If you’re looking for mixed media art journals that spark new ideas, you’re in the right place.
Over the past year, I’ve created 24 handmade journals as part of my own creative journey. Some began as personal explorations, while others naturally evolved into online classes after months of experimenting with papers, collage, paint, texture, and bookmaking.
In this first collection, I’m sharing 13 mixed media art journals that represent some of my favourite creative projects from the past year.
Whether you love collage, handmade artist books, vintage papers, stitched journals, or simply enjoy flipping through beautiful art journals, I hope these projects inspire your own creative practice.
Why I Love Mixed Media Art Journals?
One of the things I love most about mixed media art journals is that every journal becomes a record of exploration.
Some pages work beautifully. Some don’t. Some techniques become favourites. Others teach you what doesn’t work.
Unlike finished paintings, mixed media art journals give you permission to experiment, layer, play, and simply enjoy the creative process without worrying about perfection.
Every journal tells its own story.
Watch the Full Art Journal Flip Through
1. Into the Wilderness
Into the Wild is a handmade mixed media art journal inspired by nature, earthy colours, vintage layers, and organic textures.
Built completely from loose papers, this journal explores collage, painted papers, mark-making, stitching, and intuitive layering to create pages that feel rich, tactile, and naturally worn. Every spread encourages exploration rather than perfection, making it a beautiful project for anyone who loves creating journals completely from scratch.
2. 🤎 Tattered & Textured
If you love worn edges, vintage papers, beautiful texture, and layers that tell a story, Tattered & Textured is all about embracing that aesthetic.
Throughout this journal, I explored collage, distressed papers, stitching, and dimensional surfaces to create pages filled with depth and character. Rather than trying to create perfect pages, this project celebrates everything beautifully imperfect about handmade journals.
3. 
Vintage Artist Books
This class is centred around creating a handmade vintage-inspired artist book filled with layered collage, aged papers, and meaningful details.
4. 🤍 Whispers in Veils
Created inside the same handmade book as Vintage Artist Books, Whispers in Veils explores a much softer and lighter visual language.
Using translucent papers, delicate collage, subtle colour palettes, gentle mark-making, and soft textures, this class invites you to create pages that feel calm, quiet, and beautifully layered. It’s perfect if you’re drawn to understated mixed media with a peaceful aesthetic.
5. 👜 Paper Bag Art Books
This class begins long before the books themselves. First, you’ll create beautiful mixed media mastersheets using acrylic paint, collage, mark-making, and layered textures. Those master sheets are then transformed into three unique handmade artist books, each with its own personality and style.
It’s one of my favourite ways to give handmade papers a meaningful purpose while creating beautiful little books you’ll treasure for years.
6. 
Gathered Art Journals (Free Class)
Gathered Art Journals is a free class inspired by one simple idea: Create with what you already have.
Using painted papers, collage scraps, recycled packaging, book pages, and everyday materials, you’ll create three handmade journals while discovering just how much beauty can come from supplies already sitting in your studio.
If you’re new to handmade journals, this is the perfect place to begin.
7. 
Woven Stories
Woven Stories explores weaving as a way of bringing paper, fabric, and texture together into one beautiful handmade journal.
Throughout this project, strips of paper and fabric are woven together to create richly textured pages before adding collage, stitching, paint, and mark-making. The result is a journal that feels wonderfully tactile and full of quiet detail.
In the flip-through, I also share another journal inspired by the same techniques, showing how every handmade journal develops its own personality.
Which Mixed Media Art Journal Should You Start With?
If you’re wondering where to begin, here’s my recommendation.
New to handmade journals?
Start with Gathered Art Journals (Free Class)
Love earthy vintage journals?
Into the Wild
Love texture?
Tattered & Textured
Love delicate collage?
Whispers in Veils
Love making your own papers?
Paper Bag Art Books
Love fabric?
Woven Stories
More Mixed Media Art Journal Inspiration
This is only Volume One.
I still have another collection of journals waiting to share, each filled with new techniques, colour palettes, handmade books, and creative discoveries.
If you enjoyed this collection, be sure to watch Volume Two as well.
Final Thoughts
As I slowly flipped through these journals, I realized they represent much more than finished projects.
They represent afternoons spent experimenting with paint, mornings filled with collage, unexpected discoveries, favourite colour palettes, joyful mistakes, and ideas that slowly grew into something much bigger.
I hope these journals encourage you to pick up some paper, embrace experimentation, and begin creating something uniquely yours.
Thank you for joining me on this little walk through a year of creating.
And if you’d like to see the next collection of journals, stay tuned for Part Two, where I’ll be sharing even more handmade journals, artist books, and creative stories from this past year.
