Make gratitude your daily habit, through creativity, play and JOY!
Are you ready to fill your days with gratitude, creativity and mixed media magic?
This year's Gratitude Junk Journal Workshop is back bigger, brighter and more JOY-filled than ever!
Together, we'll create a one-of-a-kind altered book art journal to hold our treasure, our thoughts, our art, our JOY and our gratitude. With 13 amazing artist instructors guiding you, you'll not only learn inspiring mixed media techniques but also deepen your own daily gratitude practice in fun, soulful and creative ways.
"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." Thornton Wilder
Come alive with us in 2025 and let's put our art and heart into gratitude!
Inside this workshop, you'll discover how to:
- Create a gorgeous altered book art journal.
- Layer textures, colors and background that make your pages shine
- Use junk and everyday bit to create meaningful, mixed media art.
- Practice gratitude daily with guided prompts and challenges
- Find Joy in small everyday moments (and reduce stress!)
- Build a gratitude practice that nourishes your heart and sparks creativity.
"I loved the class! I liked trying out different techniques and getting tips from the different instructors. Watching the instructors on the videos was great. I liked the self-paced aspect of the class and I watched most of them several times. Benefits included: learning and trying new techniques; stepping back and thinking about all of the things that I’m grateful for; seeing what others have done. It was an excellent journaling class and provided a great deal of inspiration and confidence." Sue L.
When you join, you'll enJOY:
- Step-by-step mixed media video tutorials
- Daily gratitude challenges to spark inspiration
- All new lessons for 2025
- Downloadable Resources/PDFs you can revisit anytime
- Work-at-your-own-pace format - no stress, just JOY
Perfect for beginners or seasoned creatives.
"I am in! I loved the gratitude journal last year and had thought "I want to do this again"! Just signed up. I want to do this every year. And November is the perfect month for gratitude." Laurie P.
By the end, you'll have:
- A beautiful altered book art journal you'll treasure forever
- Gorgeous art journal pages filled with color, texture and heart
- A deeper, more JOYful daily gratitude practice
- Stress-reducing habits of noticing and celebrating life's treasures
- Mixed media techniques you can use again and again
- A JOY-filled creative community to cheer you on
BONUSES for 2025
Altered Book Journal Project - transform a book into a stunning, personal gratitude journal (inside and out)
Deep-dive Gratitude Practice - explore new ways to notice, reflect and celebrate gratitude in your everyday life.
"I have been taking lots of online courses everywhere for years now. How is it that I never ran across you before? Your style is quiet, informative with a healthy dose of wisdom and humour. Your lesson was generous with lots of options for supplies as you went along. Your detail work, really was an eye opener. I do a lot more of that now. In short: keep doing what you are doing. It's great." ml
This workshop is for you if you want to...
- Build or grow a daily gratitude practice
- Spark your creativity with fun, mixed media techniques
- Join a community of JOYful, like-hearted creatives
- Shift your mindset and experience more love, JOY and peace
- Play, explore and use what you already have in fun ways
Let's make this a time of JOY, gratitude and creative play.
Spots open October 1, 2025.
"This workshop introduced me to some artists I was not familiar with, that I really do like and have started to “follow”, so thank you!!!! This course was thoughtful, fun and informative. Thank you." Catherine L.
"The Facebook community for your classes are more welcoming and encouraging than some of the other workshop communities." Cathy W.
Check out our fabulous list of instructors and learn more about them below by clicking on their name.
Your Instructor
Tiare Smith is a self-taught mixed media artist and instructor.
Born with art in her heart she lost her way from her art for 18 years. It came back to her life in a burst of emotion and anxiety. By practicing techniques of love, positive self talk, and action which have helped her to overcome other areas of struggle, she now enjoys her art in a free and inspiring way.
She inspires creatives to embrace their inner artist while also nurturing their hearts and memories.
She has not only been featured on HGTV but has had numerous works published in a variety of crafting magazines and blogs.
She aims to help women embrace the artist within through lessons infused with love, happiness, confidence and creativity, empowering them to experience and express their art more freely.
PLEASE CLICK NAME TO CONNECT FURTHER WITH EACH OF OUR ARTIST INSTRUCTORS
She loves thrifting, all things vintage and enjoys incorporating prayer and worship into her daily creative practice. Her heart’s desire is to show others that art journaling is an amazing outlet to express yourself and your feeling in a safe and healthy way.
Amanda is a London Born Mixed Media Artist and has been creating and collaborating with a variety of artists around the world in group as well as solo exhibitions in London UK, Barbados, Montserrat, and US Virgin Islands.
She is a 6 times Award Winning Mixed Media Artist, winning the NIFCA Professional Artist Silver and Three Bronze Awards, Barbados, and Two Awards at the Central Bank Crop Over Visual Arts Exhibition in Barbados
She loves creating and uses a variety of materials such as clay, fabric, recycled materials, collage, natural fibres and dyes to create art, art journals and tells a story that impacts the viewer through the use of color and texture.
She believes in the positive impact that art and creativity can have on health and wellbeing, and she curates an Arts in Health Network alongside writing for her Blog – Realityarts-Inspiration.
She runs an Art YouTube Channel sharing her creative process through Art tutorials, Arts and Wellness, art journals and more. She also runs a Gardening Channel – looking at the creative, nutritional, and medicinal benefits of plants and growing a food forest.
I was born and raised in Colorado and I grew up loving the natural environment and the wild Rocky Mountains around me. It helped shape me as a person and as an artist. As an extremely quiet and shy child, I felt as though I never could clearly express my voice. Art became my voice. I am still shy, but now I feel my artwork expresses my voice clearly.
Just like nature expresses itself differently each season, I too use different mediums for expressing myself through art. Mixed media, watercolors, and encaustic keeps my art growing in many different ways. Capturing a tree, flower or birds, all exquisite and perfectly created… I love to create them in my own unique style and hope to impart this sense of peace and joy on to my viewers.
I am an artist living in Alaska. I am very inspired by the life and nature that surrounds me, with a vintage and sometimes whimsical touch. Vintage papers are in most of my creations. I find it healing to connect to the past and see the future in our art. I mostly work with watercolor and acrylic but dabble in other mediums. Tiny bits of paper that can seem insignificant and glue sticks are what make my heart happy
Journal Writer : I have always been a journal writer off and on throughout my life. Only when my son passed away in 2022 did I make it a daily habit. At first it was just to ‘brain dump’ all of my emotions. Later I found it to be the greatest form of self care and personal history keeper
Kae Pea is a designer, instructor, illustrator, painter and creative moon beam. It is not uncommon to find her in her studio, experimenting with numerous creative projects, a wide variety of mediums or maybe dabbling with digital art, all on any given day!
She was a self taught mixed-media artist until 2011 at age forty-five, when she went on to receive her B.F.A. in Studio Art from Maryville University in Saint Louis. In 2012 she took over RubberMoon Art Stamps and merged her love of mixed media. In April of 2020 she reopened ArtFoamies.. She brings her enthusiasm and knowledge to like-minded creative souls through live and online workshops all across the USA and abroad and to her patrons in livestreams and zooms in her comMOONity Patreon Group
Kae Pea is a firm believer in the magical powers of art making and loves nothing more than to share her ideas, inspire and empower others to 'get makey' and live their creative dreams.
Originally from the California Bay Area, Kae Pea lives with her best friend and her cat in a little river town in the MidWest.
Cindy Gilstrap, with Cici & Company Studio, is a mixed media artist with a love for bright colors, quirky design, and anything vintage. She believes creative play is such a gift to give yourself and loves inspiring students to just play and enjoy the creative process. She loves combining her bright colors, especially pink and orange, with vintage items to give them new life. You will find combinations of vintage elements, fabric, stitching, and paint in Cindy’s work. She loves spreading joy with her art and her quirky style often extends to her outfits and her decorating style.
Cindy lives in Dallas, Texas with her hubby, 3 dogs, and feels blessed to have her grown kids and extended family close by. She teaches online and in person art journal classes and loves collaborating with other artists.
I’m Kate! I am a maker and creator of all things colourful and messy from my rural home in the north of England. I have always been a creative soul but discovered mixed media art in 2008 and my enthusiasm for colourful expressive art continues to this day. I have taught many mixed media and art journaling classes over the years both in person and on line. I am also passionate about drawing, printing and rubber stamping, and now design a range of stamps and stencils for Paper Artsy. My art can be recognised by my love of colour and also a touch of whimsy. I am at my happiest when surrounded by acrylic paints, crayons, pencils and rubber stamps, and you can usually spot me by the paint up my sleeves.
Andrea Gomoll is a multifaceted artist and art instructor from Berlin, Germany. Her creativity spans across various mediums, including painting - preferable using watercolors, artjournaling, collage and papercrafting. She embraces a broad approach to art, believing in the power of creative expression as a tool for personal exploration and emotional healing. Drawing inspiration from both intuitive and structured practices, Andrea explores how art can unlock mental clarity, spiritual growth and joy. Her work reflects a rich variety of media, styles and techniques, offering viewers and her students the freedom to explore different creative avenues and to embrace a vast variety of possibilities. In addition to making art, being a published author of the book „WatercolorMagic“ and having launched several products featuring her art, Andrea shares her knowledge and joy for art on social media, as well as through several online courses, where she inspires and encourages others to use art as a way to express, enhance their wellbeing and connect with their inner selves through the creative process.
Idania Salcido, the artist behind Danita Art is a self taught, multidisciplinary artist who uses the techniques she learned through her career materializing her ideas. Her work is inspired by nature, fairy tales, antiques, folk art, folklore, books, women, magic, the seasons, the grand theater and marionettes. She uses art as an alternative from reality, trying to create inhabitants of a world that exists in her imagination.
Keen collector of discarded things and flora specimens, she loves reading, and the way others have with words. She finds it hard to express with words like her favorite authors do, so she chooses a visual narrative to tell her story instead. She’s a daydreamer, a beauty seeker, an old soul and a coffee lover.
She admires the craftsmanship of the past, when even simple things were made with care and attention to detail. She loves adding a vintage patina to most of the pieces she makes, but sometimes she channels her Mexican heritage into colorful creations.
One of her favorite things to create are 3D objects that look like the drawing on the paper has come alive. She has explored doll making and sculpting and it’s now focusing on ceramics as part of her artistic exploration that involves both the visual appeal and the tactile experience.
Her work has been published in several magazines and books and her work is collected internationally.
When she’s not creating, you can find her at the library with her kids, playing with her cats, browsing through antique’s shops, working on her small potted garden or going on field trips to her nearest forest.
Proud single mum of two wonderful daughters, she trained in both Fashion,Textiles and Fine Art and has had a chequered career, including working as a glass engraver and designing and making custom accessories in a bridal house, always pursuing the desire to create as an independent artist along the way.
Sue paints fantastical, strong, feminine works and loves to teach mixed media, create art dolls and occasional assemblage work, often inspired by the rich local legends of magic, mermaids and myths of Cornwall.
Hello, I’m Eulalia. I’m a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, teacher and maker of stuff. I live in Colombia, South America, in a little rural town up in the mountains, with my dog, two cats and human boyfriend. I spend my days in my studio illustrating and splashing paint on handmade journals while discussing worldly matters with my cat.
“My dream is to bring a little cheer to daily life by designing playful illustrations for fun-loving people. I truly believe that we are never too old to be amazed by everyday life; surrounding ourselves with beauty is a great way to remind us there can be magic in the world.”
Birgit is married to Erik and a mom of 3. She lives in a little village called Winsum in the north of the Netherlands.
Birgit started scrapbooking in 2003 but then fell in love with mixed media and art journaling. Her favorite things to do right now are art journaling, mono printing and layered collage art. She loves to get her hands dirty and experiment with paints and inks and all kinds of mediums.
Birgit’s art is mostly bright and colorful, with a lot of layers and details. She loves to combine colours that are very contrasting and works a lot with stamps, stencils, inks, acrylic paints and markers.
Birgit teaches and demonstrates in her own studio at home as well as in craft stores and at (international) mixed media events (pre-Covid) and taught a number of (collaborate) online classes. Teaching brought Birgit all over the world. She had the privilege to teach in the US, Canada, India, Australia and Israel but also closer to home in France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria and the UK.
She loves to travel, see new places, meet people and explore different cultures. She considers it a huge bonus that she is able to combine that with her love of teaching and inspiring people to create art.
Since 2014 Birgit has her own product line with Carabelle Studio for whom she designs stamps, stencils and art printing plates. Birgit is a Lead Brand Ambassador for Gelli Arts® and creates monthly video tutorials for the Gelli Arts® You Tube channel and conducts regular live classes for Gelli Arts® and Michaels Stores.