Good advice and Art Journal 2 (part one)

 Before I start, just to say that I hope all are well out in blogland and that we will get through this.  The advice on the mug above seems particularly appropriate at the moment - I think a lot of crafters will be doing just that. 
Huge thanks to all the workers who are continuing to keep the country going too, in very difficult circumstances. 
I won't dwell on the situation but will post about my second art journal instead.  I made this journal out of recycled packaging and have used stamps, paint, paste, stencils, pens, glitter, embossing powder and anything else that took my fancy.  It took me a year to finish, doing a bit as and when I felt like it.  Here are some of my favourite pages, with more to come in the second instalment, which will follow shortly.

 The front cover is all about lines - scaffolding or buildings? 

This page was made after watching Creationsceecee on youtube, who made something similar but using watercolour.   My version is acrylic paint and stamps. This was a bit out of my comfort zone as usually I like busy pages!

 This page was inspired by Kate Crane who uses bright colours and mark making but then will break the backgrounds into strips or smaller shapes.

 This page uses a dramatic Visible Image stamp as well as texture paste and gold embossing powder.  The eye was stamped onto tissue paper and then glued onto the page, so that the background can still be seen behind it.

 This is a Woodware stamp which I heat embossed in gold and then painted in.  The background has hexagon shapes of card on it (leftovers from another project) and lots of stamping.

Finally for now, a page which for a long time had only the background on it as I wasn't sure what to do next. I stamped patterns and added some of my collage sheets - the figure, the circles and the patterns in the top right. 
I so enjoyed creating these pages - they don't necessarily have any meaning and the process making them is as important (if not more so) than the finished product.  If I don't like a page,  it can always be painted over and that is very freeing.
I look forward to sharing some more pages with you shortly.