Project Share: A Mega-zine

I watched a video from Mrs. Cogs last week where she flipped through a Mega-zine she made during an online class she'd published in her Etsy shop. She was trying to find a way to use large images that were too big for standard sized junk journals. Once again I was hooked because I too have a lot of magazine, art book, calendar images that I love but they really don't lend themselves to much cropping and I don't want to turn them sideways so I was inspired to create this journal which measures 8 1/2" x 11" with about a 1 inch spine.

I used a heavy duty, legal sized, medical file folder I'd picked up at SCRAP (creative re-use center) last week. I cut down the top where the prongs were embedded and used 2 pieces of the Frankenpaper I made a couple of weeks ago, then wrapped a strip of fabric all the way around the spine.

Mrs. Cogs calls this "the dashboard". I don't know why but anyhoo the pocket on the inner cover is a piece of embroidery I was sent in a swap. I dyed it with food coloring a long time ago for another project that I never ended up using it in. There's a piece of eco-printed watercolor paper on the right.

I just did some minimal decorating with some new stamps and washi tape.

I did an off-set fold on the double sided scrapbook paper signature covers and this is where I used partial calendar images glued down to an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of scrapbook paper to complete the width of the cover also creating a pocket.

I created paper hinges to attach two 8 1/2" x 11" pages together to make one large piece that I could sew into the spine

More eco-printed paper...

The polka dot scrapbook paper was trimmed down to 11" x 12" and folded at 8 1/2. The other piece of scrapbook paper measures 8 1/2" x 11" and is machine stitched to the larger piece to form the pocket on the backside.

Franken Paper cover detail.

Project Share: Travelers Notebook to Travel

I whipped up this Travelers Notebook style cover the other day...sort of. Several years ago I got my mitts on a large quantity of decorator samples, most of which were about 10" x 10" squares as well as some a bit larger. I made a bunch of utility aprons (3 large pockets) as gifts...the kind that one can wear whilst crafting or a flea market/farmers market vendor might wear, or in my case as a cashier at the market I work in. The pocket strip was a crazy-quilt like mash up of all of these small pieces of really pretty fabrics.

I had made several apron kits set up and ready to assemble, the quilted strip already sewn together...then I hit a wall and put the whole project away...until now. I recently watched a video by PinkOddBird where she'd made a journal cover out of a clutch purse as well as a clutch style journal cover and I was like "Aha!" I dug out my abandoned project and got to it.

I'm going on a trip to Wisconsin next week, a trip I won at a Cheesemonger competition earlier this year. I'll be visiting several cheesemakers and I'm super excited about it. I've never been to Wisconsin and haven't done any traveling at all for years. I had made a bunch of journal inserts during a stash-busting session a while back so putting this all together didn't really take much time at all. 

I started decorating with a bunch of cheese stickers as well as other product related stickers I get from vendors who come and do demos at my market.

I added some postage stamps and made a writing board.

The signatures include scrapbook paper that I stenciled on the white back side, pages from Somerset Studios (a paper crafting magazine I love), some coffee dyed papers and map pages from a AAA TripTik I'd saved from my cross-country move from NYC back to California 19 years ago.

Somerset studios inspiration going on here...

Spray inks through several stencils...

I just threw down a few stencils onto the back of a bunch of scrapbook paper and sprayed coffee through them.

On My Art Table-Scrapbusters!

Whenever I'm feeling the urge to make something but don't know what to do or I don't want to get into anything too complex, I collage scraps.  Collaging cardstock packaging with painty papers, random scraps and spent art tissue for what I'm now calling my "Background Book", is a go-to no brainer I find completely relaxing. These will eventually get some further stenciling, stamping and/or random painting. I might use them for journal covers or possibly cut up for tags and journaling cards...who knows?

Junk Journal ephemera: I have an excessive amount of  scrapbook paper that I'm trying to find projects for. These are the cut up strip pages that are included in many pads. I mash them up, layer 3 different widths and then do a decorative stitch down the center. These can be used as belly bands and then remnants of those belly bands can be used in clusters.

Works-in-progress: Book pages pockets colored with bleeding art tissue.

"Frankenpaper" (sort of a paper crazy-quilt) made from a bunch of scraps sent to me in a swap.

I did some eco-printing a couple of weeks ago. I'm still hoarding them as I try to decide what to make with them. I love them just as they are...for now;-)