Ode to Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Apparently, I have been living under a rock or maybe in a cave or maybe under a rock in a cave since I hadn't heard of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer until recently.  She rocks!!  Her fabulous creations inspired me to buy some watercolors and try my hand at painting - - I think I did an AWESOME job if I say so myself!!  So very different than anything I've done before - so bright and colorful!

I assembled my goods - these stamps come from Impression Obsession and were purchased in Mt. Dora, FL more than three years ago - at the time I remember debating whether to buy the wood stamp that had all these elements connected or to buy the clear stamps.  Several times since then I'd wished that I had bought the wood mounted stamps until I finally got smart and realized that I could. . .

just stamp the elements and doodle them together with a Sharpie!!  Duh!  Wish I'd figured that out sooner.  In my first pic you see StazOn ink but the ink I ended up using was VersaFine Onyx Black by Tsukineko.  That is THE BEST ink - I LOVE IT!!!!  So crisp and black - easily cleaned off my stamps with water and according to the packaging "produces 5 times more impressions than other pigment ink pads".

Anyhoo - I attached my finished watercolor to my brand, spanking new Art Journal (made from a composition notebook) - yet another inspiration from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  She is featuring Art Journal Every Day on her blog.  I've always been fascinated by art journals but the word "journal" scared me since I am intimidated by attempting to write stuff and then the word "art" is intimidating in and of itself!!  BUT I like to have fun and try new things so I'm gonna use this as a medium to do just that!  I even have my first page finished! 
THANKS for the inspiration, Julie!!