Art Journal Selection Kit | July 2026

Hi everyone, it's Vicky here and let's play with the July art journal kit by Stamperia today. Remember in the crafting community, it is always Christmas in July. This is when all the new Christmas releases are coming out. So, uh today's theme is um all about Christmas. You can grab it and play with it later on if you don't feel inspired to do so during summer. Now, uh first of all, it includes a junk journal and this is a classic Christmas themed one. You will find beautiful classic designs. You will find your ornaments, your Christmas trees, all in lovely uh burgundy and um green colors. Look how beautiful those those designs are. Some of the pages are going to give you background pattern papers. Others are stickers and there are also the cutout elements. Keep in mind the cutout elements are printed front and back. Usually the front has a beautiful design composition. The back is empty so you can create your own clusters or you can do stamping, whatever you feel like on top. And keep in mind that with all that is included in this booklet, you can make way more uh projects than just art journal pages. You can definitely make cards, lots of them, since you have so many focal points. But you can also do tags, gift tags for your Christmas uh presents. So many ideas. And today I'm going to share an art journal page using elements from the junk journal booklet. But uh keep in mind that you get a lots and lots of other products included. So, this is the stencil included. I will be using it today, a lovely pattern for your backgrounds. And as if all the designs in the booklet were not enough, you get a full pack of ephemera. And these are the Stamperia ephemera that they have for every one of their collections. So, you will find tons of designs in this pack as you can see that match of course the junk journal booklet. And these are kind of shiny, shimmering. I will try to catch the light for you. You can definitely cover them up with matte medium if you want to lose the shine and turn them matte. But keep in mind these are cardstock thickness and then at the back uh you can peel it off because it is a sticker. And then you get even more focal points for your projects and this is a pack of die cuts. Now, the difference is uh that these are nice and thick. These are uh chipboard pieces and again lots and lots of designs. These are great for more dimensional projects like tags or album covers. And these are not self-adhesive. You need to use your glue at the back. So, for today I'm going to work on my art journal book. I am working on this junk journal book which is uh 6 by 6 in size. This is watercolor paper but you can use any journal that you have. Just measure it and then grab your junk journal booklet. From here we need to find a background that is quite neutral so that we can cut out and have something to start with and then uh we can make it our own and I will show you what you can do for that. So, I decided to go with this pattern paper and you can use either side side. It doesn't really matter as long as it is quite neutral and it's not very distracting with lots of designs for the technique that I'm going to show you. So, keep that uh pattern paper on the side. You can use it for another project and then I'm going to cut out this piece to be uh the same size as my page, and you can do that as well. You don't really need to have the same journal. Just measure and make your pattern paper the same. Now, I am going to work on that loose pattern paper piece, and I'm going to start with acrylic paint. This is a basic color, just white. I'm sure you pretty much have all um at least one white acrylic paint to start with. And then, with a stiff brush, without dipping it in water at all, I'm going to apply some uh brush strokes with white here and there. So, this is dry brushing technique, and uh you need to make sure that you can see the brush strokes. The more brush strokes, the better. What we're trying to achieve here is to make the pattern paper our own, to alter it, and make it look uh more uh artistic, let's say. So, I we are going to add some splatters. After all, I do have some extra white paint on my table. So, why not? Let's add the splatters, and you see that we already have something starting, which was really effortless to put together. And you can repeat these techniques with any pattern paper that you have. Now, the next step is to do some stamping. For that, you need some background stamps. Usually, I go with text. This is a background stamp set that was included in the May Art Journal Kit. So, if you're a regular with Stamperia uh kits, then uh you build your stash slowly, and you have products that you can use in the future projects. I am going to use three of those stamps from this stamp set, and um I'm starting with uh a text. You can stamp directly with your fingers. If you have an acrylic block, you can do that if you like. And I'm going to grab a permanent black ink. Permanent black ink is that you need to have in your arsenal if you are into art journaling because you can use it pretty much in every project. And I'm going to stamp in a mainly three areas, kind of creating a visual triangle. These are little little tips that are going to help you create a visual pleasing compositions on your background. Then I'm going to grab another stamp and this one I went with a circle. And again, I'm going to create clusters stamping on the triangle that I have created previously. Then I'm going to switch to another one and this time I'm going with one of the long stamp set stamps and I'm going to use it as a border. I really don't care what it says. This is not for uh writing actually. This is just for visual texture and for creating kind of a frame. Now many of these things that I'm going to do now are going to be covered later on, but I always like to work layer after layer and having fun with what I'm doing at the moment. Keep in mind, I don't get too emotionally attached with what I do on my page. This is going to help you later on when you decide to do your cluster and you will not fight with yourself and with your elements by having to cover something that you did underneath. Now I'm going to use a brown ink pad along with a black one are two must-haves in your craft room. And I am going to apply it over my stencil with a blending brush. Now if you don't have a brown ink, you can go ahead and use the white acrylic paint that you use at the background and just go with the brush over the stencil. And it is going to give you a completely different look of a kind of a frosty look effect. So um can go that way if you want. I decided to go with brown, which is going to give kind of a vintage look and feel on my page. Um take the techniques that I'm showing you and make them your own. You don't have to go with brown, for example, you can use a blue ink and we do have a turquoise ink pad uh from the May kit. Um again, if you are a Stamperia Arternia regular, you already have that in your arsenal, so you can definitely use that color and it's going to match beautifully with this background. Uh I am also going to use that um brown to go around the edges. This is going to darken up the edge, it's going to create kind of a frame and it is going to turn my page vintage with that vignette look all around. I'm going more heavily at the bottom corner and I'm thinking that that's where I am going to build up my cluster later on. And you can see how we altered that background, we made it our own and um I am also going to add some brown splatters because why not? I do have that uh ink pad that is perfect for that. So, I am really happy with how the background is looking at the moment. What I'm going to do is to just uh use some glue at the back and stick it on top of my page. Now, this is where I decided, change of plans, before I stick it down, I'm going to uh rough up the edges and I'm just doing that all around with my scissors. And of course, do this step before you add the glue at the back because you see with my fingers, I'm touching the glue all around. Anyway, it did work out, so I'm going to place it uh there and I have a background ready to go. Now, all I need to do is to play with the junk journal booklet and find what designs I want to put together to create my clusters. Now, you can pick pretty much anything from here. Whatever you stick on top, it is going to turn this into a beautiful page. I'm going to show you, however, how you can make clusters. Now, for example, you can have the girl and you need something at her back, so you can combine those two images, for example. And this is probably my favorite process where I get to play with the designs, make combinations, try to find something that is balanced, and audition all the things on top of my background. So, these are all the elements that I pulled out from the junk journal booklet, and I want to find a larger flower here. I just punched out three of the mini flowers, and I'm just going through the pages to see what else I can use. I ended up finding this page with a larger flower, but I'm going to use my scissors to fuzzy cut around it. And then here is another page where I'm going to cut out a little piece. I am trying to find elements that I can tuck behind my stack of gifts. So, that's how I like to create my clusters. I found I find first the main focal image, what I want my page to say, and then I try to find elements that I can tuck behind so that my cluster my focal point isn't just floating there on the page, but it has some kind of a background where I stick it on top, where I put the cluster together. And you can see here how I play with the elements. I'm just roughing up the edges. I might do some ink blending all around. Now, for the tag, if you happen to have an eyelet setter, then you can just add that because it is going to give an extra shine, some metal elements. And always remember, the more different textures you introduce into your page, the more your page is going to look more interesting. So, if you can incorporate metal elements, papers, but also fabric or ribbon or threads, then it's even better. Now, I am going back to that stamp set that I used at the background, and with the same font, I'm going to stamp on top of the tag. Again, trying to make it my own, but at the same time trying to match it with what I have already on my background. And that's why I used the exact same font for the stamp. I'm using the brown stamp, by the way, so that it is less vibrant than the stamping on the background. And again, I'm going to ink up the edges. I'm going to rub them up with the edge of my scissor, just what I did on the rest of the elements. I'm also going to thread some twine through that hole. And this is going to introduce a yet a different texture, so nothing is just paper on my page. I do have metal, I do have thread, and definitely you can introduce some ribbon, for example. Now, I am going to play with all the elements that I popped out of my junk journal booklet. I'm going to try and audition, decide what everything looks the best, and then I will commit and stick them down. I am making sure that as I stick everything down, I add glue only at the center back of my elements. This is going to allow for me to be able to tuck things underneath if I choose to do so later on as I build my cluster. But it really is up to you and how you decide to build your clusters. Everyone has a different way to do that. Uh in any case, I feel like a dab of glue at the center is going to hold the elements that are not going to escape my page, and they are going to stay just nice there. Plus, I like the look when nothing uh is completely flat on top of the page, because you will see a little bit of shadow from the edges as they lift on top of what is underneath. Now, here I'm using my scissors, and I'm going to cut out a little bit of that border. There are many borders here that you can use for your pages. And uh this is the last page, so you are not ruining anything at the back. I am going to cut out this that looks like a ribbon. And what I want to do is to use it at the bottom of my gifts, just kind of grounding them somehow. I'm going to rip off the edge. And remember, I didn't add glue all the way to the bottom of my elements, that's why I am able to do that, although it was an afterthought. I can easily slide it underneath the other elements. So now, I have already pulled out one of the sentiments that says merry and bright, but uh I didn't find it was um balanced with uh the rest of what I had. I needed to find something smaller, and I decided to go with this word that says joy. So, I find it is perfect for my composition. I'm absolutely happy with how my page is looking at the moment. So, I'm going to finish it off by adding some white splatters over the cutout elements. I do have white splattering at the back. I need some on top of them, so that uh these are the little details that bring everything together. So, that was the project for today. I hope that you had fun, that you got inspired. Here are some close-up photos where you can see the details better. Down below in the description you will find links on where you can get the kit. Thank you all so much for joining me today and I'll see you all next time.