How a Sketchbook Collage Became a Weekly Practice

When I made my first sketchbook collage in 2016, I had no idea it would eventually become a weekly practice, or how much my work would change and evolve over the next nine years.

First sketchbook collage from March 2016

Monday collage from October 2025

In early 2016 I left my full-time job and was looking for a low-stress creative outlet. After years of making complex mixed media collages, I wanted something simpler and less time-consuming. I wanted this practice to be about discovery and play with my favorite material, paper, rather than creating finished pieces for exhibition. 

​With sketchbook in hand, I began working on the pages whenever the mood struck. I had no expectations and no big plans. Between 2016 and 2018, I used two sizes of sketchbooks, one a 5.5 x 8 inch sketchbook and the other a 9 x 11 inch sketchbook, depending on the paper I felt like using that day.

​The idea for a weekly Monday Morning Sketchbook Collage came in early 2019. Monday felt like the perfect day. It gave me a creative boost at the start of the week, before I had to focus on the essential (and often boring) tasks that come with running a small business.
​

Adding Hand Stitching to Paper Collage​
​

​I had been adding thread here and there to a few collages, but in August of that year, I added my first real stitches to a collage. From then on, stitching found its way onto almost every page. It wasn’t fancy, just simple straight lines and a few French knots. The stitching brought me back to earlier days, when my mother and grandmother taught me how to embroider.

I didn’t make a collage every Monday that year, but by the end of December, I had a collection of 28 collages.

 Examples of my first stitching on paper

In 2020, I committed to making one collage every Monday morning. I needed a new sketchbook and, once again, chose to work in two sizes. This time it was a small spiral-bound 4 x 6 sketchbook and a larger 8.5 x 11 one. As the weeks went on, I began experimenting more intentionally with color combinations and composition, and I paid closer attention to the materials I was using. I was slowly building a collection of collage materials, many of which were items that most people would discard or recycle without a second thought.
​

Repurposing: Materials I Love to Use

​That way of seeing didn’t come out of nowhere. The thirteen years I spent living in Southern California slowly reshaped how I viewed the world and the resources around me. Growing up on the East Coast, water felt abundant, something we rarely thought about. In California, where we arrived during a severe drought, conservation became part of daily life. We adjusted our habits, became more mindful about water use, and carefully sorted glass, plastic, and paper to comply with local recycling programs.

Now, before I discard or toss something into the recycling bin, I pause: I look for color, texture, and possibility. Below are a few examples of the papers and found elements I like to use in my work, each one carrying traces of that shift in awareness. 

tea bag packaging, tissue box, and window screen 

tarp thread, cardboard, tea bag, & piano roll paper

A sampling of some of the materials from my collage stash that will likely be repurposed in my work. Security envelopes became such a favorite material to use that I eventually built an entire class around them, Mailscape Collage, where I share ideas for using this everyday paper in new ways.

In August of 2021, after finishing a collage in my larger sketchbook, I had the idea to make another collage from the leftover scraps. Then another and another. I kept going until I ran out of usable scraps and ended up with five additional collages in the smaller sketchbook. Of the six collages, my favorite is the first one I made in the small sketchbook that reminds me of a sailboat in the water.

In 2022, I worked in a 6 x 6 square book that I had made the previous November. Switching to a square format felt like just the right change. The book was filled with thick printmaking paper, which held up beautifully to stitching.

I was still committed to one collage every Monday, but I made one important change. I dropped “morning” from the title. The collages were becoming more complex, and I was now incorporating stitching into every piece. Feeling pressured to finish before noon was taking away some of the joy, so renaming it to Monday Sketchbook Collage gave me the flexibility to work whenever it fit best into my day.

In March, I began creating a second small collage from that week's leftover scraps. These were made on watercolor paper in a variety of sizes, ranging from as small as 1.5 x 1.5 inches to as large as 4 x 4 inches. Many times, I ended up liking the smaller collage better than the original larger one. It became a playful exercise in working with limited supplies, an idea I later brought into my Sketchbook Collage Workshop.

By the end of December, I had completed 66 collages. You can see a flip-through of this sketchbook on my YouTube Channel.

If I were going to continue the Monday collage project in 2023, I knew I needed a bigger change to keep things fresh. Even though it would likely take more time, I challenged myself to work in a concertina-style sketchbook. I cut twelve long strips of paper and divided each into four or five 5-inch panels, depending on how many Mondays were in each month.

As expected, each panel took longer than the sketchbook pages I had worked on in previous years. While I could still focus on one panel at a time, I also had to consider the panels before and after it so the entire strip would feel cohesive. I limited myself to one color palette per month. It required more concentration, but I embraced the challenge, and it was especially satisfying to see each finished strip laid out on the last Monday of the month.

After completing the January strip, I began using as many of the leftover scraps as possible to make a series of quick, intuitive collages in a range of small sizes. This became a companion practice that I returned to each month, a way to loosen up after the focused work of the concertina panels and to make use of every last piece of paper. That approach eventually made its way into a free Speed Collage Class I shared on my YouTube channel for World Collage Day.

Spring Greens and Repurposed Materials

April’s concertina strip turned out to be one of my favorites that year. I worked with spring greens and repurposed a wide variety of materials, including parts of a postcard, a tea box, two tissue boxes, tea bag wrappers, an envelope liner, and packaging cardstock. To see the colors and materials I chose for the other eleven months, click here.

In 2024, I returned to a traditional sketchbook. While I enjoyed experimenting with a different format the year before, I missed the spontaneous nature this way of working allows. The sketchbook I used was one I made myself, filled with printmaking paper that I especially love for stitching.
​

Natural Materials: Garden to Sketchbook

​
​I press and dry a lot of plant material with eco-printing in mind, but sometimes I see a leaf or flower I want to save simply because I like it. Many of those elements found their way into this year’s sketchbook. Shown below are a clematis flower, leaves from a rose bush, dried hydrangea flowers, and bark from a river birch tree.

By October, I had filled every page of the sketchbook. I finished the year collaging on watercolor paper cut to the same size, continuing the practice without interruption. In total, I completed 52 collages.

When 2025 arrived, I hadn’t made myself a new sketchbook, and the first Monday in January came quickly. This year, I chose to work on 5.5-inch squares of watercolor paper instead, and shortened the name of the project once again, simply to Monday Collage.

The Ring Knot Stitch Discovery

Along the way, I discovered a new stitch called the ring knot stitch. Casual and loopy, they were a nice visual change. They were almost as fun as making French knots, which didn’t surprise me once I learned it’s sometimes referred to as a “lazy French knot.”

As 2026 approaches, I find myself wanting to make another change. There are so many things I’m excited to work on that returning to something simpler and less time-consuming feels necessary. I’m thinking I’ll move back to a sketchbook again. Limiting materials has always saved time, but it also pushes me creatively, so I may keep each collage to five to seven pieces of paper, with minimal stitching.

If you’d like to follow along and see how the Monday Sketchbook Collages unfold in the coming year, I’ll be sharing progress on Instagram.
​

Since that first collage in 2016, the work has changed many times, but the simple act of returning to the page each Monday has remained the same.