Wreck This Journal! (No, seriously...)

So, my friend Jennifer from the wonderful CAST Team on Etsy alerted me to the existence of these "Wreck This Journal" books... and as soon as I began looking into them, I was hooked. I literally called Target to ask if they had any (it was published in 2007) and the man on the phone was all like "Seriously? I've got one in front of me right now!" so I told him to put it aside for me, and I loaded the kids in my car, and went to Target to spend my laundry money on my own Wreck This Journal.

So, I began looking through it excitedly, and the artist in me couldn't wait to create. I admit, the idea of the journal is to "wreck" it, but the instructions inside clearly say it's open to interpretation, so I am happy to say that I haven't "wrecked" it as much as I've "created" in it thus far...

The first one I decided to do was this page, that says you can drip coffee (or tea) on the page... not only drip, but spit, splat, whatever you may want to do. So I made extra sure that I didn't add milk to the coffee (because that wouldn't have made a dark enough stain) and I proceeded to spill some on the journal. I like how it turned out, but what I didn't like is that the pages are so thin that it bled right through to the other pages, and those are separate things to do on the other pages. But I have white gesso, so I'll be able to fix the bleed :)

Anyway, here is the coffee I spilled... I've a lot of ideas on how to decorate this spread further (doodle a design, add a Starbucks sticker... whatever) but I like how it turned out so far.

Another spread to do is to cover it with office supplies... so I added a decorative border with staples :)

See? I still have to add more supplies when I find them, but I'm still trying to keep an aesthetic rather than destroying the book... I know, I'm missing the point. But I love my journal!

Another spread I did was when you are instructed to step on the book, jump up and down, wipe your feet back and forth, etc... I painted my feet (one wearing a sneaker, and one barefoot) with red acrylic paint, and stood on the gessoed pages (there was also a big square of white sticker paper stuck on there to avoid the coffee stain coming through from the other side lol)...

So that's what I've done so far... and I've been having so much fun. I have ideas on how to further decorate the stepped-on pages, too, but we'll have to wait to see those :) Stay tuned in for the creative chaos to ensue! Oh, and if I can make a recommendation? Go out and get one. They're only like $10-$15, depending on where you get them, and they are very addictive... seriously, you should really get one :) Let me know if you do!!!