Project Share: Happy Mail Junk Journal

I recently picked up this junk journal I had made several months ago upon receiving a Flow-ish journal swap in the Facebook group Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals. It was my second swap with the lovely Nikki P. 

A Flow-ish Junk Journal is an assembly of unbound junk journal fodder one can deconstruct so as to use bits and  pieces in your own creations be it an art journal, junk journal, collage or other mixed media art. In the group we're basically sharing our stash.

Nikki had sent her load of paper inspiration in a sturdy cardboard cover that she had collaged with a few images. I kept going with it and tore up a bunch of papers shed sent along and added more to the cover, slapped on some more paint and decoupaged a decorative napkin over the whole thing and added all of the collaging to the inside cover.

I assembled 2 signatures and sewed them into the cover with dental floss. She had included a cute cardboard pocket that I glued to the back cover in a way that made it flip as if another book page.

She had sent a vintage card with large black sewing snaps that I used to attach some pockets to the inside covers of each of the two signatures which hold bits of ephemera.

A painty background with a cluster of ephemera and a painty junk mail envelope with a collage tag inside.

This was a painty/stenciled background page I made in the book a bit later.

Coffee and creativity happening at the cafe this morning.


Thanks so much for stopping by!

Project Share: Dressing Up My Naked Journal

This is the Naked Journal I received in the swap I mentioned in my last post. This cover is made from a cracker box I think. My swap partner, Carol, had the cardboard interior of the box as the cover and then she'd covered the inside cover with painted labels and pockets.

I decorated the cover with a napkin and used some of my handmade paper beads on the binding string tails. I love this journal and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I went through and did some collaging, stamping and stenciling to give it my mark

The journaling card was from Carol but I wrote the quote from something The Diva said on one of her Zentangle videos awhile back.

I collaged shreds of colored art tissue that had given up its color.

I made a pocket out of a piece of my Zentangle inspired art

Collaging, stamping (my hand carved stamp based on a design I saw on Kim Dellow's YT channel) and stenciling

Project Share: My First Naked Journal

I created a new-to-me style of junk journal for a recent swap in the Facebook group "Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals". It's called a Naked Journal because the pages within are left as-is, no additional decoration, embellishments (ie. pockets or tuck spots) or ephemera. It gives the recipient a blank canvas upon which to create.

With every swap, I try to learn and try out a new technique. I wanted to do a hard cover so I gutted a book I found at my neighborhood cafe. I reinforced the spine with a piece of chip board from the back of an art paper pad, collaged a napkin over it (the cover was red), glued some decorative paper inside and then wrapped a strip of fabric around the spine. I had previously made decorative paper strips stitched down the middle on my sewing machine so all I had to do was glue it in place.

I'm trying to work my way through a bunch of  scrapbook paper I seem to have an affinity for buying but never seem to know how to use. Until now.

Inside is my usual mash-up of papers including copies of some of my original watercolor backgrounds I had originally created for my Zentangle tiles.

There are coffee dyed papers...

and some of my painty papers where I played around with a hand carved stamp I'd just made and a new set of mini stamp pads. There were two signatures, pamphlet stitched into the spine.

I had so much fun making the swap journal that I immediately made 2 more. I've been having a lot of fun with the one my partner sent me. I'll share that in another post.

These are collage tag and postcard bases that I made using the cover of one of the paper pads I'd pulled apart. They still need a focal point or two and perhaps some kind of word/sentiment to finish them off.

Project share and a new tangent...

...collage. Much in the way that Zentangle relaxed me, gluing things to paper has weaseled its way into my daily artsy endeavors.
These are for a monthly swap series I've been making for the Facebook group Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals. Each month, we're given a template to incorporate into a 6" x 8" journal page. The idea is that at the end of the year you end up with 12 pages to bind into a journal.

I had two partners for this dress form swap. In a different swap, my partner had sent me a bunch of vintage buttons. I had so much fun with them.

The flower at the top is made from tea bags;-)

Project Share-Two Swaps

It's official. I'm hooked on this whole junk journaling thing and I'm really enjoying the swaps organized in the Facebook group Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals. Until I can achieve the bandwidth to make video flip-throughs of these projects, I decided to create separate posts to document the art I send away. I also realize that I need a way to archive ideas that I might otherwise forget down the road.
I sent out two swaps last week.

This first one is a Flow-ish Journal. This is basically a stash swap where the contents cover an assortment of inspiring journaling papers, images and ephemera that can later be removed by the recipient to use in their other art. Elements are not permanently bound or glued.

I'm not a scrapbooker or card maker so my own stash consists mostly of images I've collected throughout my years as Theatrical Costume Designer/student as well as  cards and papers I decorate myself.

This cover is a file folder that I collaged, painted and stenciled

I've tucked in several decorative napkins which are fun to use in collage

I also have a very large collection of art related postcards

I have a lot of costume reference images

the butterfly is a napkin I fused to cardstock and then stitched on the sewing machine

there's a little cluster in the corner using scraps and postage stamps

there's a piece of eco-printed watercolor paper

a belly band made of cardstock infused with a napkin

 french playing cards

 and paper clips with fibers attached otherwise known as Hairy Paperclips

coffee stained ledger paper

painted junk mail envelopes

a napkin/cardstock journaling card

copies of my hand drawn butterflies

and stamps on resume paper

I made a snippet roll

scraps and small images stitched onto a strip of fabric

tea dyed doilies

magazine pages stenciled and outlined a with gold paint pen

pieces of "Drop Paper" (sheets of calligraphy paper used under what I'm arting)

hand made tags
the pages are held in place by a length of bakers twine that wraps around the spine and the papers slide underneath the twine

the two signature covers are mixed media paper stenciled with tea

stenciled magazine pages

a decorated recycled envelope holding some clusters

I collaged some napkin scraps onto an insert

from a box that held 12 small wheels of cheese

(I work at a cheese counter)

some more drop papers that I added some stamping and stenciling to

I folded up some tourist maps into pockets to hold some of the handmade tags

This is my latest "Signature Swap". It's an 8 page signature (two 8 1/2" x 11" sheets folded in half) to form a completed signature. The decoration is permanent with pockets and bands that can hold tags and journaling cards.

That is all.