I do some collaborative work with a face book Letter journals are small books that are made with 4 pages of light weight paper and a cover 8″x8″stitched down the middle. When it is folded in half the journal fits in a business envelope. Most of the time I send the journals to Australia or America , because this is where most of the work that is similar to mine is produced. One of the aims of these journals is to have fun and keep the weight down so that they don’t break the bank when posting them internationally – the maximum weight is 50gms – so your journal will need to weigh 20gms or less at the beginning of the swap
It’s fun to keep the cost down by using lots of cheap easily found art equipment.
I use different light weight paper to make my pages for example security envelopes , old books , music scores and I recycle things like boarding passes
Equipment : Colouring pencils, pencils , cheap acrylic paint , postage stamps, stamps, biros, thin black writing pens , sharpies, washi tape, stickers, madgazine and newspaper images, letter and image stencils
When I send out my journals I go through and add stuff to every page
Stage 1
Examples :
Smear some paint with credit card – add dots of paint
This image is from a journal worked on with Brenda Lin, Joanne Hughes and Kerry Coleman
Scribble with a colouring pencil or a felt pen
The above image is from a journal with Michelle Hood, Jade Herriman and Natasha Kirby
Use pages with patterns or textures- e.g old music paper , book pages
Add images from news papers and magazines
Add strips of colour or texture from news papers and magazines
Add children’s stickers
Colour in or doodle on plain stickers
Add stripes with different types of pen- sharpie , biro, pencil , thin black liner
Doodle
Cut out words from magazines and newspapers
Stamp images using commercial stamps
From a page finished by Michelle Hood
I send my journal off at this stage – usually you finish a double page spread in each journal and sign it. I like to do my final spread at the end, when I receive my journal back.
Stage 2
Things that I do to other people’s journals when I receive them
Doodle
Top left from a journal worked in with Paula Jeffery
Add paint using stencils
Add magazine images and text
Other things to do –
Colour in doodles
From a journal worked in by Kathy Moulton , Darlene Winter and Sue Maher
Add outlines and layers to people’s images
Add more collage
From a journal page finished by Joanne Hughes
Washi tape – I tend to add washi tape at this stage because it is hard to doodle over the top of with my fine liners – even the permanent ink ones
Work from a journal worked in by Michelle Hood, Jade Herriman and Natasha Kirby
Stage 3
Some finished pages – if everyone had a good go you get back 8 or 9 pages of mixed media fun
From a couple of journals worked in by Tess Wyatt ,Michelle Hood, Jade Herriman , Natasha Kirby l,Brenda Lin, Joanne Hughes and Kerry Coleman
The FB group I work with is run by Jade Herriman
tesswyatt's Blog 
Tess would love to send you a journal and collaborate
I’m @bigbang_mixed_media on instagram
May I send you something?
I’m based in Yorkshire
What a great experience. You have not only shared some great collabs, but I also appreciate how you broke down the process. More and more I am seeing collabs and am itching to give it a try. This was a fun and inspiring post to read.
Thank you Lynda