I recently resurrected two old junk journals I created when I first started making journals 5+ years ago. At the time I had participated in a “Naked Journal” swap in Rosemary Morris’s Facebook group “Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals” and loved how relatively quickly these came together when you don’t have to decorate and embellish. I made several of these to really get my pamphlet stitch binding down.
During this Thanksgiving weekend I started deconstructing a stack of Somerset Studio magazines as well as doing a collage challenge by Ceri the Crafter using his “100 Perpetual Collage Prompts”. I needed a book to work in and of course my first thought was to make one but common sense prevailed and I went to my journal stash. I started working in “Cadillac Ranch” decorated with a photograph I had taken there during my cross country move from New York City back home to San Francisco over 20 years ago.
This book has 5 chunky signatures consisting of scrapbook paper, magazine pages, various graph papers, ledger papers and resume papers. The cover was made from a cracker box decoupaged with painty paper tissue scraps. I decided to test this out as a glue book and see how far I can push its capacity.
I’ve got 8 out of 14 magazines deconstructed at this point. I always pull out the “Art” papers Somerset Studios includes right away and tend to use them as signature covers in the journals I’ve made over the years.
Ready to deconstruct, I pull out the full page photographs and fold them down into pocket fillers.
Then I go through and isolate the images that speak to me artistically. They could be inspirational in that I could actually make something similar or just use them as color or texture reference. It’s my own personally curated book of inspiration.
Other images I will use to make die cuts.
Somerset Studios will include drawing papers (matte) that include some kind of prompt or artsy task. I use these for pages in future journals.
Although some of the articles and images aren’t my style, I appreciate them for possible uses in collages, backgrounds or punches/die cuts.
Captain Willoughby and Lady Winnimere aka Willie and Winnie. I welcomed these two bebez into my studio in July. They turned 6 months old last week and have brought so much joy into my home, as well as a bit of chaos. Creating can be a challenge because they want to get into everything and be in the middle of everything I’m doing.❤️❤️
