I'm making a Christmas junk journal - part one, the cover and gathering papers

I have quite a lot of Christmas stuff in my paper and ephemera stashes that I have acquired over a few years, so I thought I'd make myself a Christmas junk journal to use some of this up. As with my first junk journal, I've used a Cadbury's fingers box for the cover. 

I've painted over the front of the cover with some red acrylic paint. It's not hidden the images on the front but it just adds a richer backing under the tissue paper that I've used on top. I used mod podge to stick the tissue paper down and added a coat over the top to give a glossy finish. I love the texture that the tissue paper (and the napkin I've used on the inside) makes rather than for it to be smoothed down completely flat (plus that would incur a lot of faffing about!). I used the top layer of a napkin and repeated the same process as the front for the inside cover.

So far I've decorated the front with a tag and a couple of wooden embellishments. I've used embossing powder on the Christmas decoration wooden embellishment and on the tag. I will be adding other stuff to the front when I come across something I want to use. 

I've gathered together some old Christmas cards, Christmas scrapbook papers, pages out of catalogues and some envelopes and bags to use the pages on the inside. The next job will be to create the signatures and to attach these to the cover.

I hope you're having a good weekend and I'll be back on Tuesday.

TTFN
Louise

It started with some flamingos...

While I was on my couple of days off I did another page in my junk journal. This one started with a set of stickers with flamingos and pineapples that I was sent by one of my American penpals (they're from the Reflections range by Michaels and the USA).

Originally, I was aiming for a 1950s-style Miami theme, but I didn't have what I needed in my stash nor could I find it on Pinterest, so I decided to do this collage of four different, but linked, images instead. The design on the background of the flamingos on their tropical island and the two Florida pieces were found on Pinterest. I already had the cocktail shaker one,  though that probably came from Pinterest too. 

Once I'd decided on this layout it didn't take me long to finish, with the orange and pink jewels being the last elements I added. Again, it didn't finish how I first thought it would, but I do like the way it came out in the end.

I quite often get a bit of ephemera or some stickers in my letters from my penpals, and so that I can remember who they came from, I like to use the ones from each penpal separately, plus they quite often take me in a style direction that I wouldn't have normally followed. I have some space-themed postage stamps and a card from Nasa in one letter I received recently, so my next page will have a space theme to it that I wouldn't have chosen without having those starting pieces.

I'll be back again on Sunday.

TTFN
Louise

A couple of Halloween-themed journal pages

It took me a while to finish these two pages. I shared an image of the painted black pages and a few pieces of ephemera over a week ago on Instagram, but I got side-tracked by other stuff so didn't get round to adding anything to them until yesterday.

These two pages are in my altered book journal that I started last month. I started off by painting the two pages black. Ideally I would have used acrylic paint, but, for some reason, I didn't have it in my paint stash (something that has since been remedied), so I ended up using black watercolour paint squeezed directly out of the tube.

The ephemera I've used was found on Pinterest, apart from a few little images and the clock that I already had. The rest of the embellishments, glitter flowers, crystals, ribbon etc were already in my stash. On the left-hand side I created a pocket for a couple of tags and on the right-hand side I added a double-sided fold-out piece (I think there's another name for this type of thing but I can't remember what it is!), with the crow on one side and an old poem called  'All Hallows Eve' on the other. I created a hinge out of washi tape. It's a handy way to add more workable space on a page.

Originally, I intended these two pages to be all black and white and gothicy, but the orange creeped in with the tags and I ended up using orange as the accent colour! These things never turn out how you originally think that they will. You see something on the page or find a particular piece when you're looking for something else and new ideas pop into your head and away you go! It's one of the fun things about working in an altered book or junk journal, you can do whatever takes your fancy. It's not like you're going to be marked on it for an exam or it's going to be displayed in a gallery etc!

I hope you liked my Halloween journaling efforts, but I won't mind if you don't. The world would be boring if we all liked the same things, don't you think?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your weekend and I'll be back on Monday.

TTFN
Louise

Journaling cards and tags.

I always like to add a bit of something to my letters to penpals, apart from the letter itself, and that can mean a bit of fabric, some nice paper or a handmade tag or journaling card. Those above are the first of these I've made in a while. They're a fun way to use up paper and image scraps and don't take too long to make. Plus it's soon going to be Christmas (there, I've said the c-word!) making time and that'll take over my creative time, so I want to have stock of these in when I don't have the time to make them.

I'll be back in Monday.

Have a good weekend.

TTFN
Louise

Finally, I have new pages in my scrapbook/journal!

It's taken me some time, but I've finally started adding new pages to my scrapbook/journal. Chiefly thanks to my penpal, Tams, at Paper Tams.

It's getting rather fat, so it has it now has its own little belt! 

The journal label is new .
 

The page that restarted it all. Tams used a glassine bag to make a mini journal with a couple of pages and pockets (you can see it better in the photo below), she also made the tag with the rabbit on on the left-hand page.The cat tag was added by me.

The cards on these two pages were sent to me in swaps and I've decided to keep them in here as I was running out of wall space to hang them on! All of the washi tape came off penpal letters and envelopes. The Teeny Tiny Vintage card used to have some of Vittoria's in it.

These two pages were put together gradually. I started off with wallpaper as the background. The grass washi tape came from a penpal letter, the rest came together piece by piece as I found flowery things to go on the pages until I thought it was finished.

These two pages also have a flower theme and I've added a pocket.

 

 This envelope from Tams was too lovely to add to my penpal folder, it's a work of art on it's own.

These two pages hold a collection of business cards that I've acquired either by buying something from there or as fellow stall holders at fairs. Again I needed somewhere to keep them, and this is a good a place as any.

I'm going to be making at least one new journal soon, plus I'll continue to add to this one, so there'll be more paper related posts to come.

I'll be back on Thursday, have fun till then!

TTFN
Louise