Floundering in my Journal

I think it's time I say it out loud.  I am a Journal Addict, and I may need an intervention.  Just when I think I've got too many journals going already but it's manageable, I accidentally started another one. I swear, it WAS an accident.

When those Strathmore visual journals came out, I bought two at Michael's (watercolor and mixed media).  Being wary of hyped up products, I got the smaller 5 x 7 sizes, in case I didn't like them. Well, I did like them, and have worked in both off and on over the past couple of years, trying out techniques and making color charts on the pages.  I've been wanting to go to a larger size, but for some reason my Michael's doesn't carry these anymore, in any size.  They are pushing the next best whatever hyped up new stuff instead.

So, in ordering my grid journal for an online class and running across other journals on sale, I ended up ordering two 9x12 Strathmore journals (again, I had to get one of each--watercolor and mixed media), you know, for later.  That's how I ended up making the stars & stripes page in my last post.  I was anxious to work on a 9x12 size to see how I liked it.  I liked it so much, I played some more in it with what you'll see below, thus being now fully committed to another journal playground where I'll try out new techniques.

That (above) is the long version.  The short version is:  "Hey, look what I did."  (below)

This technique is based somewhat on Dina Wakley's re-inker background project in her book.  She squirted circles using bottles of re-inker ink.  I was too lazy to dig out re-inkers.  I had my sprays nearby, and unscrewed the cap to make cirles with the stem of the sprayer thing.

After using two colors for the circles, I spritzed those with water, then dipped the sprayer stem from a darker blue spray into the wet ink for just a touch of extra color.  When this was close to being dry, I could tell I didn't care for it too much.  And it looked nothing like hers.  I think maybe the squirt bottle gives way more ink than the sprayer stem, looking much brighter.  Plus, my circles may have dried too much before being sprayed with water because I was busy getting my camera and taking pictures.  

So I repeated the first part, making more circles over the first, and sprayed with a little less water this time, trying not to dilute the color as much as I had the first time.

I'm still not too crazy about the background, but I went on to the next step anyway, which is to use molding paste and a stencil to add more design.  Here, I went my own way again.  Whenever I use any kind of texture medium like molding paste, I'm never happy with that white stuff sitting on the page.  Even when I try to color it, I'm not happy with it.  So this time, I put some of the paste in a bowl, sprayed some Dylusions orange onto it and mixed it a little before I spread it through the stencil.  I do like this better.  Plus, since I didn't mix it completely, some of the white paste shows in places, giving it a marbled effect.

There are more steps to this process, more things to add to the page.  But I haven't gotten that far yet.  For now, I'm just floundering and wondering what to do next...