Rediscovering the Joy

Do you ever go back and look at your very first pieces of art? Recently, I was reminded of the first mini album method that I used before I branched out to more involved methods. When I first discovered mini albums, my first born was nursing and I wanted something to fill my time. I discovered Youtube videos and the amazing process of turning brown paper bags into works of art. Over the next several years, I made dozens of paper bag albums in various styles that evolved along with my courage. 

I re-discovered that joy of taking a plain brown bag and turning it into a piece of art again this week, when a friend asked me to show her how to make a mini album. She is intending to use this method with her elementary school students in their writing class. After working with her, I got inspired to re-purpose a stack of used white paper bags into a mini album of our Colorado vacation.

I covered the bags with patterned paper and then stenciled and painted each background.

And then I started decorating!

I love using stencils to emboss my backgrounds. It adds great texture.

I also stenciled with paint over some patterned paper.

Aside from using stencils to emboss, creating embellishments is perfect for layering.

Texture paste is another favorite way to get that background texture.

I still have a ways to go until I finish my album but I forgot how fun and easy it is to work with paper bags. Go grab some paper bags and stencils and get creating!

Stencils used in this project:

Boho Fish

Art Deco Borders

Collage Textures and Patterns, Circles

Nature's Gathering Stencil

Eye Lattice

Succulents

Leafy Doodle Verge

Map Stencil

Journal Texture #12

Rembrandt's Words

Thanks for joining me today. You can check out my blog HERE for more StencilGirl projects.

Until Next Time,

Kate