Project Share: 101 Journals

12 Journals in 10 days

The paper is getting out of control so, I've issued myself a challenge, prompted by a post in one of my junk journal Facebook groups. Someone had posed the question "Could you go a year without purchasing any craft supplies (not including adhesives)?

Interesting thought as this made me reflect on why I went down the junk journal rabbit hole to begin with...re-purposing. I was a theatrical costume designer for 20 years and prior to that a student, then teacher of costume design as well. I collected a lot of paper: images, postcards and books about fashion, costume history, art, design, clothing construction, millinery, etc. in addition, things I collected throughout 20 years of travel. 

I started off well enough until I discovered a store called Tuesday Morning. It's kind of a discount Home Goods with a nifty craft section.  In the last 18 months I've accumulated more paper than I started out with.

My riff on this challenge is to make 101 naked journals without buying anything but glue and blades for my paper cutter. I live in a studio apartment so my stash, though out of control for my space, is not as massive as those who have dedicated craft rooms and storage.

Cadillac Ranch

I unearthed a large box of photographs I'd taken on my travels and made a bunch of cover plates. Cadillac Ranch is made from a box of Trader Joe's crackers collaged with painty paper scraps. my fattest journal thus far.

Birthday Girl

Gift for my nieces 25th birthday

Birthday girl was made using a gutted hard cover book decoupaged with a decorative napkin, fabric from a sun-worn tablecloth and a band made from strips of scrap decorative paper.

I had several pieces of "Frankenpaper" sort of a paper crazy quilt of scraps, which became journal covers

I covered the inside with fabric...

There's no decoration within the journals at this point...

The papers are a mash-up of anything I could fold in half: book/magazine pages, lined paper, graph paper, greeting cards etc.

I've given myself a soft deadline of January 1 because I really want to "use it or lose it" and re-organize my space. I'm also curious to see what kind of chunk this will take out of stash.

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;-)

Project Share: A Junk Journal Spread Using Happy Mail

The finished journal page

A while back I participated in an Ephemera Swap in one of the Facebook groups I follow. The above spread was completed in my current Cafe Journal. It's a travelers notebook style journal, 4 1/2" x 8 1/2".

This  is a backward look at how this all went down.

The finished tag made from a packaging card

My partner had sent some black chalkboard tags in packaging as well as some printy collage paper and several die cuts to play with.

For budgetary and storage reasons more than anything, I don't buy ephemera, so it's nice getting bits and pieces in swaps.

The back of the card for journaling

I drew some lines on craft paper using an Inktense pencil and smudged it out with a water brush.

setting up for the cafe crafting session

Opening up the happy mail the previous evening
I love the bottle caps

Thanks  for stopping by!

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