Moleskine Art Journal Cover

Last month I had the most perfect meet up with Lauren, the travelling artistic wonder of Lauren Likes and 1/2 of the awesome art journaling community, Get Messy Art Journal! She was in my part of the world with her husband and parents, off on a Canadian adventure. Luckily we were able to grab dinner with them before they set out the following day. It was so fun to finally meet Lauren in person! We’ve been cyber friends for a couple of years, and have chatted online and through Skype. But with me being in Canada and her being in Korea – a meetup was a distant dream. The internet is full of so much potential! I have been so so lucky to have met some wonderful women artists who totally feed my soul. Because Lauren and her family were in town for such a short time, we weren’t able to get any art time in. So in lieu of that, I decided to decorate this art journal cover on a new Moleskine journal to commemorate our meetup!

I used a Moleskine Notebook Cahier X Large with kraft covers, which are my favourite in these journals! They look great plain, but also lend themselves really well to being decorated and painted like I’ve done with this art journal cover.

After I was finished painting, I used a Soft Touch Varnish by Deco Art Media to seal the covers and protect them from future use. I also decided to add some more art to the inside of the back cover. Which also has a handy pocket!

Next, I snuck in some extra goodies, which were a few of the stickers from this set of digital collage sheets on the blog and a painted envelope that I added after. The back pockets in these journals are genius for keeping extra bits and pieces in. They’re perfect for ephemera stashing!

Here is both the front and back of this art journal cover! I actually painted them as one whole cohesive painting, and just added the super wide washi tape over the spine last. I got this tape off Aliexpress (my greatest resource for cheap art supplies). And also my nemesis because it’s always a gamble as to when you’ll get your order. This grid washi tape is probably my new favourite supply to use in my journals. I love me a grid!

Do you decorate your art journal covers?! I actually never paint on my own! Mostly because I have this weird phobia of committing the entire journal to one theme/vibe. I figure if I leave it blank then I can do whatever it is I want! How do you feel about journal covers? Tell me in the comments!