Art Journals out of file folders

I saw another artist paint a great picture on a file folder.  She then bundles them up together and makes a journal.  When I heard about that, I got onto Youtube to see what else might be out there using file folders.  Of course, there are loads of great videos and people use them for a wide variety of creative uses.   I picked up a pack of 25 at Walmart for less than 3 dollars and am giving it a try.  I struggled with putting the album together so, I'm not going to show any steps on that.  Anyone who is interested would probably be better off checking out the Youtube videos.  I am posting my first page though.  The double pages are about 6 x 9 inches so, it makes a fun mini journal size.

I started by spraying the page with inks in blues, greens and yellows.  When that was dry, I used a seaweed stamp (from Dylusions stamps) and just stamped it repeatedly across the bottom.  I colored it in with Ranger Distress Markers.  The mermaid is a stamp by Stampotique.  I stamped her on white card stock, colored her in with markers and then fussy cut her out.  Before gluing her to my page, I stamped the album with the mermaid first and then laid the cut out version on top of that.  The reason I did that is because some of the fine detail was cut off but is easily added back in by stamping the page first.  For example, her earrings are a thin black line that would be impossible to cut out.   The fish are from the same stamp set as the seaweed.

I finished it off with some words and a stencil with modeling paste applied.  The ink bleeds through the paste which I like for this page since the colors all blend together nicely.