I think I may need professional help. I’m hearing voices. The paper is starting to talk to me – perhaps I need to make sure I have adequate ventilation when I am using art supplies…This corrugated paper was a leftover from cutting a circle, and it begged me to put it in an art journal. So, I started looking through my art journals to find the proper background. This one spoke to me, “I’m perfect for this!”
A soft whisper came from a stack of family photos,”I belong on that page.” I had to agree.
That big circle of blue reminded me, right after I taped the photo on, “You might want to get the words on here before you attach the photo.” Good thing I have Un-Do to remove adhesive. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer’s stencil spoke for itself, “If you believe you can you will.” 
Now the voices became chaotic, like little kids at Christmas, “Use me.” ” No, use me.” “Me Me Me!” Who knew embellishments were so impatient and pushy. I only used a few of the ones that were clamoring for a turn. I’m still trying to decide if I need to use more, but that decision will be for another day.
Over at The Altered Page, Seth put out a call for stacks. He’d taken a photo of a stack of his journals which led to Heather Campbell from Blissful Things, to say ‘I love stacks of paper and handmade books…we should all take a picture of our own. Maybe Seth you have a place we could post them?’ His response, “Great idea Heather. Ask and ye shall receive.”
Here’s my stack, which turned out to be an engineering adventure to balance papers of all different sizes (yes, I should have pulled the smaller ones out, but I thought it wouldn’t cause too much of a problem – wrong). I was completely energized seeing all the colors and I even found a paper or two that screamed to be used on a journal page!
I have made a mess, a giant, painty, mixed media mess! When I am spray inking or painting pages I put a journal page below, a large piece of watercolor paper, or any thing else I can find to catch the “extras”. Here’s what my studio looks like right now…
The paper that is on the counter has a basic watercolor wash on the base, then paint scrapes, smears, and plenty of spray ink. There is still plenty more that will happen to this paper before I am done with it, but for now it is a happy background waiting for the next layer…nothing like indoor lighting to make it look far more yellow than it really is…