Who knew an ordinary cake box could become a beautifully textured handmade art journal?
In this project, I’m sharing how I transformed simple packaging into a unique cover using three layers of collage, earthy textures, and a few final embellishments. I’ll also give you a peek at the pages I’ve prepared for the inside — soft, translucent, and full of organic character.
Have you ever looked at something as simple as a tissue paper box and thought, this could be art? That’s exactly how this project began.
In today’s post, I’m walking you through how I transformed an empty tissue box into a richly layered, interactive junk journal — using scraps, printable pages from my Mixed Media Artist Resource Library, and a whole lot of creative play. If you love repurposing materials, working intuitively, and making something beautiful out of the ordinary, you’re going to love this project.
Do you have a growing pile of torn book pages, lace edges, vintage papers, and tissue bits that you can’t throw away—but you’re not sure what to do with them either?
You’re not alone. These fragments—often dismissed as “leftovers”—carry history, texture, and story. And when layered thoughtfully, they become the soulful base for rich, expressive art.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how I create MasterSheets from those very fragments—whether for art journaling, clusters, postcards, or collage work. I’ll share the exact methods I use, plus some beautiful combinations you can try yourself.
Welcome to my Floral Art Journal pages — a soft, blooming space where nature meets intuition, and every page becomes a small garden of expression.
What if you could turn an old credit card into your most versatile painting tool? No brushes, no rules—just swipe, blend, and scratch your way to stunning handmade papers.
In this blog, I’ll show you a favorite mixed media technique I keep coming back to—painting credit card papers. It’s fast, freeing, and full of beautiful surprises.
Do you have a growing pile of torn book pages, lace edges, vintage papers, and tissue bits that you can’t throw away—but you’re not sure what to do with them either?
You’re not alone. These fragments—often dismissed as “leftovers”—carry history, texture, and story. And when layered thoughtfully, they become the soulful base for rich, expressive art.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how I create MasterSheets from those very fragments—whether for art journaling, clusters, postcards, or collage work. I’ll share the exact methods I use, plus some beautiful combinations you can try yourself.
After playing with plain coffee dyeing for a while, I found myself longing for more color, but without losing the raw, vintage textures that make coffee‑stained papers so magical. Boiling onion skins for that beautiful reddish tone was lovely—but not always practical. That’s when I thought: What if I just mix a tiny bit of acrylic into the coffee solution itself?And that opened the door to a whole world of earthy, muted, moody shades.
Tilt & Drip Dynamics
After spraying multiple hues, lift and tilt your paper so the wet paint runs. The flowing pigments blend organically, and varying pigment densities will naturally form speckles and cellular textures as they drip.
I recently created a handmade artist book for Flower Fest—a soft, intuitive celebration of florals, texture, and mixed media expression.
Instead of starting from scratch, I gathered pieces from my creative past: old floral artworks, fabric scraps, coffee-dyed papers, and floral printables—and gave them new life in this book.
The result is a layered, tactile art journal that feels like a blooming garden of stories, stitched together by hand.
Have you ever been captivated by the spontaneous flow of watercolor—the way colors melt into each other, unpredictable yet soothing? I have. I love the softness and meditation that watercolors bring.
But as someone who has painted with acrylics for over a decade, I’ve developed a special fondness for them. There’s something about acrylics—their versatility, texture, and vibrancy—that keeps drawing me back.
So I asked myself: What if I could play with acrylics in a way that feels like watercolor? That’s how this method was born—a playful, intuitive way to dye papers using diluted acrylic paint.