I've laid out this leafy sticker, the next thing that I'm going to do is use a little bit of washi tape and put down little bits of it on the right edge as well as the left one. For the left one, I'm placing it in such a way that it looks as if that stem has been sort of pasted with the washi tape and the washi tape's kinda holding it. And then for some visual interest as well as to break the monotony, I like to put in these printed vellum paper cutouts. And for this, I usually end up using the roll-on glue, which is faster and it holds the paper decently well. Now the idea over here is very simple. Anything which has lesser visual value will stay in the background and will basically not interfere with the focal images. Whereas the focal images, which are basically your hero images or the ones that draw the viewer's attention are going to stay on top; which are basically our sunflower images. So currently I'm basically looking at ways to decorate the page in such a way that the elements sort of connect well with each other. But at the same time, the left page should be balanced with the right page. So you've probably noticed by now that whatever element I'm sticking on the right side of the page, I'm doing a little bit of that on the left side of the page as well. The only exception is that big leafy stem sticker that I have on the left side. And I haven't done something similar to that on the right side. But that's because I would like my journal spread to have a little bit of, like an asymmetrical approach, which is why I've not done that yet. But as we go along further, maybe I'll do something more leafy on the right side of the page as well. Now I'm pretty confident that I want to have two pictures going slightly above the band on the left side of the paper. And I want to have two pictures going slightly below the band on the right side of the paper. But just for the sake of experimenting, I'm going to try placing one of those other leafy stem stickers and see how that's gonna look. I have a feeling that this is going to look a little bit overpowering and it's going to take away all my writing space, which is why I probably don't want to use it, but there's no harm in trying it out. So I always recommend playing around with your elements a little bit before you actually glue them down so that you can experiment a little bit more when it comes to ideas on the placement. So personally, for me, I don't like this green leafy sticker because I think it's too big and it's going to take away all that sort of writing space at the bottom. So I'm gonna go ahead and just stick down my yellow stickers now. Luckily, these are stickers, so it's very easy to sort of peel off the backs and just paste them quickly. But even if they were regular cutouts, it doesn't take much time to sort of glue them down. Okay, now here's a tip. I've accidentally dropped a little bit of glue on one of these pictures over here. And it's kind of giving like a really tacky finish to the picture, making it look a little untidy. So I always use a wet wipe to wipe off any of those residual marks from the pictures. But keep in mind that these wet wipes work only on stickers or other materials which have like a plastic finish to them or which have like a laminated finish. They don't work on regular people because otherwise it's just going to become very soggy. But if you have something of like a plastic finish than the wet wipe is like a great way to get rid of that excess dirt or sticky-gluey mess that you might have poured on by mistake. Okay, now once I'm done sticking the pictures, you can see that the layout is pretty much ready. And I probably just need to add a few elements here and there to just make it look finished. Now this is the beauty of the center band approach. The centre-band approach makes it really, really easy for you to focus your attention exactly in the middle of the page. Once you've actually placed a thick strip of paper in the center of the page, the fear of an empty journal spread goes away instantly and your mind automatically knows that you now have to focus everything in and around this band. And this is actually one of the reasons why I decided to keep this as the first video, because it's the easiest to begin with. Now moving further, I'm going to use a little bit of washi tape over here on the sides of these images just so that it gives it a little more raw, crafty finish. And I'm going to use two of these circle stickers, the dot stickers that I have... one of them has a cute little butterfly on it and the other one has a cute bee. And so these are basically going to help me get rid of that weird empty patch that I had over there in the center of the spread. So you can see that even though these stickers have elements made on them, they are not interfering with the focal images for two reasons. One, because they are really tiny. So since they're smaller in size, they're not going to disturb the rest of the spread. And secondly, because the colors on them are not so bright, so the viewer's attention is still drawn to those four focal images and not to all of these embellishments and little tiny tidbits that we've pasted around. Alright, and now that finishes up our whole band, which is looking quite balanced and quite finished. Now there are some things that you might want to do differently in this spread. So for example, there's still a little bit of empty space above the two pictures on the right side where the kraft paper is meeting the white paper. And so you can try to put a sticker over there if that's something that you like and you could probably do one similar to that on the left side of the page as well. But these are like personal choices and it totally depends on your tastes and preferences, whether you want to add more elements on not. You could even use small labels with handwritten or printed text above the pictures, if that's something that you like. You could even use a real dried leaf or like a dried flower stem over there if you like preserving real flowers and drying them in your journal spreads. So basically once you have all your elements collected with you, think of different ways in which you can use them in and around the center band. So personally, for me, I think the stickers are going to be a little bit overwhelming and they might take away the focus from the four images that I have in the middle. So I'm instead going to use a stamp set over here. This stamp set that I have basically has like a variety of these leafy stemmed designs. And I'm going to use one of these just to add like a tiny bit of visual interest to the kraft paper tape over there. So I usually use this Ranger archival ink pad in black color, but you can use a different color as well. They come in a large variety of colors and sizes. Alright, now you can see that just using that little stamp makes so much of a difference because that gap is not looking so odd anymore. And I think this finishes up this spread for me. I'm now going to go ahead and start writing some thoughts on the empty spaces above and below the center band. And this is exactly why we need to select our base color in advance. Because in this case, I'm using a black micron pen. And so that's going to look nice on this white page. But let's say you had a colored base over there, then you would have to choose a pen which compliments that color. So it's always a good idea to even plan out your text color based on the color palette of your focal images. And that just helps to put everything together. All right, and with this, my journal spread is completely done. And I'm quite happy with the way this has turned out. I quite like the look of this spread with a mix of the matte and the glossy finished elements, because I feel that they add a lot visual interest. And this is something that you will see me doing a lot in all the lessons ahead as well. Now just to give you an idea of what all you can do with your centre-band approach, here are a couple more ideas for you to take inspiration from. So as you can see in this one, I decided to have like a colored background where I basically added all my pictures and my stickers. But they were not my focal images. My focal image was actually the text itself. So I wanted the viewer's attention to go to the text directly, which is why I decided to use that on the center band. Then in this one I actually have like multiple pictures, but all of them are again focused at the center of the page on that center band itself. And then again, basically it's the color palette that kind of brings your journal spread to life. And you can see that I've basically just extracted colors from the focal images and used elements of those in that same color family in and around the focal images to make it all sort of cohesive. So in order to maintain continuity and harmony from the left side of your journal spread to the right side of your journal spread, it's kind of important for you to stick to similar colors and sort of bind them together. And we're gonna be talking more about this as we progress further in our course. For now, this wraps up our first layout style video together. And I hope this was as much fun for you as it was for me. And I look forward to seeing all your wonderful spreads submitted over here in the projects and resources section where I'd be happy to leave my feedback for you. 6. Layout 2 - Split Section Approach: Hi everyone, and a very warm welcome to our second layout style video together. So before we get into making the journal spread today, I just wanna do a quick recap of what we did yesterday. So I'm sure you remember that yesterday we did the center band approach where we basically had four focal images placed on that band in the center of our journal spread. And the idea is that the band as well as the little embellishments or the tiny little decorations that you put in your journal spread... they are basically going to stay muted and they're going to not interfere with the focal images. So essentially, we kind of built like a tiny collage with a few layers and everything which was of lesser visual value stayed in the background, whereas the focal images stayed in the foreground. And like I said, there are variations to this. Instead of doing like four focal images, you can totally do with just two or even just one single image, just as long as the band is your focus. Or you could even do text in the center. Now today, however, we're gonna do something different. So today the goal is going to be to work with one focal image, which is going to be like the largest on our journal spread. And everything else is going to be slightly smaller as compared to that focal image. And then we're also going to add in a little bit of text to tie in the whole journal spread together. So today I've kind of decided to work with like a purple, violet-ish color scheme. And I'll just show you why exactly. So I have this little cut-out with me from an old paper bag. And this paper bag is from a brand from where I usually buy all my tea from. So they're a tea boutique and they have this beautiful printed paper bag with this little purple, lovely iris flower painted on it. And then they also have their logo and the shop details over here. So I'm going to actually cut out the iris flower as well as that little branding that they have on the paper bag and use these for my journal spread. Now, that's why I have all of these purple supplies. So I have the vellum sheets, I have the printed ones, and I have this cute one with little dots on it. Then I have some flower stickers as well as these dots stickers, plain ones as well as printed ones. I also have this transparent little sort of strip, which is again like a sticker sheet and it has these flower patterns on it. Then I have this lace doily, which I thought would look really cool with the whole sort of tea theme. And the reason why this spread is going to work very well for me is because I actually co-incidentally found a little sticker with me which has like a teacup with purple flowers in it. So I thought that the whole theme could be about like tea and how tea is kind of like important to me especially... I'm sure it could be coffee for you. But the whole thing was about how tea is like important for me. And I thought that it could sort of tie in the whole tea drinking theme together. Now I have this washi tape which has little butterflies printed on it. And you can see that the color scheme's kind of similar to the base of the paper bag. And then I have this petal washi tape where you can basically peel off every individual petal. And once you place the petals in a circular manner, it becomes like a full flower. So again, because this was purple. so I decided to just keep this handy. And like I said, even in yesterday's video, there's a high chance that I'm not going to end up using all of this. But I like to gather all my supplies in the beginning and just keep them right next to me so that I don't have to keep hunting and digging through my stash again and again while I'm making my journal and it doesn't take away from my process. So now I'm going to just quickly cut these elements from the paper bag. I have the flower and I have the label of the tea boutique which I want to use in my journal spread. Now I am sure you must have noticed by now that all the little elements that I've gathered over here, from the stickers to the vellum sheets as well as this main element, they're all different shades of purple. So some are more reddish purples, whereas some are more blue-ish purples; more in the violet space. But I've still kept them all together as long as they are in the violet-purple spectrum. I've sort of kept them together because you never know what might just look nice with each other and which color might help us to kind of break the monotony of the spread. So I just like to keep elements of a similar color family ready with me before I start my spread. Alright, now I've got all my elements ready with me. I'm done with the cutting. There's one more thing that I'm going to use in the journal spread today, and that is these mulberry paper sheets that I have with me. Mulberry paper, also known as saa paper, is very commonly available at stationery stores. So I have it in these three different shades of purple. And I want to use one of these, I think the ones on the right side are going to look a little too bright. And I also want to use it in combination with like a creamish handmade paper. So I think I'm going to go with the one which is the leftmost one because this I think is going to stay muted at the background. And you can see that it has this beautiful translucence to it and the fibers are really, really pretty when you put them against the light. So this is one of the reasons why I really like using mulberry paper because it's got this lovely texture, a lovely handmade sort of texture to it, which I love adding to my journal spreads. So yeah, I think the darkest purple, which is almost like a plum-ish color and that ivory cream-ish color is what I'm going to use. Now, the way I'm going to work with today's spread is that I'm basically going to create a wave on the page. And that wave is basically going to be like a cutout from the papers. So first things first, just like I did with yesterday's layout, I'm going to start off by pasting the white paper, this cream-ish white paper. But the way I'm going to cut this is going to be in a slightly more abstract wavy pattern, as against covering the whole journal spread with it. So I have basically folded the paper and then split it into half by cutting it like a wave. And so now you can see that it kind of gives this interesting pattern. And it basically divides the journal spread into two halves, like the top half and the bottom half. So now the top half is where I'm going to use that mulberry paper. And it's going to go behind. And I'm going to keep the white stuff in the front. Now this mulberry paper is slightly shorter in the horizontal length as compared to my journal spread. But that's okay because I can always cover it up with some embellishments and ephemera. I don't want to use the entire mulberry paper because I'm not even going to see the bottom half of it, so there's no point in wasting the sheet. Mulbery paper is also slightly expensive as compared to regular paper. So it's a good idea to sort of use it judiciously. And even otherwise, for that matter, we shouldn't really waste paper and your supplies. Okay, so I'm going to quickly just add a little bit of glue and evenly lay it down. And basically, once I have applied the glue all over this spread, just like I did in the previous video, I'm going to stick my papers. I just have to be a little careful while sticking the mulberry paper because it's really thin. And sometimes the liquid glue basically makes the paper a little soggy and then it ends up tearing up. Unintentionally, you might just end up causing some tears and wrinkles on the mulberry paper. I personally don't mind tears and wrinkles because I feel it gives a raw sort of look to the whole thing. But if you also end up using mulberry paper like me and you don't want those little tears and wrinkles, then the best thing would be to just go real slow and take your time in pasting it. Alright, once I'm done with the mulberry paper, I'm going to put the white paper. I will need a little bit of extra glue in order to hold it properly. You can see that my mulberry paper started tearing up in the center and that was because the spine of the journal was giving a little bit of pressure. But that's okay because like I said, I don't really mind it and plus, it's going to get covered with some of the elements that we're going to place on it. And once I've cut out the excess, then the spread is ready for us to work on further. Now one of the interesting things about the split page approach is that you can do any shape when it comes to splitting it in the center. So I have chosen to do it with a wave but you could even do like a scalloped edge or like a zigzag edge. Or you could simply just do a straight, like a half and half edge if that's what you prefer. So the idea is that we just want to split our journal spread horizontally in two parts. And we just want to have like a top half and bottom half. And what do you do in the center doesn't really matter because you can give it any shape. I've kind of given it like a mirrored wave because I like to have wavy organic elements in my journal spreads, but you can definitely do a different shape if that's what you like. Alright, now once this is all set, the first thing I'm going to do is bring in my focal image. But I don't want to go about pasting it just as yet because I want little details to be on the top band. So the way this approach works is that you have all your visual elements, which includes your primary and your secondary images on the top band. And all your text is going to be at the bottom band. The only exception is your focal image, which is basically going to cross over from the bottom band onto the top one. And that's because it's the largest element that we have on the journal spread. So like I said, I'm not going to stick it just as yet. But I know I want it on the left side. And instead what I will do is add some washi tape over here on the left side and start to basically give background images and some character to the whole spread before I bring in the focal image. So this butterfly washi tape that I've just pasted has colors which are similar to both the papers that we've just pasted. So it goes really well with the whole scheme. Now I'm going to bring in the little tea boutique label that I had and I'm going to see where it's going to look best. Personally, for me, I like overlapping things and I know I want it slightly behind the flower, which is going to be on the left side. So I'm going to stick this first and then bring the flower on top. And now if you don't have the exact same focal images as me, then there are a couple of things that you can do differently. So for example, instead of the flower picture, you could easily use like an illustration from like a children's book or like an old picture of a monument that you must have visited from like a holiday, you can probably cut out like a monument from a postcard. Or if you've seen like an interesting illustration in a newspaper or a magazine, you can use that. And instead of the label, you can actually use like any kind of text, which goes along with the illustration. So probably it could be like the title of the book from which you've taken the illustration or the headline from the magazine article from which you have taken the illustration. So it could be something like that. And they don't even need to be the exact same shapes. The only thing to notice over here is that your focal image is the largest element on the page and everything else is going smaller in size as you progress further. Alright, now that I've brought my focal image in, you can see that the whole spread is coming together beautifully already. And that's the beauty of selecting backgrounds which coordinate well with your focal images. Everything just looks like one cohesive piece. I'm just going to bring in a wet wipe and clean up all those glue marks that I have accidentally caused on the label as well as the flower. And now I'm going to start working on the top right of the spread. So the first thing that I'm going to do is bring in the sticker which has the tea cup printed on it. And it almost feels as if like this whole spread is telling a story. It's as if the tea boutique, is trying to tell a story where they pluck the flowers fresh and then they go through a process and then they create some blends with it, and then it finally lands in the teacup of a customer or a client. So I feel like this whole thing is sort of telling like a beautiful tale or like a lovely story. Okay, so I'm just going to add in a little bit of washi tape over there. And just like I did yesterday, I like to bring in similar elements on both sides of my spread so that the whole thing looks like one cohesive unit. So I've used the butterfly one. Now I'm going to bring in the petal washi tape and add one petal right here. It almost looks as if the cup was overflowing and one of those petals just came to life from the picture and just came out on to our journal spread. How wonderful would that be though if pictures just came to life? Just like that. Alright now what I'm gonna do is add a little bit of the lace doily over here. I don't want to use the entire circle, so I'm actually going to trim it just a little bit so it becomes like a semicircular thing. And again, you can experiment with placements, whether you want it vertical or horizontal. Personally for me, I want it to be horizontal. And the reason why I'm using this lace doily is because, well, there are two reasons actually. First, because it's going to give a nice base to the transplant sricker that I want to add on top of it. So the flowers are going to look a lot brighter and better once I place them on top of this doily. And secondly, because I think the lace doily goes really well with the whole tea-time feel; almost reminding me of like sitting under the sun in my garden and drinking like a nice cup of tea... like in early winters or like just when spring is about to begin. Again, I'm just like romanticizing my journal spreads into fictional imaginations in my head. All right, so now I'm just going to bring in the flower sticker. And you can see how much of a difference that lace doily makes because now it almost looks as if the flowers were sort of like printed on the doily and they've kind of like overflown from the doily onto the spread. So that's the beauty of layering things... unexpected things when they come together, they create such a wonderful visual which really catches your attention and really creates magic on your journal spread. Now just to add a few other tiny elements on my spread, I'm going to add these petals again at random places. So a couple of these would probably look nice over here next to the label. As if they're overlapping the label. And I'm going to just probably use a couple of these on the top edge as well as at the bottom edge. The scattered petals are really giving the journal spread a beautiful feel. And like I said in my head, it's like a story as if the flowers are being plucked from this exclusive exquisite garden. And then they're kind of like going through different processes to make it to the final cup of tea. So I think the scattered petals definitely go into the vision that's in my head. And once I'm done with the petals, the final element that I'm going to bring in is going to be like this bud illustration. The bud is basically an extension of the same illustration from which I cut out the large iris flower. So the bud was actually right next to it. I didn't cut the bud earlier because I just wanted to focus on the big Iris illustration. But now I think that the bud is going to look really nice on the bottom right. And it just gives a very nice, beautiful tea garden feeling with these little organic shaped, random shaped cutouts on the left and the right edge of the page. And we have two sharp edged elements, which is the rectangular label, the tea label and the rectangular image of the teacup. So when we basically play with shapes and sizes, journal spreads start to look a lot more interesting. If we try to keep everything in the same size or in the same shape, then the spread tends to look a little monotonous and boring. And then we don't know what to focus on. But this way we know that our eye will obviously first go to the big Iris image because that's the largest one and then the eye is kind of traveling from there. So it's almost as if you are taking the viewer on a journey where you are asking them to focus first on the largest image. And then gradually their eye tends to move from left to right. And as their eye travels they notice the label, the teacup. And then finally come down to the little bud that we just pasted. I'm just going to trim out the excess from the top edge as well as the bottom edge. And just to make this spread look a little neater. And once I'm done with this, I'm ready to put in my text. Now there are a couple of different ways that you can do the text in this spread. So since your large focal image is on the left side of the journal spread, you know that everything else has lesser visual interest or lesser value. So you can just go with like regular plain handwriting and just use that little block of white on the bottom right of the page and write down whatever little thoughts that you have over there. But for me, I want to add a little quote over there. So the quote is a short one. It doesn't have a lot of words in the sentence, which is why I know that I'm still going to be left with a lot of white space around it. And that's exactly how I want it to be. Because I want the focus to still be on the iris flower and not on the quote. If I end up filling up this whole white chunk, with like really big handwriting or really big letters, then the attention will go on the quote. So I don't want that to happen. So the quote that I've chosen for today is this wonderful little thing that I read on the Internet, which is, "Tea is always a good idea!" And this is something that I live by because I feel that a good cup of tea can really, really charge you to do things nicely. And I'm a tea lover... So this really resonated well with me. So I'm going to bring in my alphabet stamp set and use it to put the quote over here. And just to finish off the whole botanical tea garden kind of vibe that is going on in the page, I decided to use my leaf stamp set as well to add one tiny little element at the bottom of the quote, just like I did yesterday. Now, if you don't have a stamp set, that's perfectly fine. You can do this in regular handwriting too, or you could just use like a marker to write this in capital letters and that's fine as well. And if you don't want to do a quote and you want to write something else instead, that's perfectly fine too. So this is how the final spread has turned out. And personally, I'm quite happy with it because I don't usually work with purples a lot. So this was an interesting coincidence for me that I ended up having a lot of purple elements with me in my journal stash. And I've created a purple spread after a really, really long time. And that's the beauty of collecting supplies for journals because you will suddenly realize that you have too many things of the same color. And the next thing you know, you'll be making a beautiful journal spread with those elements. So that's the beauty of creative journaling. Now here's another example that I've done with the focal image, again being the largest element on the page. So this one, as you can see, was done with a Christmas theme in mind. And again, the biggest element over here, is on the left side of the page, which is this cute little teddy wearing like a Santa cap. And I have little elements around, which are basically on the top band again. You can switch it around. You can do the elements on the bottom half and do the text on the top half if that's what you prefer, that's completely fine. You can also flip the placement of the focal image. So you can do like the largest focal image on the right side of the page. And do all the elements going in the left direction instead of the right direction. The only thing to keep in mind in this kind of a spread is that your biggest element or your focal image should be able to guide the viewer comfortably in the direction of the spread. Whether you want them to go left to right or right to left or whatever it is that you have planned in your spread. All right, so that's it for this horizontal split approach that we have done today. Tomorrow, I'm going to meet you with another interesting layout idea. Till then keep creating. And I look forward to seeing all your beautiful spreads submitted over here in the projects and resources section. If you get stuck somewhere, then feel free to leave questions and work-in- progress pictures for me in the discussions tab. And I'd be more than happy to help you out. See you tomorrow. 7. Layout 3 - Window Cut + Collage: Hi everyone and welcome back to the course. Today we are on day 3 of discussing different layout styles for journaling. And I've actually got a very interesting style to work with today. But before we get into the process of making the journal spread, just like yesterday, we're gonna do a quick recap of what we did. So yesterday we basically did the horizontal split section approach, where we divided our spread horizontally into two parts with a Dobhoff and a bottom half. Now, you don't need to have it as an exact half. You can have the sections being slightly asymmetrical as well or unequal, and that's completely fine too. You can choose to make the half as a street edged half. Or you could do like a scalloped edge, a zigzag edge, and asymmetrical abstract edge. Basically anything that kind of gives you a partition from the top edge to the bottom edge. That's fine. And you can be as creative as you want with it. Now, apart from dividing this spread, one of the other things that we did yesterday was to basically figure out how we can grab the viewer's attention with a focal image. And how we can help create an additive or basically guide the viewer's eye into traveling from the vocal image to the rest of the elements on the pH. So we basically start by placing a really big focal image on either the left or the right side of the page. And basically you then sort of create like a tale of smaller elements. And these elements are sort of related to the focal image, or they can be of a similar theme or at least of a similar color palette, even if they're not on the same team. So that the viewers eyes able to sort of travel in that direction. And you're basically guiding the direction of the journal spread and making it easy for the viewer to understand what it's all about. So those were the key point does from yesterday's journal spread. And today we are going to work on a new technique. And for today what I've basically done is that I've kind of pasted my off-white paper on my journal spread and get it ready because I want the base to be this color instead of black. So this is probably unnecessary for you if your journal is already white, but in case you have a different color journal and you would like the beast to be white. And we've already seen it in the last couple of days that you can just stick a layer of the base color that you want and then it's ready to work on further. Now apart from this, I basically have like a printed sheet of paper with me. There's printed sheet of paper is basically going to be part out from the middle. And that's what the technique is all about today. So today we are basically working on a hollow window approach where we're going to actually do some grafting and create a small window within a pattern people, and use that as the space to write our text in. Now if you don't have printed people with you, you can also use a colored sheet. And it's not necessarily that you have to use a baton and Bieber's. So as you follow along in the video, you'll realize that there are many different variations that you can do to the technique that we're doing today. And it's not necessary for you to have a back-end people. Now, as you can see, this baton people is actually slightly bigger than the center of my journal spread. It's just a little bigger than that. So I'm actually going to cut it right to the center. And I'm actually going to show this on the black paper so it's easier to see the edge. So as you can see, I'm just using my Neal. I'm kind of just like putting a little dent on the people. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to guard the people in such a way that it slightly crosses the center mark or the journal spread. So basically the left side is going to be entirely covered with this baton. People with a little hollow cut out in the middle. And then just a tiny bit of that paper is going to cross over to the right side. So I'm quickly going to use my cutting mat and guard this. I've actually measured this already. I already know this is about this journal that I'm using is approximately six by six inches in width and height. So using that measurement, I am good leaders can do card this and basically create a square for myself which is slightly bigger than the left side of the journal spread. Alright, so I've got this cut to the correct dimensions, and now the size looks just fine. So now what I wanna do is I basically want to create a hollow cutout. I'm going to go about sticking this pattern people just as yet. I am actually going to create a small square window over here. And, and for this, what we're gonna do is we just have to look for the approximate center of weather window will fall once you cut it out on the journal spread and then got it accordingly. Now, if your backend paper is something like mine, where you basically have a lot of different elements to choose from. And then Uganda, your diamond deciding the orientation of where and how you want to place the paper. Now in my case, I have this really pretty blue butterfly on the dog. And I actually want to keep it without ruining the shape of it. So I want to cut out the window in such a way that the butterflies market out entirely. And it's only one of the other flower stems, which are the flower bunches that are cut out. So I'm just playing around with the orientation to see what works best for me. And I think the butterfly at the top is a good idea that when I create a window right under it, the butterfly will only lose just like a small section of the wing. And it won't really take away from the shape of the butterfly. So I think that's a good placement. Okay, So now once you're happy with the placement of your people, we will proceed to cutting out a small section of it. And what I'm gonna do is basically create like a vertical sort of rectangle, which is basically like a hollow window cut out. But you don't need to do the exact same shape as me. You could do a circular cutout, a triangle one, any geometrical shape basically. Or you could even do a flower shape, cut out an abstract shape doodle got out. Any shape is fine. Now just a heads up. When you're doing the cut-out, make sure that you cut it in such a way that the piece that you're left with eventually is usable. So basically we are going to use both the sections, the piece from which you have made the hollow part out, and the cartilage itself. So I recommend that you watch the video and see what I've done with my card out before you actually go ahead and proceed with cutting yours. Okay? So as you can see in my case, I have basically created this vertical rectangle and I've got this little window created from which you can basically see the background layer. And then I also have the small piece from that cutout left with me and we're going to use that as well. Now, I'm going to start applying glue to the people on the left side. And I'm going to stick it on top of the background layer. And I've already created my background layer as the white one, legged creamish white one, which is going very well with the color palette of the paper that I have chosen. So that's a good thing. So now once I'm done with this, I know that I have to bring my cutout on the right side of the journal spread and place it sort of diagonally opposite to where that window is created. But before I do that, I'm actually going to create some background layers. And we're actually going to build a mini collage over here. So this video today is also going to act like as an introduction to collages. And now when we are working on collages, is always a good idea to work with contrasting elements. So think of a mix of Baron papers and blame papers. And along with that also think of the different obesity's in which the papers are available. So for example, a card stock is going to be really, really opaque, especially if it's colored card stock is going to be really opaque. But when you work with the vellum sheets, they are going to be quite translucent in that sense. So you can use a variety of different peoples. And depending on the color scheme that you are going with, I'm sure you'll find a lot of cutouts to use from paper bags, from all leaflets, posters, et cetera. So there's no shortage of people around us. Now I have this old textbook page which has quite yellowed up. And so I'm basically using a little tear from that over here. And I'm going to glue this down. All right, so now once I'm done with this, I am going to bring in a film or printed papers to see what else I can do on top of this. So as you can see, I have a stack of printed papers, and some of these are actual book pages which have yellowed over a period of time. And I probably lost a few betas of these books or some of these are actually picked up from thrift stores and scrap stores. So these books have no value, which is why they're all kind of like tattered and there are just lose people's left with me. But some of these are actually purchased from the craft store. And the craft store basically creates for when DEJ papers with different sort of color grids to them. So you can see that some of them are more yellow, some of them are more than the pinkish space. Some of them are slightly more coffee colored. So basically, depending on the paper quality, each page kind of yellows or basically ages differently. And so what the graph store basically does is that it gives you like a lot of options to choose from in one good. So I'm basically going to use this paper from which I have this very light pinkish purplish batch that I can cut out. And I'm not using the text element because I've already done one text paper at the bottom. So on top of it I'm just going to stick a little bit of flame paypal. But because I like the look of that pinkish purplish batch that has on the paper. I'm going to use that. And then I'm basically going to bring in another little piece of paper which is basically standard but of people which came as part of the packaging from where I purchase my craft supplies from. And you can see that this is quite transparent in that sense. So you can actually see the text from under it. And to bring in a little bit of interest and variety, I'm going to now bring in some yellow well-known people. But I'm not going to use it just as yet. What I actually want to do is place a flower stucco first and then use just a little bit of this vellum paper on top of that flower sticker. I'll just show you how. So basically this is a transparent sticker that I have the basis transparent and the flowers kind of printed on it. And I'm just going to apply it on top of this crossing over. So you can see that it already brings a lot of interesting character to the collage. And as far as the William strip is concerned, I'm actually going to tear it out into a small section like an abstract piece and stick it as if the flower is being held on by this. So basically what I've done is that I've drawn the vellum paper, imagining it to be like or don't piece of paper. And use that over here on top of the flower sticker so that it looks as if this tape is holding the flowers. And you can see that the velum is also translucent. So some of the text from the bottom page is visible through. Now. Before we proceed further, I'm actually going to talk about a few things that you can do while building your collage. The first two are actually kind of already hinted at, which is that you can play with a printed papers versus spleen papers. And you can sort of apply them alternately on your collage to create interest and texture. You can also play with opacities of these papers. So we've already done some opaque ones as well as translucent ones and you've seen the effect that they bring. So it's always a good idea to keep layering text sheets or no, and then adding some translucent ones, then adding a few more branded ones, and then again adding some transparent ones so you can play with the layering basically. But one of the things that really make a collage work well is basically the shapes and the sizes of the cutouts that you're doing. Now, I personally prefer to work with organic cutouts, which basically means that I like to tear them out and abstract shapes. And I don't really go for structured shapes at all. But once in a while I will use structured shapes as well. Now, what that essentially means is that depending on the look that you're going for, you should take out the papers in different shapes and sizes and make sure that you have a large word ID to pick from. Now, when we started off with this particular village, the biggest element that I had was the, was the old textbook people that I pasted. Then I went in with like a smaller element. And then I went in with an element which was slightly bigger in size. And then I went in with a flower, which was technically the smallest so far. But then added like a small deep to it or the well and paper which then became, became the smallest element. Now, all of these elements will have different shapes and sizes. And that's why the collage ended up looking interesting. Had they all being of the same size, then we wouldn't have been able to see the bottom layers as much as we are able to see them right now. And then the collage wouldn't have had the same effect. Another thing to notice is the orientation of the papers, not all the papers, at least in the same direction. And we started by placing them vertically. And then we gradually move to placing them diagonally. And the flower than game a little bit more to the left, which was again diluted a little bit left. And then the yellow vellum was actually almost horizontal. We'd like a little angle to it. So play around with the angles and the orientations to make a collage work. And that's how you will be able to bring in a lot more visual interest and drama into your collage as against making like a monotonous one where everything looks the same. Now the reason why I'm mentioning these points is because as we go further, we are going to be working more than collages. And these little tips will prepare you for what we're about to do in the next few general spreads. Now, coming back to what we were working on. So now I'm basically going to bring in some stickers. And I have these pretty little cutouts from the sticker shock. Basically butterfly ephemera, our butterfly stickers. And they have different butterflies on them. So I'm gonna go with the ones which have the yellow and the bubble ones. Because I think they go well with the journal spread. And the reason why I've chosen the butterfly FMLA is again, as you can see, the left pattern people already had like a butterfly printed on it. So it goes with the whole butterfly garden botanical theme. So I tried to look for elements which have similar motifs are similar elements in them. Now again, this is going to bring in some variety to the collage because this is a more structural shape. So this is an absolute rectangle as compared to all the organic elements that we were working on so far. All of the other ones were abstract, but this is more structured. And now before we proceed any further, I will actually bring out my cutout from the baton be, but I'm pleased that over here. So basically, all of this collage work that we just did was supposed to go under that back-end BBA, as you can see. And now we're going to build further on double this patent paper. Now, an interesting thing to note over here is that even though this is your focal image, so to say, you have already done some work under it and then you're going to continue with some walk on top of it. But the work that you have done under is going to connect with the work that's on top of the baton paper. So what we're basically trying to say is that even though this was your vocal image, this is actually in a way become a part of the collage that you were working on so far. So now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue working with the collage techniques. And I'm going to bring in some vellum paper which has these interesting yellow dots circles on it. And just use a little strip of that over here. And then I'm going to use a couple of these, maybe one of these so-called stickers. And again, this one has like bird illustration on it, which again goes with the whole garden field. I'm purposely choosing colors and elements which go with the team of the baton Bieber that I already have. And now I'm basically going to bring in a court. Now this quarter is very interesting. It says beginning is easy, continuing is hard, and it comes ready as the sticker sheet from the shop when I purchased it from. But I'm actually not going to use it as is. I'm going to cut it into little strips and use each word as a separate element and arrange it in an abstract manner on top of that cutout knife, you don't have a printed stickler like me. You are free to do this in your own handwriting and just create tiny strips of paper with your own handwriting on it. You could also use brush lettering or calligraphy or any other lettering style that you usually prefer and use that. So as always, there are no restrictions as to how creative you can get with this and how you'd like to personalize your journal spread. I usually like to place the elements first and see how they're looking before we actually go about sticking them. So it's a good idea to just play around with the placement. Before you commit to sticking the elements on the people are right now once we're done with the code, you can see that the whole journal spread is starting to look white balance and it's all coming together. Now one of the reasons why it's also working is because if you notice, I purposely placed my court slightly below the little patch of the butterfly wing. That was important because that blue butterfly wing is actually the viewers clue. To understand that this little card hour has been taken from the left side of the paper. So when you think of it like a big puzzle piece, you know that this one actually fits on the left side of the paper in that window that we had created. So when you're creating a journal spreads, think about these little decisions and see how and what exactly your journal spreads are communicating to a person who might see them later on. And how would they be able to tell what was going on in your mind. So these little decisions will help you to make your journal spread a little more planned as against going completely abstract on it. Now because I've used circles stickers on the right side of my people. I want to use a couple of those little stickers on the left side of my paper as well next to the window. And this is to bring in a balance of sheeps. So the element on the right side of the paper would have looked completely 4D if I had absolutely no circled on the left side of my journal spread, which is why I've decided to add two of these. And I'm going to overlap this with another chord which basically says Fall Down seven dimes, stand up, eat. Which I found interestingly to connect well with the gourd on the right side. Now this is optional. You don't have to do Bu courts like me. You could totally do a heading on the left side and do a little bit of your own thoughts and feelings on the right side. Or you could reverse it. And basically we text to him, really come up with interesting ways to personalize your journal spread. Now one of the things to notice is that the text size on the sticker that I'm using here right now is smaller in comparison to the texts that I've done on the right side of the journal spread. And that's because technically speaking, the focal image or the focal point of our journal spread is still that little collage that we've done on the right side. It's not the left side of the journal spread. So the bigger the bigger alphabets or the bigger foreign size is what it's going to grab the attention of the viewer on the right side of the journal spread. And then they'll notice the puzzle piece. And then from the puzzle piece we basically switch our eye to the left side of the journal spread where we find secondary text and secondary images. And so that's why I have this quote over here. Now, another thing that you'll probably notice is that the color of the people. Which this Court has printed, is also a lighter as compared to the color of the paper on which the other Gore-Tex printed. And again, because that one is Dhaka, So the focus goes there instead of the left one, which is lighter. So technically speaking, the code on the right side kind of becomes like a headline. And whatever I have on the left side of the pages basically, just sort of follow-up thoughts on what I've already done on the right side of the journal spread. So again, playing with color, bling with fond and playing with sizing especially can help you make your journal spread a lot more interesting. And it'll help your viewer don't know where exactly you want them to focus on. Now what I want to do is basically add some elements at the center of spread where the baton paper cut out is basically just sort of meeting the blend BBA. And I'm just going to cut out a sticker into some organic little shapes, abstract little strips basically. And use those just to take away from the sharp edge of that people. And the reason why I'm doing that is because if you notice we have a lot of organic cutouts. So starting from the printed people that we had put at the bottom of the collage. Do the code that we just recently based it on the left side of the journal spread, we have a lot of these interesting decorative edge or don't label as basically. And I want to maintain that raw feeling and not have such a sharp element in the center of the spread. So I'm just going to do basically mute the sharpness of that paper card out by adding a few organic elements. So I'm not doing much. I'm basically just going to add like to sort of strips which are overlapping each other. And again, this is optional for some people. The sharp edge really works well. And they actually prefer the look of the sharp edge because it kind of gives like sort of like a partition and it kind of creates like a natural barrier between both sides of the journal spread. So some people like it, but I like to have some off beat elements in my journal spreads because I feel that there should be a little bit of an element of surprise and they should not really be as predictable as, as one would think. And I just like them to have something off heat. So for me, I think this is gonna do the trick. I might regret it later on, but there's no harm in placing it for now. Alright, now that brings me to writing my text. And so as always, I'm going to bring in my micron pen and I'm going to fill up that little window with some handwritten text. You can also choose to keep a picture inside the window if you feel that the picture is not going to interfere with everything that's happening around it. So that's another option that you have. And you can always make the window bigger or smaller or of a different shape depending on the team that you're going for and what your preference is. So there are many ways to customize this journal spread. Alright, so now that brings us to the end of this one. And again, you can see that the different paper textures are really bringing everything to life. Sometimes people shy away from making a goal edge at the base first because they feel that the focal hemorrhages going to cover it and there's no point. But to be honest, it's all in the process. So once you making the colors, you will realize that nine out of 10 times your ability to choose the correct placement of the focal image improves because you might want to preserve some elements of the collage and then you'd be like, okay, I don't want to place my image here. I want to place my image somewhere else because the collage is looking really pretty. So based on such conversations with yourself, you will actually see a drastic improvement in the way you place your elements in your journal spread. And this really comes with taking your own dime with your journal spreads and basically just enjoying the process. So don't be afraid to play with your elements and overlap them and layer them. Thinking that you might not see them in the end because for all you know, you might just stop at that point and you'd be like, okay, this is it. And you might just end up using that bid as your focal image. So play around and don't be afraid to experiment. Now, as always, I will show you another example of what you can do. So again, I have a Christmas themed spread over here that I have done where I basically chose to work with this sort of arch shape design. And as you can see, it's almost like, you know, how snow globes are. So it's almost like that on the right side. And I use the large Dicker of that little glass globe as a reference to create the shape of the card out on the left side. And then I basically did some elements around the frame on the left side. And I also did some elements on top of the element on the right side. So basically, you know, that that's actually kind of like the puzzle piece. So if you pick up that red blob on the right side and try to base it on the left side. It'll fit in perfectly. So yeah, this is an interesting way to grade your journal spreads where you basically take a part of the paper or the image from one side of your journal spread to the other, almost creating like puzzle piece which is probably gone astray or has fallen out of the puzzle, and then you build some elements around it. So I hope you had fun working with this technique and I look forward to seeing your journal spreads with this in the projects and resources section. Tomorrow I will meet you with another interesting technique. Till then, keep creating. 8. Layout 4 - Window + Layered Flaps: Hi everyone and welcome back to the course. So today we are on day 4 of discussing layouts for creative journaling. And the idea that I'm going to demonstrate today is actually one of my most favorite ideas. And the layout style that we're about to do today is perfect for filling in a lot of your text in your journal spreads. But at the same time, including it in such a way that nobody else is really able to see all your private information. So if you're keen to share your journal spreads on social media, but at the same time you don't want to share too much information, then the general layout that we're doing today is perfect for you. And we'll get to that in just a bit. First, let's do a quick recap of what we did yesterday. So yesterday, I'm sure you remember we did though window car technique where we basically created a hollow cutout on the left side of our journal spread with a baton people. And then that little puzzle piece or basically that cutout was used on the right side of your journal spread where we basically created a little collage under it and as well as a little collage work on top of it. So basically the collage on the right side of your journal spread became your focal image, so to say. And then on the left side of the journal spread, we basically included some secondary text. Now we're going to be using the window car technique again today. And you can see that I've actually got some amount of work on my journal spread already done for today's exercise. So I have basically created this puzzle piece sort of cut out on the left side. And I've used that exact same piece on the right side of my journal spread, pretty much like what we did yesterday, except that I just chose to do it in a puzzle piece. And I've also flipped and rotated the puzzle piece on the right side, just so that it looks a little bit more interesting and is not an exact mirror image of what's happening on the left side. I have also used a thin paper strip in the center of the journal spread, which is basically are going to help in continuing the journal spread from the left to the right side. And we're again going to see why this was important in just about a minute. In terms of the supplies that I'm going to be using today. One of course, is the BSP board itself. So by now you know that I changed the color of the base depending on the spread that I'm working on. And so today I have graded obese with this creamish white people, which has blue threads in it. So if you look really closely, you can see some blue threads of floating about in the B-mode. And this is basically handmade paper, so the texture is quite visible over here. And then of course, on top of that, I've used baton people, which is basically card stock that game as part of our scrapbook paper bag. Now, apart from this, I'm going to be using different handmade peoples, which are in the same color family as the spread right now. So I have a neutral gray and then I have a couple of shades of blue material in the same color family as the back-end people that we already have. Now in order to begin the exercise today, the first thing I'm going to do is create small strips of these peoples. And I'm not really going to pay attention to the size as such. I'm just going to create strips or varying measurements. So some are going to be taken, some are thinner, some longer, some are shorter. So I'm just creating a random strips. And basically the strips are going to act as flaps for us and we're going to layer them one on top of each other. So I'm going to start off with this one, which is basically like a chunky block that I have with me right now. And I'm going to apply a little amount of glue to the edge of this people so that it can sit right on top of that vertical blue strip that we've created in the center. So as you can see, I didn't apply the glue all over the back of the people. I only did it at the edge. And I'm just going to press it down so that it settles in properly. Now I'm going to do the same thing with another strip of paper. This time I'm going to change the color of the paper and because slightly darker blue. And this time I'm going to place it would equally. So the bottom line opens in the left direction so I can open it like that. And this one that I've just be staid is going to open in the top direction. So you're going to always create a little trees like that, just to remember in which direction the flap opens. Now the placement of this has to be done a little carefully because when you are placing the top flap, you have to be a little mindful of where the glue is, you know, sort of meeting the people. If the glue touches the bottom flap or the flap that's under it, then the bottom flap won't open. So we have to kind of make it in such a way that each flap is eventually accessible to us. And you can create as many flaps as you like. There is no restriction for demonstration purpose. I'm just going to do like a few. But you can create as many as you like. Now to bring in some visual value. One of the things that I like to do is add little strips of deep or basically create some decorative elements. So I'm using this thin strip of stucco over here to make it seem as if that flap as kind of being held on by this little deep. And I like to do this with all the strips depending on how much it's visible. I've not done it on the bottom one because we can barely see the edge of that. But it really depends on how much detail you want to include in your journal spreads. Depending on the free time that you'll get on a daily basis, you can decide whether you want to have really extensive journals spreads, or just minimalistic ones, or maybe a mix of it depending on how flexible your diamonds every day. So those are personal decisions. Again, I'm going to bring in that hood flap and you can see that I'm again using a different color. So this is a green one, and this one is going to open from left to right. So I'm going to add a couple of stickers again over here just to make it look a little interesting. And then I will open it and just create a 3s. One of the reasons why I like to create these creases because if somebody else has to see my journal spread, I don't want them to accidentally open it in another direction. So I like to have that little crease as a glue for the plus-end going through the Spread. Do know what to open, almost like unwrapping are present. Now as I said, you can keep building on the flaps folded and you can add a fourth one, which is probably going from bottom Goodall, and so that you can open it in the south direction. So that's also possible. But I think for me I'm going to stop it right here and not build any further on this. So I'm happy with three flaps for now. Now what I'm gonna do is basically bring in some stickers and some ephemera to start decorating my journal spread. So I have this really cute stucco with a monument illustration on it. And I'm going to bring that and paste it over here. And again, I've chosen stickers and the gray blue color scheme that go with my chosen color palette. I'm gonna give this a wind damage feeling. But at the same time, all of my elements are nor from a similar theme. So they're not all Bhutan inquiry or all architectural. It's not the case today. Sam, just going random. But I'm not going random on the colors. So I've stepped to the color palette. So now the second one that I have has kind of like this little text with some stem illustration on it. And I'm using this right and overfit so that it mirrors nicely. And then I'm bringing in a couple of these dots stickers which have interesting illustrations on them. And using them just to fill up the space. Now I want to do some little embellishment work on the left side of my journal spread as well. So I'm going to add one stucco over here on the left side of the puzzle piece. And then I'm going to overlap it with another vertical strip. And these are optional depending on how much space you want to have for the text. These elements are optional. I'm adding a couple more of these wind dead stickers on the left side. It's actually the same sticker that has split in half from the middle. And I've just stored in it and I'm putting two pieces of it. And just to balance out the shapes, I'm adding the so-called sticker on the left side of the journal spread as well. And once we're done with the embellishments, we can start adding the more important stuff. So yesterday what we basically did was add secondary text on the left side of the journal spread. And then we did all the primary collage work and the code on the right side. Today I actually wanted to use this people and which has this really interesting illustration of homemade candies and chocolates on it. And I'm going to cut out this when did illustration and use this as my focal text for everything that I'm about to do further on. So basically the shop from there, I have purchased my age peoples. They had this wonderful kid where they will be edges from an old recipe book. And it also had some ads for homemade candies and home-made chocolates. Bye different women. And I don't know if these were all real. David, just, you know, fictional ones. But I ended up having a lot of these papers. And then I realized that there's a little story going on in there. So I basically shortlisted some papers which had text of a similar team level, all to do with candies and recipes of chocolates and puddings and stuff like that. And I decided to use that almost as if creating a small secret recipe journal for myself. So I decided to use that. So for my focal image, I basically found this text with said homemade candies recipes specially prepared by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill, which I found very interesting. And to go with it, I also found an illustration of some jars and some bakery products. So that also seemed like an interesting thing to put in this journal spread. And I am going to air this out as well. You've probably noticed that I use very little says OVOC when it comes to teach papers because I kind of like the dawn people look a lot. But you're free to use scissors if that's what you prefer. Now I want to use the illustration on the right side of my spread to be honest, but I think it's a little big. So I might have to separate out the text from the image. And I think after separating out the text from the illustration, I realized that the text actually makes for a good subtitle to the focal image that I've just pasted on the left side. So I think, right another level I can put recipes for making Isis and confectionary. I think that works well. Because if someone were to read this, it actually flows quite nicely. And it looks as if that text was a continuation of livable. And on the right side I can actually base to that illustration. Now imagine if this were really a recipe journal for you and you probably didn't want to showcase a lot of text to a third party. In that case, you can always keep pictures on the top flaps and put all your text underneath. Or let's say you've got special 100 and notes or something of that nature to preserve, then you're going to always keep pictures of the people who've given you those notes on the top and you can keep the messages in the labels inside. So there are multiple different ways to use the flap technique. And the wonderful thing about this layering technique is that not only does it give you extra writing space, but it gives you the ability to add for the leaders in case you decide to take impromptu decisions in the future and feel like you want to add something more to your spread. Sometimes when I'm writing about my day and my journal, I feel like I have a lot of information to put in, but it really annoys me to get you that information from one spread to another. I basically want to contain all the information in the same spread. And when I basically flip the page, I want that to be a new d. So in order to make sure that the quantum So one day don't spill into the next spread. This technique helps me a lot because it's easier for me to keep pasting papers and put all the information about one day in one spread instead of spilling over that information to the next one. So that's one of the reasons why I really like this technique. Another reason why I like this technique a lot is because if I'm traveling and I have a lot of the seeds and tickets and general memories to store. Then I don't like to keep adding all that information over multiple pages in my diary. So I like to create flaps. So for example, if I have visited a museum or movie theater as well as let say recreational park on the same day. Then I don't want to have kids or all three places spread across three different journals spreads. I'd rather create them in the years on the same journal spread and give one focal image or just adding some text about my day and basically put it all in one spread. So that's where this technique helps me a lot. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and add some more text cutouts on these flaps, which are under the green one. So for this light blue one, I have a small image which basically has like a little family breakfast menu that came out of the same people bundle. So I'm going to add that. And for the load under that, I actually want to include a small paper card out again, which has the recipe, but it's slightly wider than the paper cut out. I can actually folded and fit it to the size. So all of this basically makes for a very interactive experience. Let's say if I open up this journal spread of few years from now, I will definitely enjoy opening all of these little flaps and opening these little folds to find information inside. And it'll make for a very interactive experience for me. And similarly, if you're using these techniques for, let's say a family scrapbook or a memory. We'll then, when you pass it down to the future generations in your family or give it to your friends or cousins or colleagues for that matter, then these kind of interactive experiences really add value to the memory book that you've created. Now for the bottom most layer, I'm going to add this little thing returns icings and frostings. And what I'm gonna do is I'm basically going to add this vertically. So I'm going to turn this around. So again, changing orientation, being with size being good shape, all the things that we did yesterday, they apply overhead as well. So the minute you add this in a different orientation, it's basically a queue for someone to root it, the journal, and then read it again, which basically makes for a very interactive experience. So it's fun to do all of these interesting things in your journal spread. All right, So I think that finishes up the flap work for me. I just want to add a couple more elements on the left side. So I'm going to use this little sticker which basically has like a hub or a planned on it. And I'm going to add that. And I have a washi tape, which basically has coffee beans on it. So I'm going to use a little bit of that on the top right as well as the bottom left. Because I think coffee and confectionery and all of those gigs and beaks that we have basically seen in all this text, they kind of go well together. All right, and we're done. So basically the spread is all about creating interesting layers and creating extra writing space for you. So you can consider doing this even when you feel that you're running out of space on your journal spread. Or you can do this just to add some aesthetic value. You can use any number of laps. There are no restrictions. And of course, you can play around with shapes and sizes as well. Now, just to give you an idea of what else you can do with the flaps technique. I have created another spread over here, which is to basically lists down all my goals for the new year. So I wanted to basically do an interesting layout and not really write down my goals in the form of a list. So I created these flaps using people oily and I basically Tolstoy it ease of different sizes and I got my tables in semi-circles, use the oil lease as an ornamental decoration on it. And then I created these flaps. So as you can see, there's a little bit of influence of the center band approach also over here, where I basically written my text and created that as the focal image or kind of like the focal point of the journal spread right in the middle on the left side over here. And then everything else is under the flaps on the right side. So basically you can play around with the techniques, mix and match them and greed, interesting journal layouts for yourself. Just experiment and see what works for you. And very soon you'll be able to come up with your own layouts as well. So with this, we come to a close for today's lesson and keep practicing. I look forward to seeing you in tomorrow's lesson or with another interesting layout idea. Till then, keep creating. 9. Layout 5 - Mirrored Collage : Hi everyone and welcome back to the course. So today we are going to discuss layout number 5, which has to do with collages. Now making collages is something that I really, really enjoy. And we've discussed a little bit of this briefly on D3 when we were working on a medium collage on the right side of our journal spread I and we did the window on the left side. But today we're going to dig deeper into that topic. And before we get to the exercise, as always, let's do a quick recap of what we did yesterday. So yesterday as well, we did the window car technique where we basically Carter puzzle shaped obese on the left side from the baton people. And then we used that piece on the right side of the journal spread. On top of that these, we build some flaps. And the flaps can be created very easily using small strips of paper. These can be planed papers or pattern ba bas. And we can write text on these papers or we can stick images. You can have as many number of labs as you lie and there is no restriction on the shape as well as the size of these flaps. One of the reasons why I really like creating layered flaps as because they give a lot of extra space for writing. If you feel that you are running short of space on your journal spread and you'll still want to keep everything within that little boundary and you don't want to spill over your content to the next journal spread, then this is a great way to include all of your text within those two pages. So coming to today's exercise, like I said, we're going to be working with collages. And to be more specific, we're going to be working with middle and collages. So for the materials, I have basically gathered a bunch of printed papers, which are in the shades of pinks and reds. So they have beautiful roses printed on them. And then I have some textured people, which is again handmade paper. And then I have some neutral people is like off-white green papers. Along with that, I have basically shortlisted some pictures and ephemera, which has roses printed on it, some beautiful vintage text, handwritten text on it. And then I have some vellum sheets as always, then some dots stickers. So basically standard supplies that I use on a regular basis. And most of these I think are from the same gate which I bulges from the general shop. So I think they were all part of like a floral FMLA rockets. So they any way sort of fall in the same color family and they kind of gel well together. So I just had to do a lot of digging for the peoples. But I realized that all the stickers and everything else was kind of already sitting in a bunch in my box already. So I'm assuming that they all came from the same kid. I don't remember that now. Now to get started for this journal spread, the first thing I'm going to do is stare out my white people. And instead of creating the BSW in my usual manner, I'm just actually going to create two large chunks of this people. And so this first one, as you can see, this is quite big and it's likely crossing over to the other side. And that's fine. And then I'm just going to quickly stick this and then do a similar thing on the bottom right as well. So they don't need to be exactly same in size and shape. You can vary the sizing and shape a little bit. And depending on how big your journalists, you probably might end up making even bigger chunks than me. So that's fine. And once you have stuck both your pieces, it'll end up looking something like this. Another concept for today's collage is actually pretty simple. Whatever we are going to do on the dog right of the journal spread is exactly what we'll do on the bottom left. And whatever we do on the top-left is what we'll do on the bottom right. So basically the opposites are going to be similar to each other. Now it doesn't mean that they're going to be exact mirror images, but they're going to be sort of similar so that the entire spread is in harmony and everything looks cohesive. So I'm going to start out by drawing out some small strips and pieces of this beautiful pink pattern people that are having me. And this has roses printed on it. And by now you know that I like to use very little bit of scissors, but I end up actually getting out most of these things by hand. So I'm going to quickly put in two small elements of this people. One on the top right and another one on the bottom left. And so like I said, they're not going to be the exact same elements like they're not going to be exactly mirrored images. So you can vary the sizes a little bit. Now to bring in some interesting with IT in the collage, I'm basically going to use this textured paper that I have. And again, got out some strips of this. And I'm sure you remember from D3 when we were talking about collages, that it's always a good idea to keep changing the orientation as well as the placement of the elements that you're putting in your knowledge. So this time instead of going horizontally, I'm going to place these strips vertically. The previous ones were placed horizontally, so it's a good idea to change the direction for these. And so again, one is taken and the other one is slightly thinner and shorter. Now I'm going to start bringing in my FMLA and stickers. So I had this beautiful stucco with a pretty rules and like this sort of insect on it. And I'm going to place this over here on the top right between the two peoples that I had listed earlier. And now to bring in a sense of harmony, on the bottom left, I'm going to use a similar element. It doesn't have to be the exact same size and shape. So I can basically take a vertical strip which is in the same sort of color family. And you can see that the illustration on this one is similar to what was there on the top right one. So I'm going to use this over here. And if you don't have like a sticker pack, the way I have it, you can easily use any kind of pattern people or you know, any gift wrapping paper and cut that into different shapes and sizes and use that over here instead. Because, I mean, the gift wrapping paper will have the same background, right? So in these two stickers also that I've just pasted, the similarity is the background, the a 100 and, and sort of when digital letter background that it has and then of course the roses on top. But this could easily have been like a gift wrapping paper or like a huge illustration from a magazine or a newspaper that can be further card down into smaller pieces. So you can play with materials and not really depend on stuff from craft stores, that's completely fine. All right, so now the next thing that I'm going to do is bring in off-white mulberry people, my baby. But it's something that I love using in my collages because when you tear it out, the fibers sort of come out beautifully. And I love to have those little deck old edges, those frayed edges where the fibers are sort of coming out. I feel like they make for a very interactive experience in your journal spread. Because every time I open this spread, I feel like touching that deeper and just let you know playing with the fibers on the edges. So it is really, I think it's just like I think one of my fantasies is that I just want to like have everything made of mulberry, like loans bags, everything made of Mulberry because I mean, the paper is just so pretty. And so yeah, this is something that I like using a lot. So I think I'm going to place this diagonally. And it looks quite nice over here. And now I'm going to basically bring in a transparent stickers, which is not exactly a rules. I don't really know what the name of this one is, but it looks like a regular sort of garden flower. And I'm going to place this diagonally over here. And the beauty of these transparent stickers is that they really sort of bind all the elements together. So up until now, that white mulberry paper and all of that being textured paper, they will sort of looking like two separate elements. But the minute I put this transparent sticker on top of it, they just sort of looked connected. And that's the beauty of adding elements, add these edges because you can actually bridge the gap between two elements very easily by just putting an element in the center of those two bigger elements that are not meeting each other. So that's always one place where I use transplants because the largest to attach elements together. And I think by now you know that I like to put my stickers, especially flowers, because in such a way that they look as if they've been held on by Lego piece of tape. So that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to use a little bit of washi tape to add that over there at the bottom of the stem. And I'm going to use a little bit of washi tape on the left side of the journal spread as well. So this washi tape will not only create a sense of balance and harmony, but it's also helping me get rid of that 4D black spot. And again, because this is translucent, so you can see just a little bit of that black paper underneath. But overall, it's bringing everything together in the same color scheme, so it's kind of binding everything nicely. Now use mulberry paper on the right side of my journal spread, but I didn't really end up using it on the left side, del now. So I'm going to add a small strip of that over here. So one of the things to notice over you'll notice that not only can you play with the sizing and the placement, but you can also play with the order in which you place your items on your collages. So I didn't end up putting the white mulberry people owe us. I'm going to put it now. And now on top of this, I'm just adding like a small circle sticker. Again to get rid of that, you know, that 4D gap that was happening because that plays with him and very people was sitting on top of that being printed paper. It was sort of forming like this L, 90-degree kind of shape which is looking at. So the so-called stucco kind of helped me get rid of that. And just to like add some life into my journal spread, I am today going to use these dried flowers like this baby red stems that I have. You have to be a little gentle with dried flowers because they take a little bit of time to stake. So if you feel like, you know, they're not sticking in easily, just use a spatula, something to sort of press them and hold them for a few seconds before you release your hands so that they sit down and get pressed nicely on your journal spread. They require a little bit of patients, but eventually, the effort is it all completely worth the effort because you will really, really love seeing these red flowers in your journal spreads. On top of this dr. La stem, I'm basically going to use a vellum BCE now. Welcome, as you know by now, is basically translucent sort of paper. So it's going to create like this nice pocket is going to basically appeared as if there's a little pocket from which the flowers coming out. And that's what I'm going to place over here. And again, this one had beautiful sort of abstract printed pattern on it. So that again brings in a little bit of interest and variety and do the collage. And just to make it seem a little organic and get rid of that sharp edge, I'm going to add a so-called sticker over there, which also helps me to balance out the other so-called element on the left side of the journal spread. Now at this point, if you like, you can actually stop your journal spread right here because it looks quite finished at this stage. And depending on the amount of texts that you want to write, this is a good place to stop if you feel like it. But for me, I like to follow a little bit of like a maximalist kind of an approach when I like to have lot of elements in my journal spreads. And that's just a personal choice. There are some days when I just wanna make larges because they're so therapeutic and so addictive for me that there is literally no other activity that I find more relaxing than making collages. So I like to have a lot of elements on my page. And I don't want to write so much on those days. But yes, I will have my thesis, but I want to focus more on writing and then I will not do so much of collage work and I would focus on minimal elements. So depending on the kind of mood, urine, depending on what your preferences are, what kind of approach you usually like in your journal spreads. You can stop right here or do less work or more work. So there's no right or wrong over that. So yeah, like I said, if you feel like stopping over here, this is a good place to stop. There's nothing wrong over here. But as far as I'm concerned, I want to actually add more elements. So I have this cute circles to go with me, which has like an insect again. And this insect is very similar to the insect that was dead on the top right of the journal spread on that rule sticker. So I thought that having like a couple of insects around in a journal spread will sort of add to the whole rose garden botanical wave. And so I'm adding this. And then I really want to use this little volume cut out that I have with me, which has like a betty sort of bland. I don't know what this is called, but it looks like some sort of like a garden Betty kind of bland. And I want to use this. But now the thing is that I want to use this undermine transplant sticker. And technically speaking, I should have done this before, but sometimes when I'm making collages, the processes so intuitive. And you know, I realized things later on, which is going to be the same for you as well. If you start doing this on a regular basis, you'll realize that you're not always be able to plan your spreads. So I want to use this article. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to basically check if I can actually lift up that transmittance sticker. And please my Betty bland ping under it. And I'm first going to take it out. And then I'm going to lift up that sticker and put it on it. So one learning and one tip that we have over here is that anytime you feel like doing something, which you feel you should have done before, just try to lift up the element and see if it's not completely blew down. For all you know, you might have missed a spot of blue somewhere. Or the stickler might not have been pressed down completely. And that might just become your little window to place an element under it. So just because, you know you've pasted in element, don't think that it's completely glued down and it's like set in stone or something like that. Don't be afraid. Check if you're going to lift it up. And for all you know, you can place under it. So yeah, I'm going to add this guy, undid it. And and yeah, that looks nice. So the good thing is that this well-known got out that I've just done is also helping me get rid of that little all-black space that was happening between the two white big background patches that I had created. So this is helping me to tone down that black patch in the center. Now some people have asked me there's any specific kind of glue to use with vellum. And frankly speaking, any kind of glue works. If you use the rule on glue, there are lesser chances of wrinkles. And if you use the liquid glue there are more chances of wrinkles because volume is of course quite thin. But eventually it all depends on what is it that you like. And I think by now I've established in all my biggest journal spreads that I don't mind wrinkles and actually like having little sort of bumps and humps on my journal spreads. So I don't mind using liquid glue. But you can definitely use like the rule on glues or the double-sided tape. If you like, a more smooth sort of finish. Now just to finish up the 4D gaps here and there, I'm adding a little piece of vellum again at the dog, right. And then a little bit of it over here on the bottom left. And this is slightly brighter pink. So you can see that it's kind of adding like that little pop of color. Then I'm taking a small piece of standard but of paper and just adding it over here. Just to again take away from the sharpness of that little strip that I've just pasted. And finally, just to add a little bright bulb, I'm going to add another pink flower, stick it over here. So I'm sure you've noticed that in today's spread, we don't really have one particular focus, but we do have a sense of direction stable and ask spread. So whether the person notices the top right or the bottom left, it doesn't matter because I will still travel in the desired direction. It will either go from top to bottom left or bottom left to top right. Because the spread is sort of connecting well in that sense. And the collages especially are sort of almost meeting in the center of the spread. If I broke the eye like a couple more elements in the middle, then it'll just become connected drill. But I'm not gonna do that because I like it the way it is right now. But again, I mean, they might be days when you want to create like a connected real. And that's totally possible as well. All right, So now that finishes up the collage and here are some glues, upshots of what it looks like. You can see that it all has like beautiful texture. Another thing that I've basically done is added a little bit of text and all the MD spaces. And I basically chose to have like a nice big heading, which is again in the same color scheme as the rest of the page. It is slightly brighter, which is kind of okay because in a way I won some amount of attention to go on the heading. So maybe you can think like the heading is sort of like the focal image and then everything else is sort of like secondary stuff, which is complementing the text or the headline that's written, and the visuals as sort of complementing that. So that's one way to look at it. But let's say I had not done the heading and a head just like they can maybe like a pencil. We'd like a really light don't do it. And I had just done some text in smaller letters like the rest of my handwriting, then they wouldn't have been anything to focus on. And in that case, the focus would completely go on the collages. So again, you can play around with the text and the images to see what exactly it is that you want the focus to be on. While this, while we've also been talking a lot about what other people will spot for us to know journal spreads. But frankly speaking, journaling is such a personal and such an intuitive process that at the end of the day doesn't really matter what other people see or don't see. There's a high chance that you will probably not even share your journal spreads on social media or you might not even show them to someone else. And in that case, it's only you eventually who has to be happy with what you're seeing on your journal every day. So just as long as you are fulfilling your goal of journaling and VD, or twice a week or whatever it is that you've set your gold foil. And just as long as you see growth in your journal spreads and you try new techniques and try new ideas. That's all that matters. So if you don't really have focal images and if you don't really have the correct balance and the correct harmony, It's fine. It doesn't matter because you might have one bad spread once in a while, but most of the other threads are going to be good and you can choose to share them on social media if you like. But if you don't share them, it's fine and there's no harm to that. So yeah, basically just enjoy the process and you practicing, That's the only trickier. So that finishes up our exercise for today and we are going to meet again tomorrow with another interesting technique. I hope you get to practice collages a little bit in your journal spreads because they're also really good for DIY projects such as scrapbooks and making, reading gods and making collages is also kind of like a fun activity. So I hope you get to do it. And I look forward to seeing your spreads over here in the projects and resources section. So I'll see you tomorrow then. Bye-bye. 10. Layout 6 - Mini Polaroids + Collage: Hi everyone and welcome back to the cause. So today we are going to discuss our next layout for greater journaling. And the idea that we are going to work with today basically involves a combination of structured elements as well as collage elements. So yesterday when we were working with collages, we basically played a lot with textures, shapes, sizes, pattern pebbles being Bieber's opaque elements and translucent elements. And we basically saw that leering elements 100 top of the other, creates a very interesting effect. And it basically adds to the visual appeal of your journal spread. Now borrowing some of the ideas from there and basically using older learning that we had from yesterday, we are going to work on today's spread as well. And Photuris spread. I'm basically going to work with a limited color palette again. So I'm going to work with elements in the colors of yellow and green. And I have basically done my base work already. So the backgrounds all set with this handmade creamish white people pasted on top of my black journal. And the three pictures that I'm using today are in the color palette of yellow and green. So one of them has beautiful green leaves, the other one has pretty yellow flowers. And the third one is a court. Now the spread that we're working on today can be a great activity to store pictures from special event in your life. So let's say you've attended a wedding or you have a graduation event or a birthday party from which you have pictures and you want to add them to your spread or add them to your scrapbook, then this layout works really well for that. So to begin with, I have some clean paper cutouts with me. And these people cut outs are also in the same kind of valid as my focal images. I'm going to be using these to create a fake sort of boundary or an edge around my vocal images, almost creating a Polaroid sort of effect. Now Polaroids usually have like a white border around. But in this case, I'm going to be playing with yellows and greens. And along with that I have some old book pages. Then I have 0, well MPs, some general FMRA, which is again all in the color palette that I've chosen. I was up in doubt like a couple of ornamental ones along with some botanical leafy ones, just to create some interest and variety in my spread. And again, there's a chance that I might not end up using everything. A couple of these already looked like. They're a little darker than my liking, but we'll see how it goes. So I just basically like to collect all my things in advance. And I also have some random paper strips with me, leftovers from previous projects. So yeah, I've kept these also on the site. So now let's start with the focal images and see how we can convert them into Polaroids. Now, basically, the pictures that I have with me are approximately six centimeters in width and nine centimeters in height. And I've chosen people got out with just slightly longer and wider than the picture itself. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take each of the pictures and place it on top of like a contrasting people. So for example, in this case, yellow and yellow won't look so nice. So I'm going to put the yellow one on top of the green one. And you can see that it's basically creating like this Polaroid sort of an effect. The bottom is of course, a slightly bigger. And the reason why I've kept it like that is because I can use that area to write some text pretty similar to how an actual bullet Reuters, where you can basically add some notes at the bottom. And you can of course change the sizes. You don't have to do it in these vertical strips the way I'm doing it. You can do the actual Polaroid measurements. If that's what you prefer. Polaroids are slightly more squarish. But since I had vertical pictures, I decided to do vertical Polaroid and just customized it to the size that I had. So now what we're going to do is place these pictures on the journal spread and we're going to do to one side and one on the other side. Now you can play with the arrangement. So you can do both the yellow ones on the left side of the spread. You can do one yellow, one green on the left, and the yellow one on the right. So you can basically play around with the placements. But the idea is that I just want to have like an odd number on one and an even number on the other. So now I'm first going to start pasting my pictures on top of these backgrounds. And you can see that the value of the picture, or like the look of the picture, automatically enhances the moment you put it on a background. So, you know, if you probably got some pictures from, let's say a wedding. Weddings usually have a color palette. So from the decode and the flowers and the addresses of the bridesmaids and you know, everything that you have in the wedding basically is awful color palette. So you can just take inspiration from the colors in the pictures that you have and use those as the backgrounds. Or let's say if you attended likability body and you want to store those pictures, then the birthday party balloons, the confetti. Probably if it was like a coordinated with the body where everyone wore clothes of a similar color. You can use all of those colors and add backgrounds of those colors so that you have a color palette to work with. Now, I'm going to basically please my pictures in such a way that I have two yellows on one side and the green one on the other side. But before actually get to that, I'm going to do some of the smoke and the bees woke basically involves creating a collage. Now this time I'm not going to do a very big collage. I basically one though focus to stay on the pictures. And I don't want this to be our text heavy spread. I want this to be more of like a visual picture heavy spread. So I'm just going to put some glue at the bottom of my journal spread and add collage elements only at the bottom. So I'm going to start with old book pages and basically just sort of add some random pieces. And you know, I, every time I have large pieces of paper and I take out certain elements, I basically keep the leftovers, I don't throw them away. So I have a bag of basically just like small random tidbits of debug. And I try to hunt through that as much as possible. Only when I feel that the sizes are way too small, do I switch to my bigger box where I have the bigger sheets? And then I pull those out and then I start tearing bigger elements again. But basically I just save all my Django high, never really throw anything out. Okay, so now I basically added this welcome cut out and you can see that they're translucent. So volume is really wonderful because you can actually see the book page from under it. And at the same time, the illustration on top is also looking interesting. So velum is really useful when it comes to learning things and adding some interest. But you can sort of achieve this effect with butter paper as well and probably add some stamp book or illustration work on top of it. Now and basically adding some stickers. It's basically the same stucco, which I have gone into random shapes. And I'm adding it here in there. So basically added a couple more printed well on visas. And now I'm starting to change the orientation again. So I've added this vertical stick, a strip. And we'd collages basically you have to keep adding glue every now and then. So that's something that we should keep handy. So now I'm adding this translucent yellow realm cut-out. And basically everything that I've done so far has been quite new data and the colors are almost blending into the background. Now I'm just adding a few drops here and there. Because eventually I do want the spread to look a little sort of bright and somebody and cheerful because of the yellow flowers and the green leaves that I have on my focal images. So I'm just adding some lighter elements. I like to have at least two to three pieces of each element just so that there is a connect in the spread and there's a sense of balance. So anytime that you're creating a collage, if you just have like one piece each, then the village tends to look very, very random. So to make sure that edge has at least some sense of harmony. And you know that everything looks as if it's being brought together and it's working well together. It's important to have at least a couple of repeats here and there. And when I say the beats, they don't need to be exact same pieces. They can basically be fragments of the same pattern people, for example. So you can have a bigger piece and a smaller piece. Or they could even be images split from the center or split into multiple pieces and then added here and there. So as long as you have at least two to three small pieces of each element, the collage tends to look a lot more unified in that sense. And then you have the focal images which basically tie everything together. Okay, now have this really large piece of a number. I'm FMRA, which I think I had it as part of a kit that I purchased from my journaling supply shop. And I found it quite interesting because it has like this little illustration on the dog and then it has text of the bag and then a number on the top. So it looked interesting to me and I decided to use it over here. Even though the number is quite big in jotting, I think I will be able to do on a down once I add the four kilometers on top. And since I've used a piece and this color, I'm adding another sticker, which looks similar. So I'm basically now starting to make this spread look a little brighter. I started with really neutral pages and pages and basically whitish elements which were sort of getting blended and dissolved into the background. But gradually now as I'm going on the top layers, I'm adding more yellow elements and trying to make it look a little brighter. Now I'm going to start bringing in my focal images so that they can also become a part of the cartilage. So first things first, I'll bring my green Mano video, which has my quote. And then I'm going to bring in the other two on the left side of the spread. Now one of the things to note here is that the placement of the green element that I've done on the right side of the journal spread is almost on the same line or on the same level as the second yellow picture on the left spread. And that's because they need to be on the same level or, you know, aligned together on the same line. So that it looks as if they're connected. If they are completely away from each other, and if everything is haphazard, then the spread won't look as unified. So again, it's all about where your eye is traveling and how you're basically guiding the vision. So you start with the picture on the leftmost end of the journal spread with the yellow flowers. And then your eye travels to the second yellow picture and then it automatically shifts to the green one on the right. Or you could consider the green one to be the brightest. Some people might notice that first and then your eye travels in the left direction. But essentially, it's easy for the eye to travel if at least two elements are on the same blame. All right, so now I'm basically going to add some handwritten notes under the pictures. And I'm just going to use like some random words. You can totally are deserts or special messages or anything specific that might have happened in the, in the event from which you are taking these pictures. Or if it was a wedding, you probably can add the names of the guests who are in those pictures. I mean, the people who are in the pictures, whatever it was, a birthday party and somebody said something funny or there was certain words or things that you remember from the event, then you can add those. So basically the text is totally up to you. And I've just added like some random things here and there. Just to make sure that the pictures don't look disconnected from the background. I'm just going to add in a couple more stickers so that, you know, they all look part of the same spread. And so that they get blended into the background work. Again, adding a so-called sticker helps to bring in a certain amount of variety in shapes. And then adding like this leaf, which has like a leafy illustration, watercolor wash on it. So adding this one over there just to bring in some interest and variety. I'm also going to add this transparence ticket over here, which basically has yellow flowers printed on it. And this is basically just to balance out the yellow on the spread. So there's a lot of yellow elements on the left side. And there's only one yellow element on the right side of the page. So I just want to balance it out by adding a couple more yellow elements. And that's where this sticker, it is going to help. I do want to add a couple of leafy elements so that the spread has somebody botanical sort of volume. And for that I have this sticker would like, uh, hope, blonde illustration, illustration. I'm not sure. So it has this illustration on it which I'm using between the two cutouts. And again, basically that's kind of like bridging the gap between the two Polaroids. So it helps to make them look connected instead of looking like two separate elements. And just like we did yesterday, I'm going to add a small stem of dried flowers over here. And in my usual style, I've decided to add another sticker on top of the stem to make it look as if the tape is holding the stem. And this one has a very pretty bird printed on it. And now I'm basically going to add in some text on the right side of the journal spread. And as you can see, the goal is to make sure that the picture stand out the most and everything else stays in the background. So I haven't used a lot of bright colors. I did eventually also add one small stucco on the right side of the spread just above my cohort. And that was basically a piece from the same sticker from where I took the bird stucco on the left side of the journal spread. So I decided to just add like a piece of that on the right side as well, just to create a sense of how many. Again. So this is basically a very simple journal spread. If you have a few pictures ready with you and you want to basically just use your time scrapbooking those pictures and clear like an interesting layout. So instead of using the collage elements at the back, you could actually use small things from the event itself. So let's say again, taking the example of a wedding, you could always use flowers from the wedding. Maybe your place cards, a little pieces of ribbons, balloons, anything that was part of the decor at the wedding venue. Some people also get like the names and emblems printed on the wedding venue, tissue papers and napkins and stuff like that. So basically just to use whatever you find from the event that a special occasion that you'd like to journal about, scrapbook about and add that to your collage and it'll definitely don't out to be very interesting. Alright, so that's it for today's layout. Today we've basically done a combination of collages and structured elements and created a sort of Polaroid effect. Tomorrow we're going to work with yet another interesting layout style. And I look forward to seeing your journal spreads in the projects and resources section. 11. Layout 7 - Folded Flaps & More : Hi everyone and welcome back to the course. So today we are going to be discussing one of my most favorite ideas for creative journaling, and that is the concept of folded flaps. Now, before I explain more about the concept, I wanted to talk a little bit about what we had done with layout number four. Now I'm sure you all remember that we lay out number 4. We had basically created this wonderful layering effect, where we had taken small strips of paper and layer them one on top of the other. And each time you open the flaps, we will sort of basically unraveling new pieces of information that were underneath the previous layers. So this kind of effect really makes the journal spread a lot more interesting and fun. And as I had mentioned earlier, it also makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable and interactive, especially when you let say, open up your journal pages of few years from now. And as you're flipping through the pages, then these kind of little details really add to the whole experience and you quite enjoy the process. Now borrowing from this idea, we also have the concept of folded flaps. So folded flaps also helped to make the experience a lot more interactive and fun. And just to give you an idea of how these flaps work, Here is a journal spread that I have done earlier where I have basically taken six images. And all of these images are basically on the same team. So they had all about beach holidays in ocean scapes and beat sand and stuff like that. And there's a whole vacation vibe to it. And I stuck these pictures in a grid-like fashion where they're sort of evenly spaced out. And I also left a little border around the edges just to make it look like a little grid. To match the size of the grid. On the left side, I have created a squared collage. And it basically adds to the whole grid like feeling again. And the collage has similar colors to the images on the right side. So essentially you can think of the images on the right side as like my focal images. And then I've sort of extracted my colleagues from there and created a collage on the left side. Now none of the pictures that you see on the left side are real pictures. So none of these are actual tickets or actual calendars or, you know, actual stuff from brochures or maps that I've taken from the holidays. And none of this is real. So this is just an imaginary spread that I have done. But the reason why I've done this bread is because I wanted to demonstrate and glass this, this entire layout so that you can get some ideas on how you can document your travel memories and how you can actually journal while you're on the move during your vacation. And many times when we don't know holiday, we basically have museum tickets, hotel receipts, restaurant receipts. And then we have boating bosses and small little bits and pieces of information that we get from travel brochures and pamphlets and stuff like that. So you can always take both elements and create a real collage out of memories that you have actually experienced instead of making an imaginary collage like mine. So this bread is totally, you know, sort of realistic in that sense that you can recreate it for real. And now the beauty of this spread is that it can actually store a lot of information, especially when it comes to writing your personal thoughts. So the square that you see on the left side is not just a collage that has been pasted on. This is actually a flap that I have created. And so when I open this flap, I basically have all my stuff written inside of it. So basically think of it as if, you know, if you're going on holiday and you want to write down everything that you're experiencing or human at IDEO thoughts while you're on vacation. And you want to put it all in the same journal spread without really running over to the next set of pages. And you don't want to extend the information into more journals spreads, then this is a great way to create extra writing space for yourself and keep all your thoughts in one place. Now this kind of folded flap is actually a very simple and easy one. It's almost like a greeting card that opens left. So you have the flap opening in the left direction. But you can make flaps of different shapes and sizes and opening in different directions as well. So for example, I have this vintage themed spread that I had done in the past. And you can see that lots and lots of images over here. I've done the background with a lot, not a well-known paper washes, stickers, apes and general lake newspaper clippings and stuff like that. And then on top of that, I basically created these flaps. One of them opens left and the other one opens in the doctrine section. So this one was more like a wind DEJ themed art journal spread where I didn't really have any particular concept in mind. Bursae. And I just took images of like perfume bottles of women, women's clothing. And I think all of these came from a paper bag, which was all about Retro advertisements and wind damage elements. So I just basically played it on with all of that to create a layering effect almost like a collage. And I actually wanted to film this and i o process and put it up on my social media handles. But It just so happened that my camera stopped working somewhere in the middle and I couldn't get the entire video and so I was a little upset. And so that's what I ended up writing inside the flaps. So the inflammation inside the flaps was nowhere connected to the team or the collage that I had created on the outside. So sometimes flaps can just be, you know, a place for you to went out and just write some pieces of information that you don't really want to showcase to other people, like, you know, immediately. And like when they look at it to the naked eye, that information's not visible. So you can just hide those embarrassing little bits of information inside these flaps and nobody would really know about them. So that's one way to use these. Now, I have also done another spread where I basically wanted to refocus and all greeting card. And this greeting card was a landscape reading guard which open in the top detection. So what I basically did was that I created a knowledge first. And you can see that I've used lots and lots of people in the background. I did a beach then I did a little bit of white and green and stuff like that. And I basically split that bleeding guard into two parts. So I just got it a little bit off center. And so I ended up having two parts, one on the left, the other on the right. The left one focuses more on the trees and that little pathway, and the right one focuses more on the lake and that little house over there. So I thought that individually they made for two very interesting compositions, and I just decided to snippet in the middle and make it into two cards. And I just ended up writing like a couple of quotes inside each of these. And as you can see, it sends the whole thing had like a garden knee while you've been it had like a very nice cottage core kind of vibe. So I decided to add lots of non stickers, butterfly stickers in bees and flowers and stuff like that. And I also extended the collage elements into the cards. When you open up the flaps, you can actually see the washi tape sort of overlapping from outside to inside. So there's a little bit of crossover that's happening over there. And I like to have that for just making the experience a lot more fun and interactive. Now there's a couple other ways that you can use folded flaps. So sometimes I just a large pieces of paper and fold them like so. So this was, I think of people that came as part of a Christmas people back. So depending on which side of the people you want underdog, you can fold them like so. So this basically opens up like a brochure and it has like these three partitions to it. So you can play around with shapes and sizes in something like this. And this is of course a little too big for my journal spread currently. But you can always snippet to the size of your journal. So that's one more idea that you have. No, it's not necessary that the threefold flaps should always have equally sized flaps. You Gan folded with one side short and the other side long. That's completely fine. As is the case with this one where one side is a little narrow and the other's a little wider. So that's fine as well. Now for today's exercise, I have this information booklet with me from one of my trips to brag, and I saved it with me because I wanted to use it sometime later for my journal spreads. And I thought today would be a good opportunity to do so. So I basically pulled out some of the pages that I really like. I like the images on the cover page. And unlike some of the texts over here that says, Wow, pure emotion Prague and stuff like that. And I also want to keep a little bit of the texts that, that is giving me some information about the history of the city and a little bit of information about the population and stuff like that. So I wanted to keep some of that bit. And what I actually want to do is that I first want to cut out all the images and get them to the right sizes according to my journal spread. So I'm just going to quickly gather my elements, whatever text in little pieces of information that I want. Now I'm not going to actually end up using the diode crucial because it's quite big and some of the information is not even relevant right now because it has a list of events that were happening during the time that I was traveling over there. So that information is not something that I wanted to save. But I do want to save like pictures of monuments and places that I did end up seeing while I was there on my drip because those sort of add onto my personal memories. And so I'm going to focus on only those images. Now also have this little map that was inside the booklet. So it folds up like so. So it was actually one of the pages inside over there. And so this is the paper that I'm going to use to create a flap again. Now what I'm going to do with this map is that I'm going to convert it into sort of like an envelope, like a folded flag, like so. So since this is an almost squarish speech, I'm able to fold it in these little triangles. But this technique does work even if you have slightly longer pieces of rectangular pieces of people which have mismatched, we tend height. It will work on that as well. Now, one, that little text that says culture in Prague, definitely on one other dog flaps. I'm going to keep it like so. And the way this is going to work is that when I open up these flaps, I can actually get the indictment map in front of me. So when you're folding papers to create these folded flaps, it's important to sort of decide which side you want inside and Woodside you want outside. Because whatever you choose to keep on the outer edge of the flap will have a certain section on the back that will be glue down to the people and that bit is not going to be visible to you anymore. So in this case, I want to actually have the view of the map when I open up the folds. And that's why I've decided to keep the text side up. But let's say this was a bad denoted design sheet where you had a design on one side and it was being on the other side, then you could keep the design side on the outer edges. And you could keep the inside as being where you could write a lot of your text and basically stole your personal memories inside the flaps. So that's another way to go about it. Now one of the reasons why I like to store my maps in this way is because I like to actually take a pencil and mark out the places on the map, the monuments or the streets that I did with it. So it helps me to keep a log of the places that I visited when I was on vacation. And if I have a specific pictures in front of a particular monument, and I like to sometimes print them out into small little squares of about an inch and paste them on double the map. Almost like, you know, I was there sort of Memory, little snippet. And so I like to add those little things onto my map. Now going further on this spread, I'm going to start basting all the pictures and the visual elements that I want to keep from the Russia and Iran in the middle over here, I'm going to create another tiny little folded flap from the leftover poeple people that I have from Russia. And inside of this I actually want to add another joe from the blue shirt itself. So this is the Old Town Square that had visited while I was there, and it was decorated quite beautifully for Christmas. So I definitely want to add this picture over here. And then there's this another dynein picture from one of the historically leases again, that I want to save. So I'm going to add this on top of the flap. Now one of the things that I really like to do is to add on decorative elements to my folded flaps. And so I'm basically going to cut out this really beautiful picture which has reflections on the water. And use this to pasted on one of these triangular flaps that I have created. And so this way when I stick the picture on top of the triangular flap, all that text kind of gets hidden. And so it's not so text-heavy. And the image sort of covers up a whole load of the text, making it look a lot more interesting. Plus I think by now you've probably noticed that one of the things that's common between all of these pictures is that they have like a sunset. Why UWB? And they all have these beautiful sort of street lights and window light sparkling through the pictures. So going with that whole team, I think adding a mobile element on the left side definitely adds value to the whole spread. Now to finish off this spread, I'm finally going to add in one more little piece of text and I'm done now batch on the techniques that we have discussed so far. One of the other techniques that I really like a lot is to create triangular flaps. So the way I do this is that I basically just take a square piece of people and I put it either on the edges to make the flap school in Word or make them go outward. Sometimes I like to add them in the center as well so that they open up like a little butterfly. And then sometimes I like to add them at the corners so that they open up inwards like so. So you're definitely free to get creative in terms of the shapes of these little folded flaps. And you can definitely have them opening in literally any direction that you like. I have also created spreads where I have created one flap inside of another flap. Almost like reading a layered butterfly kind of an effect. And that is also a great way to add extra pieces of information on the same journal spread instead of writing that information over multiple spreads. So I hope this entire lesson on folded flaps was useful for you as you saw, I have used folder clubs and multiple spreads, and some of them have collage background. Some of them are more structured and some of them assemble, some of them are more complex. So essentially these flaps can add value to almost any kind of spread. It doesn't matter whether you're going for a symmetrical one, autumn or collage, abstract one, it doesn't matter. The flaps will always give you extra writing space. And it will also help you to hide any information that you don't really want to make visible in the first goal. So if somebody has to see pictures of your journal spreads on social media, then all of your little personal bits of information can stay hidden while you can still click a pretty static picture of your journal spread overall for the empty spaces in my journal spread, I'm just taking a silver pen and just drawing some circles to add a little bit of sparkle to the spread. As well as writing little bits of information about people that I met over there and a couple of things that I liked about my holiday just to fill up the empty space over there. So that's it for today. And I look forward to seeing how all of you use these folded flaps creatively in your own journal spreads. 12. Layout 8 - Radial / Concentric Approach: Hello, hello and welcome back. So in today's lesson, we are going to be talking about the radial layout. And there are a couple of different variations that can be done with the 3D layout. So I'm going to be demonstrating, do techniques in today's class. And these will give you an idea of how the 3D layout can be used for various kinds of journals. So over the last few days, we've been discussing so much about collage techniques and how we can use a lot of visual elements to layer them one on top of each other and create very visually aesthetic journals. But just like everybody did out a few days when even I feel like I don't have the energy at the end of the day to sit down and guardian beast pictures. There are some days when I just wanted to unload all of the thoughts in my head and just sort of offload all of that information and put it down on paper without really thinking much about visual value and without thinking about aesthetics. And on those days I feel that the radial layout comes to my rescue because I can just simply write, write, write, without really worrying about visual elements. So to begin the exercise, I've got two pictures on my journal spread. And I am going to be demonstrating the technique on each of the sides. So one technique on the left and the other on the right side ran. For the left side. I've got a picture of like this little map. And on the right side I've got this beautiful ocean picture. So let's begin with the left 1 first. Now this is actually pretty simple like the name suggests. We are basically going to be working readily and we're going to be writing our text and working it on the journal spread in a circular manner. So I'm going to start by writing a couple of courts over here. And I am using a micron pen for this, but you're free to use even your regular pens. And the way I do this is that I basically play around with the nib sizes and play around with thicker and thinner bands, as well as different colors to just make my journal spread interesting. So because this is a picture of a map, I decided that I wanted to go ahead with some travel courts, some of my favorite travel goats, and I wanted to put them down this little globe. Once I've finished writing my first sentence, which is a chord. In my case, it could be your personal thoughts and your gaze. And basically it could be any kind of text that you want to write. So once I finish the sentence, I basically switch to a different color. And I tried to switch the nib size. And now in this case, since I want to switch over to the next line, because the sentences in continuation, I put a tiny little arrow and I move on to the next sort of layer around the circle. And I started writing my text just above that arrow. And then I go in a circular manner again. And you can choose to do this clockwise or anticlockwise, whatever you prefer. There are no rules to this. Generally speaking, I think most people find it easier to read it clockwise because, well, that's how we read Glucksberg. But if you wanna do it the other way around, that's perfectly fine too. And then again, since I'm running out of space on the second circle, I just put a shiny at all. Do mock that. The thing is in continuation in the third line. And then I jump over that. Now you are probably going to encounter this while you're writing your text that you probably have just maybe a couple of words left out of a sentence that you're writing. And those couple of goods are going to end up in the next circle. So just to build continuity and just to sort of give like a gap between paragraphs. So to say, you can just decorate all that empty space with tiny little circles. I'm using a brush pen over here, but you can definitely do this with a regular ballpoint pen as well. And then these dots basically give me sort of like a paragraph break. And then I move onto the next one where again I switched my nib size and the color of my pen and then I start writing. And so I basically gave building up the circles one after the other in a concentric manner. Sometimes if I feel like I have a lot of empty space in one circle and I again want to give like a boss or a paragraph break. Then I like to add little filler elements like this little line that I've just added. And then I jump onto the next one. So you can write as little or as much as you like with this radial approach, depending on the size of your journal and how much information you actually want to fit in there. It's totally up to you. If you feel like you want to add some extra creative elements to what you're writing. You can always feel free to add these little tiny lines as sort of sunrise coming out of that circle. And you can feel free to add any kind of doodle elements over here or draw little patterns. And basically just fill up the entire space without really thinking much. And I think that's also the best form of journaling because you're not thinking margin. You're just basically indulging in a little bit of self-care and just relaxing and having fun. So you can definitely personalize this in any way that you like. Now I'm going to stop right here because I like to have negative spaces around my circular elements. But you're definitely free to continue the text all around all the edges. And so again, that's a personal choice depending on how much text you want to put in. Now moving on to the second idea. In this case, I actually like to draw these little blue like weaves where I draw circles, but they're not exactly proper circles. They're more like these abstract do like shapes with some thicker elements and some tenant elements. I like to think of these shapes like little puddles or like little ocean waves, because they don't really have any shape and they're very fluid in that sense. So I draw these lines where some of them are thicker, some other Martina. And then within each of the circles also you can notice that they're sort of like abstract on the edges. So you can definitely feel free to experiment with the shapes and the sizes over hill. And I, once I'm done drawing the shapes, you have a couple of different options. So you can either write your text in those MD whitespaces that you see between these concentric circles that we've just drawn are these concentric, fluid, abstract shapes. Or you could use the colored side and squeeze in your text on the colored elements. So any of these approaches is fine. I like to do it in such a way where I start from the white edges, but I let the text overlap into the colored bits as well. So again, I'm just going to write a couple of quotes over here just to demonstrate how I usually do this. And so you can see that sometimes I also skip a couple of these circles and then move on to the outer edge directly. Again, it totally depends on how much text you actually want to write. Since I'm just writing a couple of courts which are travel-related goods. I don't have a lot of stuff to put in today. So I think this much of space is going to be fine for me. Now in case you feel like you want to highlight the picture that you've put in the center. That is, if you choose to put a picture in the center, then you can probably just add a little border around it. In my case, I'm just giving you like a black outline just to emphasize and highlight the picture a little bit more. But let's say you don't have a picture and you just want to, you know, write stuff creatively, then you can definitely just put in like a plain colored blob in the center, or just got out like a solid piece of color from a magazine or a newspaper or something and just paste that in the center. So that's also fine. All right, so that's it for today. And I hope that this journal spread has given you a little bit of break from all those heavy collage spreads that we were doing over the last seven exercises. So this is a good exercise to use on days when you feel very tired or you're not so motivated to work on heavy color journal spreads, this will definitely give you a break. So I would love to see how you end up customizing this journal spread. And if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the discussions tab and I'd be happy to answer them for you. 13. Layout 9 - Let's talk Pockets!: Hi everyone and welcome back to the course. Today we're gonna be talking a little bit about pockets. Now, if you remember in a couple of our exercises earlier we had played with folded flaps and layered flaps. And both of those techniques were helping us to create a lot of extra writing space and a given journal spread. So whenever you have a lot of information to back in and you don't want to take that information to the next set of pages. It's a good idea to keep adding folded flaps or layered flaps and basically just put all your written texts in the same spread. Similarly, pockets also come in handy to put in a lot of extra information within a given spread. So for today's exercise, I have these vertical strips of paper with me. And then I also have this cutting mat. And this cutting mat is basically just to give an idea about the sizing. But it's not really mandatory. You can actually do without the cutting mat as well. Now what we're actually going to do is create a simple pocket out of this vertical piece of paper. And as you can see, I am basically just going to fold this right in the middle. Once I basically what that crease in the center, I can pull out my journal and just see what the bucket is gonna look like. So basically this is gonna be the front side of the pocket. And all I have to do is blue the front of the pocket to the back of it. And then of course, glue the entire pocket itself to the paper. We have to make sure that we apply the glue in such a way that the top flat and the bottom flap or not entirely stuck together and that there is still a little bit of space for us to put things inside of it. So for example, I have this little scrap piece of paper that I'm testing out with. And if you have a larger piece of paper that you want to put in, then you obviously need a larger pocket. The bucket that I'm currently using is approximately 3.5 inches to about seven inches. And I'll give you a couple of examples of how the buckets usually look like. So over here you can see one example. I have this floral pocket, and you can see this little fold over here at the corner. This basically creates a pop-up effect. The pocket basically has a crease at the edges of the fold at the edges, which makes it easy for us to put in a bunch of papers as against a single sheet. Similarly over here I have a pocket again where I have a folded piece of paper inside. And again, even this pocket has little folded edges on the corners, which basically makes for a more plump pocket. And so you can actually put in lots and lots of elements inside it. We're basically not just creating a simple strip and pasting it on the paper, we're actually creating a proper folded pocket. All right, now let's see how this popular is actually made. This paper strip that I have with me is approximately nine centimeters wide and approximately 22 centimeters tall. Now you can obviously take a different paper size. It doesn't have to be the size just as long as you're happy with it and just as long as it fits inside your journal. Now coming to how we fold it. So we basically keep the front side of the pocket at the bottom. And then we create an inward for like so. And then we basically take half of that inward force and then folded back in the opposite direction, then it's like an outward fold. It basically creates this, please. We do the exact same thing on the opposite side. We basically fold inwards first. Then we are going to fold it halfway back in the other direction. And just make sure that you press really nicely so that you'll get the creases neat and crisp. Now, we are just going to fold the bottom of the pocket. If you want to really large pocket, you can for just a little bit at the bottom. And this way you're going to end up having a very long bucket for yourself. And again, the process remains the same. You first fold inwards and then you'll fold halfway back outwards. Now what we basically have to do is stick the corners or the insides of this bottom forward onto the folds that we created on the left and the right edge. And we have to be a little careful not to apply glue on these inner folds. Because if you apply them over there, then the entire packet is going to become flat. And so I'm just going to mark this out in pencil. These are the areas where we apply the glue. And then we apply the glue over here so that it sticks to your journal. And we also apply the glue to the sides so that it sticks to the journal. So all these pencil markings are basically the places where we are going to put the glue. And as you can see, this rocket is quite plump now and it can easily fit in at least a couple of these paper slips. And just make sure that you don't apply the glue inside. Because if you do that, then the pocket is going to fall flat and then it's just going to become like a TOC sport. And you won't have a lot of space to put in your stuff inside. And of course, if you want to make it shorter or longer, all you have to do is just change the size of the paper. And then work backwards from there. Now let's try this other style where we want to show a little bit off the back of the people. And so I'm going to keep this emblem on the doll or this little stamp like thing on the ball. This way I can actually see a little bit of the back people. This also creates for an interesting pocket, especially when you have a double-sided paper. Because you can actually see the other side of the paper also with this technique. Here. What we're gonna do is start off with the same steps. We are again going to fall inwards and outwards pretty much the same way that we did with the other pocket. Again, we do the same thing on the other side. This time. We're just going to decide on where we want that pleased to be. So for example, if I want this much of my MLM to show, I have to cut out all that excess from the top. Here. This is basically going to act as my cutting point. And I'm just quickly going to bring in a pair of scissors. And I'm very carefully going to cut out all of that excess fold from the top. All we want to do is make sure that the bottom fold touches the back panel. And once you fold it, you're not going to see the excess off the back panel. You'll only see the front panel. Now we're just going to bring the folds back. And these two folds are going to go on top of the back panel like so. Again, we have to make sure that the glue is applied only to the edges. And we don't apply it on the insights so that you have a nice lamp pocket in which you can put in things. This is also an interesting way to create a pocket where you have a little bit of the back people visible. And I'm just going to trim this out to make this neat so that the edges are aligned. Now some people also like to have rounded edges at the top. And so you can definitely get one of those paper cutters that give you the rounded corners. Or in my case, I just basically use this scissors and give it a slightly rounded edge. Really use whatever tools are available to you to create the desired outcome. Now, with this particular pocket, you can actually put all your personal thoughts over here and create the rest of this spread with stickers and with other aesthetic journaling supplies. And if you click a picture of it and you want to put it on your social media, for example, then nobody will really know your personal thoughts because they are going to be inside of this particular pocket. And you can easily glue this down by applying the glue at the backside. Put all of your thoughts in a paper or a letter, and just basically put that inside the bucket. Or let's say if you're traveling and you have a lot of museums, tickets, boarding passes, and other sort of collectibles. You can just put those inside the bucket as well, and then you will have a nice space to put them all in. So definitely pockets are quite useful in that sense. Now I have another example over here. And this one is basically an envelope. And this actually came to me as part of the rapping or as part of the outer wrapping from the shop where I usually buy my journaling supplies from. This was a ready-made envelope. All I had to do was basically just a stick this right on top of my page. And I was able to put in this little letter inside. This letter is basically a newsletter that they usually send every month along with the journaling suppliers. What decided to store that because it had some interesting information. And I've done a collage on the right side and kept this little envelope on the left side, which basically acts as a pocket. And I've put in this little paper inside. So again, this is a great way to store or letters and old pictures or anything else that you want to add inside a particular pocket. And now when I click a picture of this journal spread, even if I had to write my personal thoughts, they could easily go inside that little envelope. And when I share this picture on the Internet, on social media, I wouldn't really feel very vulnerable sharing this bread because my personal thoughts will still stay hidden. This is a great idea in case you want to share your creativity with the world, but you don't want to share all your personal emotions. These are all the different ideas that you can try out when it comes to pockets and envelopes. And I definitely love to see what you come up with and how you end up using these techniques in your journal spread. As always post them in the project section so that I can have a look at them. And I'd love to share my feedback with you. 14. Layout 10 - Play with Repetition: Hello everyone and welcome back to the course. Today I'm going to be talking a little bit about repetition in your design. Now you have a journal spread with me where I have basically used to stamps. But what I've basically done is that I have stamped the same two elements all over my journal spread. And the reason why I have done this is because I want us to act as a background. Now, I can bring in a lot of other elements on top of this background. For example, I can probably get a small piece of paper which can stay somewhere in the center. And then I can either stick it with a little bit of washi tape. And of course I can apply glue or the back and then paste it right on top of that background. Or maybe I could even add one of these pre-made wax seals over here just to make it look as if the vaccine is holding the paper, it will almost look like a posted like a sticky note over there which is being held on with this little wax seal. There are many different ways in which I can actually layer down plain pieces of paper on top of this printed background and then add my text over here. Basically, repetition plays a very important rule in your journal spreads when you want to make them look aesthetic and interesting. Because when you repeat the same element over and over again, then you're not really worried about whether the left side of your journal spread is matching the right side of your spread or not. When you have similar elements on both sides, then you know that the whole spread is going to look cohesive and that everything is going to look balanced. And that's pretty much how surface patterns or any kind of repeat patterns work. When you look at them in fabrics for upholstery or even for dresses for example. Repetition basically make sure that everything is in harmony. Now it's not necessary for you to always stamp out elements. You can, of course, draw doodle illustrations. And you can basically draw the exact same shape over and over again. You can probably write the same letters or the same words again and again. I've also seen journals spreads where people have basically taken their alphabet stamp sets and they have stamped the exact same letter over and over again. Feel free to stamp out things. Feel free to draw or illustrate them, and basically just have a nice background on which you can further later on things. Now, it's not necessarily that you have to use repetition only for backgrounds. For example, over here I have this journal spread with me where I have pasted botanical illustrations on the left side. And then I have these ticker strips with me which are happy said on the right side. The illustrations on the left were done on a separate piece of paper. And these were some of my practice exercises from an old sketchbook where I was practicing floral illustrations. And I liked them and I wanted to preserve them. I first cut them out of my sketchbook and then I glued them over here on this black background. And then I wanted something nice to go along with it on the right side of my journal spread, I was running short of illustrations and I didn't feel like drawing them again. But luckily, I had these black and white sticker strips with me. And I just decided to paste them. And they seem to go well with the floral illustrations on the left side. So I had the little negative space and then I use that to just write a letter to my future self. That can also act as a bridge journal prompt in case you're looking for ideas on what to write, then writing a letter to your future self, a short crisp node is also a good idea. Now, like I said, repetition doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be symmetrical and you have to do the exact same thing over and over again. It could also mean repeated elements which are similar to each other. For example, over here I have this journal spread with me where I have done a collage on the right side, but on the left side I basically done an entire border with these little teardrop leafy shapes. And they're all different in terms of sizes. But because I've stopped with the same color palette, because I've repeated the same element over and over again. It makes for a nice aesthetic border. And you can see that I've also done some of these on the right side, just so that again, there's harmony between the left side of the page, on the right side of the page. Here's another example that I have done where I basically used my dot stickers or my circle stickers. And I have placed them in this grid-like fashion. They're all equally spaced. And I mean, well, they're not exactly equally spaced. You can see that I've not really align them because it's not like I measured them. I just basically eyeballed the distance and I tried to be as precise as possible. But again, these kind of imperfections are completely fine because. This is my journal spread just for my personal use and I'm not really using a phone, a professional projects, so it's completely fine. In case you happen to be the kind of person who likes to have equally spaced out things and you actually want to get a ruler and measure it and place your elements at exact distances. You'd of course free to do that. On the right side, what I've actually done is use the leftover wrapping of the sticker. So as you can see, all those hollow spaces are basically left out after I build off all my circle stickers and I found that grid to be interesting. So I placed that on the right side. I'm probably going to use this to maybe add a code or a word, or maybe just draw tiny flowers inside these little hollow circles. But I love to do this every time I get those sticker sheets. And I basically just paste the stickers on one side of the spread and then whatever is left out after building of the stickers. I like to use that as well. That also interestingly adds to the harmony of the design because your mind tends to form associations with the shapes. So you'll basically know that the hollow space is left out after you have filled out the sticker. So the whole spread looks cohesive. Very similar to how we had done the window cut technique where we knew that the window was actually created out of people. And then the hollow side was also used in the journal spread. So a very similar approach. Now here's another example. So this one we've actually done together in one of our previous exercises. And at that time we were actually focusing on the folded flat technique. But I also want to now again, bring your attention to the repetition aspect over here. Again, we basically followed a grid-like approach where we stuck similar sized pictures right next to each other. And again, because they were repeated and they were all symmetrical. So that made for a very interesting layout. Now for today's exercise, I'd actually like for you to try and create some repeated elements in your journal spread. So like I said, repetition doesn't mean that you have to do the exact same thing over and over again. It can also mean similar elements being placed in a similar fashion so that there is some sense of repetition. It doesn't have to be an exact repeated process. Now in this journal spread for today, I'm basically going to bring in a few washi tapes. And these are in a similar color palette. I'm going to play with a little bit of light brown and gold and maybe a little bit of tan coffee color. And so I'm bringing in three separate washi tapes in that color scheme. They're all different in terms of thickness. So some articles or Montana, but I'm just going to place them next to each other one-by-one. Over here on the left side of my journal spread. Now as I'm pasting these washes tickers are these washi tapes. I have a couple of choices. Either I can continue sticking the stapes in the exact same manner all the way to the right edge. And that'll make for an interesting background, almost like a wallpaper. And then I can stick other elements on top of it. I can even bring in some plain pieces of paper, stick them in the middle and then basically write my thoughts over there. Or I could even just do two or three of these washi tape strips on the left side. And then whatever other empty space that I have on the journal spread. I can use that to create a collage or I can add a flap over there, or I can add pockets over there. And basically I can mix and match my techniques. When I say that you can add repetition in your journal spreads, it does not mean that you have to repeat the exact same element all throughout your journal spread. You can just have a group of repeated elements in one corner or just one section of the spread. And that will also look interesting. So play around with the concept of repetition and try to use elements in different sizes, in groups close together or groups which are spaced apart. Basically just play around with the placement of objects and see how repetition can add value to your journal spread. So today's exercise is sort of limitless in that sense because you will literally have no rules to follow and there are no limits to how you can use the concept of repetition in your journal spread. So feel free to have fun and try different ideas. I've always emphasized there's no right, there's no wrong because it's your journal spread and it's the operating committee. Whatever you come up with. I would love to see you posted in the project section. And I'd love for you to try different ideas and experiment with this.