Moving to a new a blog is quite an ordeal… especially when you want to pick and choose which posts you want to pack up and move, and which ones to leave behind. The idea of a “fresh slate” continues to inspire me, though!

At the old blog, the absolute most visited posts are the ones about Art Journaling, so they will be the first to be dusted off and brought on over. If you’d like to see all of them, head over the The Old Blog and click on the Art Journaling category in the sidebar. They’ll be there until I can get them all revamped over here!

And… EVENTUALLY… I’ll be putting these all into a printable ebook that will be available in the shop. I will leave the blog posts up for anyone that wants to view them for free, but I’m polishing each one up and scanning things into one document so you will be able to print them out easily for everyday use! 

So… Here’s the very first, introductory post about Art Journaling, and how our family got started doing it!

Oodles of years ago, the subject of journaling and recording life events kept coming up in my life. I learned about great artists who had kept journals of their sketches, thoughts, and inspirations throughout their lives, and discovered some wonderful examples of journals by naturalists documenting the curiosities they found.  About the same time, I began doing a handwritten and illustrated newsletter at our family’s antique shop, filled with seasonal celebrations, recipes, and decorating ideas from our customers. Then, at a homeschooling conference, I sat in on a workshop about art journaling by Barry Stebbing of How Great Thou Art. All those random ideas about keeping an art journal meshed together, and I was hooked! That particular conference always falls on Mother’s Day weekend, and my hubby and girls saw how excited I was about getting into art journaling and making it part of our homeschool adventure, so my present that year was Mr. Stebbing’s book on art journaling, a brand new sketchbook and pen for me, and matching sketchbooks for the girls! We were inspired and ready to go, and we made a valiant effort at filling those sketchbooks with things that inspired us. Since then, there has always been a sketchbook (or two or three) in my purse. You never know when you’ll need one!

Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me to combine what we were doing in the store’s seasonal newsletter with the idea of art and nature journaling to make a booklet for homeschoolers. The booklet would provide practical “journal starter” ideas based on a monthly theme, and encourage homeschooling families to dive into their sketchbooks. There were grand plans for having it printed and sold as curriculum, and we recruited help from friends near and far to send in sample drawings. But then, as many things in life often do, the booklet was set aside, filed away, and forgotten. A few years ago, an old friend reminded me of it, and the Art Journaling pages found new life on my blog, where it was beefed up a bit. “Art Journaling Plan B” took several years for me to get all the monthly pages finished and uploaded in a scattered sort of way, and they are there for free if you care to dig around!

Putting everything on the blog really sparked an interest in the Art Journaling pages across the internet… I discovered that several of the pages had been pinned on Pinterest before I even knew what Pinterest was! Requests soon began coming in for the missing months, for more ideas, and for “how to find it all” on my blog. After responding to oodles of emails, I realized that it might be a good idea to put all the pages, posts, and information in one convenient printable document… And so the revising and documenting begins!

If you have budding artists of any age at your home, and would like to e-mail me with artwork that goes along with any of the monthly pages, please send them to Kim@ThistleDewMercantile.com! I’d love to include them on my blog and possibly on a Pinterest. Also, if you have any additional ideas for journaling subjects, we’d love the input! (Please send a statement along with the artwork or submission giving permission to publish the artwork on the website or Pinterest, as well as contact information for your family. First name, last initial, and age only will be posted.) Please keep any submissions “rated G,” and family friendly!

Feeling artsy? Grab a sketchbook!

🙂