Butterfly
One of the goofiest things my brain does is tell me something is “cheating” if it's easy.
Say I'm in the mood to make an art journal page, but I have no ideas. Why not do a thing I've done before: pour some paint onto a spread of pages, fold the book closed, and then enjoy the awesome “butterfly” pattern the paint makes?
“But it's too easy!” my mind whines. “It's not art! Art Is Hard!”
Maybe it's not art. Who gives a shit? Look at this pattern, isn't it kinda cool?
I let it dry, and did the same thing again, with a bronze metallic color. It looks pretty rad over the gold.
I also played around with spraying some metallic Distress Ink over a pattern of leaves, and then securing a feather over it with vellum cut in the shape of a leaf.
For the first layer of this design, I poured my coffee into the sketchbook. Why the hell not?
Nobody in the world gets to make the rules for art.