It doesn’t matter what book or journal you have chosen to use as your Grimoire for this project.

I decided to wait, after I bought some fabric, to make my own until I had a clearer idea of what my end-game might be. So I turned to my art grimoire, which is a Dina Wakley Media Journal. (This is NOT an affiliate link–it’s just a link to show you the product.) She’s already half filled up with various sketches and whatnot, but she will serve her purpose for what I need at the moment.

If you are interested, I am planning to release a Grimoire course in the future. Maybe in 2022. I will offer tastes of different things here and there throughout this year. It will help me coalesce all of my ideas and offer a perspective of what the course itself may have.

I use the first page of every journal to create an intentions page. As this particular Grimoire is for art and writing and collage and for whatever else crops up, I didn’t want prying eyes coming upon my intentions page and judging me.

In this journal, I took the actual front page, as in the inside of the cover, and the page directly next to it, and I wrote out my intentions for this journal.

What are you planning to do in this journal? Right now we are working on self care. What else might you come to this journal to do?

What are you looking for from this journal? What can this journal offer you? What can it do for you?

How does this entire process make you feel? The writing down of intentions? Using a Grimoire for self care? What are you afraid of? What makes you nervous about this?

On the flip side, maybe you can’t wait to get started and to dig in. That’s great. Write down why you are excited, why this is a great thing for you.

Write down every little thing you can think of that you want to get out, or that you think your journal, your Grimoire, who is now your Friend as well, would want to know about why you are choosing this path.

Are you all right leaving the writing showing? Maybe you want to come back sometimes and re-read what you have written. Maybe that is a form of pep talk for you when you are feeling lost on down the road.

Maybe you never want to see it again.

Maybe you are afraid someone else will see it and ridicule you or judge you or use it against you at a later date.

That’s fine.

Let’s see. If you are going to paint over the words you’ve written, pick three colors. Pick a light color, a dark color and a neutral color. Add the paint. Dribs and drabs here and there. Use a brayer or an old credit card/gift card or whatever to move the paint around. Press a piece of paper or cardboard into the wet paint to create textures.

Or just paint all over the words you wrote and keep adding layers (let the paint dry in between each coat of paint please) and call it a day.

Or paint and then collage over it.

Or simply rip pieces of pages out of magazines, books, old junk mail, whatever and glue those over your words until the words are completely obscured.

Take a piece of scrapbooking paper and cut it to size to cover up your writing. Then no one will think their is anything to see under that paper.

Do whatever feels right for you. Remember there is no right way or wrong way to do this. There is only the way that feels good to you.

Let everything dry completely before you close your book. Although if you want to glue that very first page down to the inside cover as a means to cover your writing–or to cover whatever you did to cover your writing, that is fine too.

Remember — there is no right way and no wrong way. There is only the way that works best for you and that makes you feel good about you.

Let me know how this introductory practice feels for you.

Let me know if you would like to see more Grimoire exercises throughout the year. Or even if you might be interested in the Grimoire work as a class.

Leave me comments and questions below.