A little time spent in the junk journal

I spent a little time with my junk journal yesterday. Sometimes, when I'm working at my desk in my workroom surrounded by everything in my stash, it can take me ages to complete a page as I have so much to choose from! Rather than do that I just pulled a few die-cuts, some paper scraps and stickers, along with my new Promarkers that I wanted to try out, into a little basket and took myself downstairs in front of the tv. Having a restricted amount of materials to work with, makes it a quicker process (you don't spend all that time searching for just the 'right' thing) you do have to work harder to get the various bits and pieces together onto a page.

The page in photos 2-4 came together quite easily as I was able to choose pieces with a similar colour palette, it was just a matter of the best way to arrange them. The piece in the bottom right corner came from a magazine and leant itself to a corner, so once I'd decided which one, the rest just expanded from there.

The page in photos 5 and 6 is one side of an envelope, with a top opening. I tried out my Promarkers on this one. I'd bought them from Cass Art, where they were on offer at less than half-price. They're very wet, so they bled through the thin paper on the envelope. I did try them on a higher grade paper when they didn't bleed at all, so I just need to remember not to use them on absorbant paper. The owls and flowers just matched the colours I'd used.

The page on photos  7-9, started with a scrap of paper that I'd used up the ink on stamps with that left feint images of the stamps. Once I'd decided on the Valentine theme, the page came together fairly quickly. I doodled flowers on this one with a purple Promarker, but they did bleed a bit so they're not as fine as if I'd used an ordinary felt-tip. A junk journal is a good place to try out new materials and techniques, it's not like anyone is going to mark your work so, you can try anything out without the worry of someone peering over your shoulder!

I'll be back on Sunday with a post on this week's #52weeksofstitchingthecircle episode.

Have a good weekend.

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 junk journal pages

I've been having a bit of a play in my  junk journal and created these two pages. I used the pages as they were in the journal as they were too nice to cover up. Then I just had a look a look through one of my boxes of stuff and found the make do and mend image first, which was closely followed by the cupcake one. So I decided to do one sewing and one cake themed page.

I spent a very pleasant hour.

I'll be back on Thursday.

TTFN
Louise

Flowers, a double page spread in my junk journal.

I had an urge to do a bit of paper crafting, but my workroom is all at sixes and sevens as I'm having a new work bench put in, so I could only use what was on the bit of desk I had access too.

I used a napkin, some ephemera, mainly off Pinterest, a paper bag to make into a pocket, a paint chip and some stickers. I made a tag for the pockets and I also created a 'tuck spot' to hold a journaling card and a big paint chip to use as amother plce to scribbed on if i want.. 

It's not turned out too badly considering I had limited supplies.

I'll be back on Saturday. 

TTFN 
Louise 

My first junk journal

I've used old books and diaries etc to use as journals before, but this is the first time I've made from scratch, myself. The cover was made from a Cadbury's Fingers box (a double one) and the insides are made from various magazine pages, doilies, music manuscript, enveloped, a paper bag and bits of junk mail.

The cover was covered in white paint then a piece of tissue paper was glued on with mod podge. The tag and mini frame were in my stash and I made the mini suffolk puffs and the bow. The alphabet pieces used for the word journal is from Pinterest.

I've used four signatures (the different groups of pages) with nine pieces of paper, folded in half. I sewed each signature into the cover and you can see the stitches on the spine in the sixth photo. It was hard work on my fingers though, I need to improve my technique. Apart from the envelopes and the paper bag that are forming pages in the journal, I've not added any pockets etc yet, so I'm going to add those as I go.

The inside of the cover has been painted with three colours of acrylic paint that were blended together. I've only added a sticker to the inside of the cover so far, but I may add a couple of pockets in the future.

I've also created my first page - art deco. It's mainly a mixture of images from Pinterest, with the addition of a couple of embellishments from my stash. 

I'm going to have fun working in this journal and learning about and using new techniques to decorate the pages.

I'll be back on Friday.

TTFN
Louise