Art Journals considered

There are a lot of ideas and implementations of Art Journals, as many as there are people making journals I would bet.  I have at least 4 different journalistic things going on that can be described as art journals and in addition I have a "line a day" journal and generally do about 2 pages a la The Artist's Way, so I do not live an unexamined life by any means.

Today, I want to show you a new iteration and talk about what it is and where it comes from.  I have been doing stints of GelliPlate printing.  Not all of my GelliPlate prints are worth looking at for a long time as a single image or as one of a string of images with a theme.  BUT, and this is the sticking point, I can't seem to throw them away.  (Now, there are several people out there who would say I can't throw ANYTHING away, but at the moment I am only looking at not successful GelliPrings OK?)

I also have a lot of Paper.  I am, without question, a paperholic, and I can't get more til I use some of what I have, so I am looking for places/ways to use up my failed prints and other bits and pieces of paper.   Here is what I am doing:

I have made a bunch of pamphlet stitched assemblies of about 20 pages or so.  I have mixed pages that are made up of failed prints with blank pages, and sewed the failed prints right down the middle.

Also, I have mixed pages of different sizes just to add a bit more craziness:

I have done a variety of pages, some incorporating what was printed, some not.  I am just showing a sample here of some recent ones:

Two unrelated prints that ended up next to each other in the "luck of the draw". I added washi tape, color, and bits and pieces of builder's scrim.  (Thanks Gill!  who brought it to me from the UK.  For some reason I haven't been able to find it here in the hardware/home supply stores!  I love it)

 More builder's scrim, a print that I made for a Christmas card years ago and still have some hanging about that I cut up into circles etc. On the right side half page is a page from an old poetry book with the poem "Pippa Passes" printed on it.

A shredded leaf from an orchid, some dried out petals from a flower, paint etc etc etc on a page that originally just had some red strips on it.

the print here was made from a magazine closeup of a face that I made into a stencil.  It was ok, but not special, here there was only half the face because of the stitching holding the booklet together and I added color and collage bits. 

an old photo of Rich's store in downtown Atlanta that i found ages ago and dyed here with shoe dye polish and some white pen for highlights.. 

these are typical, the majority of the pages have some collage on them, some on blank pages, some using the print underneath. 

I find these little booklets liberating in a way, since I can do almost anything on them, and don't feel constrained. Also they are not very big, so they look more like they are almost done than like an intimidating amount of pages just waiting to be filled.  This one, that the pages above are from, is almost filled already and I have only been playing in it a couple of weeks.I have a tendency to think that if I am going to make a journal it has to be exposed spine, lots of pages etc. but these are just a 5 minute pamphlet stitch and they are done.  Later, if I want, I could sew 4 or 5 of them together through the already punched holes and have a larger journal, but only after all of them are filled.  Isn't it fun??