Your Junk Journal ~ 4 Ways to Make Pockets 🤩

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Pockets are just as important in your junk journal as they are in a dress 😉

There are four easy ways to create these little hideaways for memories, bits and pieces of a fun day out, ephemera, etc.

1. The double-triangle pocket

For this pocket you need a piece of paper twice the width of your page, and about 2/3 the height.

Fold the paper in half.

Cut diagonally from the top corner by the fold to appr. 1/2″ on the open side.

Cut it in half, pin and sew (or tape) in place.

Done! 😃

A little tip: You may wanna invest in a paper cutter. It’ll save you time and, in my case, a lot of hair pulling 😅 Since I can’t scissor-cut a straight line to save my life, I think a paper-cutter is one of the best tools ever invented!

2. The side pocket

This one is quite simple…

The side pocket is half the width of the page 😊

3. The pocket at the bottom

This pocket is 1/3 of the height of the page 🙂

4. The double-page pocket

I love this pocket because it can hold so much! In my Christmas journal it keeps wrapping paper scraps, gift tags, and ribbon safe and wrinkle free 😁

Find two pretty book pages (or you can make collages), and sew, or tape, them together on three sides.

Isn’t she adorable? 😍 And the pie looks really good… I may have to try that recipe. I will let you know how it turns out 🤓

You’ve probably noticed that I sew all of my papers together. I think it adds a pretty little detail to the page. And you know me…can never have enough of those 😆 Plus, you know it’ll hold everything together over the years.

I use a regular needle and plain, old sewing thread, and have not run into a problem yet. 🥳

Just remember to use a zigzag stitch. If you use a straight stitch you’ll perforate the paper, and it will fall apart! 😕

Well, that’s all I got today 😊 Are you a ‘Junk Journal Junkie’ yet? 😋

There’s more coming soon! I hope you will follow along 💕

Booktalk ~ Vintage- and Antique Books (and Some Fun Facts) 📚

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Welcome to today’s Booktalk 🤓
Last time I told you about my new obsession – collecting vintage- and antique books.
In my hunt for journaling stuff I come across a lot of them, and most of the beauties land on my bookshelf, not on the ‘chopping block’

 

You may notice that all of them are ‘naked’. There is a reason for that.

If you’re a serious bookcollector and/or bookseller, you might want to skip this paragraph – it’s not gonna be pretty! 😬

I don’t like dustjackets. There, I said it!
I collect and show off my vintage and antique books because I love the way they look under the jackets. The woven cover, the lettering is just so beautiful. Much prettier than some shiny, plastic-y wrap. So I take them off. But I don’t stop there…hold on to your hat…some I even cut up to use in my book-themed journal. 🙈
I recently found out, that that’s a big no-no in the bookworld. Apparently the dustjacket plays a big part in the resale value. A torn one diminishes the value considerably, a missing one…well, forget it!
Good thing I didn’t find a truly valuable book yet. Or I’d feel like those poor souls at the ‘Antique Roadshow’ that are being told “If you hadn’t cleaned it it’ll be worth $100.000, but you did so it isn’t“. Never fails! 😋

So, in conclusion – if you wanna make money with the lovely books you find, keep the dustjacket! 

Here are some of the jackets waiting to be repurposed 😊

 Okay, booksellers, you can come back now! 😎 It’s safe!

In the title I promised you some fun facts…here’s one:

In Ankara, Turkey, the sanitation workers opened a library fully stocked with books they found on their routes.
How wonderful is that?
It started when the workers pulled books out of the landfill, and brought them to the depot. At first it was only a small book collection for workers and their families only. Then word got out and people started donating books, instead of throwing them in the bin.
Now the books (about 6.000 of them) have their own building, and everybody gets to use the library.
I just love this story!

Reading and eating chocolate? We’re starting a new tradition this year 😁💕🎄

 

Also…definitely happening this year 😃

Speaking of reading to the kids…

That’s all the time we have today 😊 I hope you join me again next time!

Until then 💕

Your Junk Journal ~ The First Page

Hello my lovely friends 💕

I hope you found piles of treasures in your thrifting adventures! 😍 Yes? Then you should be ready to create your first page of your junk journal!

Making a collage is a good way to flex your creative muscles. I always start with one, or make one when I’m stuck, and the creative juices just won’t flow 🙃

Here we go…

Decide what size your journal should be, and trim your paper.

Mine are usually 12” (the width of a scrapbook paper page) by 8.5” (that makes a double-page).

The advantage of using scrapbook paper is having ‘ready-made’, colorful pages without any effort 😉

Now tear (or cut) small scraps from the materials in your stash. Remember – there’s only one rule – there are no rules 😁 Just have fun!

Fold your paper in half, and start glueing stuff down 🤓

Done! 😃 Easy peasy!

Of course you can do the same to the opposite side (no rules!), but I wanna show you how to make a pocket, ’cause pockets are awesome! 😎

Cut a piece of any paper to the width of the page, and to about 1/3 of the height.

Glue, tape or sew* it in place.

*Yes, you can sew paper. It won’t hurt anything. More on that later.

You can stuff the pocket with some of your awesome finds, and/or extra blank paper for more journaling space.

There – it’s finished. Your first Journal Page 🤩

For your viewing pleasure and inspiration…here are some collage pages I’ve made😻

Happy Halloween! 👻🎃🤡

Autumn 🍁

Just for fun

I hope you found some inspiration here, and will share your awesome project with me! 😊

Next time I’ll tell you more about ‘sewing paper’, and will share some ideas for the next few pages! 🤓

Until then 💕

So You Wanna Junk Journal? 🤓 Where To Begin…Part II

Hello my lovely friends 💕

I hope you had a good weekend!  😊 Did you spent part of it foraging in Thrift- and Antique Shops for hidden treasures? Did you enjoy it? If you did…I have good news!😁
Here are a few more things for your Junk Journal you can collect while out and about next time.
If you missed Part I with more ideas for treasures to hunt …it’s right here (link will open in a new window)

Magazines and Catalogues

I prefer the vintage (non-shiny) ones. But that’s just a personal preference – you get what you like!

 

Paper Dolls and -Animals

This book is a reproduction – but isn’t it adorable?! 😃

Stamps 

The postal- and rebate (Bonus) kind

 

Sheet Music

 

Flash Cards

 

Children’s Books

I love collecting vintage children’s books and turning them into journals. I do keep the original pages in order…just add my own pages in between.
~If you’re not quite sure if you want to (or can) take a book apart, please read the (hopefully reassuring) post here 😊

Here are some pictures of the journals I made out of these lovely books

 

I do hope these pictures make you want to start creating right away! 😍

At one point you might get frustrated with the lack of selection in your Thrift- and Antique Shops. And you visit the various resale sites. That’s a great idea! But – buyer beware! Do yourself a favor and only buy ‘ephemera collections’ that are fully visible. Where you can see each and every item you are buying. I fell for the ‘100 awesome pieces – each pack varies’ nonsense.  😕 Well, most of it landed in the bin. Over half of the 100 pieces were torn out bookpages (got those…thank you very much), cut up city maps (to make 5 pieces out of 1), copies of game pieces, etc. You may pay a little more for the smaller packs, but in the end it’s worth it! 🤓

Now, while you wait for the weekend to get more stuff for your journals (it can be addictive 😉), and possibly are itching to get started, why don’t you coffee-dye some paper. Coffee is a great way of turning ordinary paper into a vintage-looking page.

Just fill a pan (I used a baking sheet) with coffee, and submerge the page.

Depending on the depth of the liquid, you will get different results.

 

The pages on the left were in about 1/2″ of coffee, the one on the right about 1/4″.
Both were submerged overnight.

Then let them dry on an old towel, and you have beautiful, ‘aged’ pages, that will give your journal a lovely vintage feel.

 

I’m thinking that’s it for today. 😊 Next time we’re really going to start creating. I promise! 🤩

 Until then 💕 Take good care of yourself!

 

A Booktalk ~ Using Vintage Books in Junk Journals

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Welcome to today’s Booktalk 📚 No, I’m not reviewing anything. I will just tell you about, and take the fear out of, using vintage books in making Junk Journals.

I admit, it sounds cringeworthy. 🙈 But it doesn’t have to be. As I mentioned yesterday, buying the books with the intention of cutting them up makes the whole endeavor easier (at least in my experience). And if they’re a bit – or very – tattered they would probably end up in the landfill. That would be a real tragedy. So try to look at it as giving those old, time-worn beauties a new life. Where the bits and pieces will be admired, and loved again.

Old books have wonderful illustrations you can use to spruce up a blank page or incorporate in collages.

  Of course, it’s not just the pictures that are useful. A poem can give a page meaning, scraps of pages that are written ‘old-fashioned’ style make a nice addition to a collage,  old dictionary pages make a nice background for some photos or stickers, whole pages of children books give your journal a little whimsy.

You see – a new life! 😍

 Once in a while though, I come across an antique book that ends up on my bookshelf.
I managed to make a little room for the newly acquired treasures. 😊

  Like this one…

 

It’s an illustrated Mark Twain book (Life on the Mississippi), printed in 1902. 🤗
It’s amazing. Really beautiful in all it’s shabbiness, and simply stunning!
I love to hold it, leaf through it, and imagine the people who held and enjoyed it before me. 😍

As you can see…it is quite tattered.
But I’m thinking, when I’m 117 years old, my spine will be brittle also, and my backside nothing to write home about. 😅

 Then there is this one…

 

A handwritten recipe-collection that found it’s way here from good, old Germany,
written in 1924  🤩 It’s written in the historical form of German handwriting, called Suetterlin. I can make out a few words here and there, but not enough to start cooking. I’d love to cook my way through this book.  👩🏻‍🍳 Now I wish my Mom had taught me this style of handwriting. 🤓

And last but not least – this beauty

 

  I love the raised lettering on the cover. I bought it to be used as a Halloween Journal, because it comes with it’s own awesome-spooky illustrations. 👻

 

But I don’t have the heart to cut it up. So it will sit on the bookshelf with it’s other gorgeous friends, and brought out once in a while to be admired (and dusted😆)

 That’s it for today’s Booktalk. 😊I hope you had fun, and that I was able to ease your anxiety about cutting in to books, because journal-making should be enjoyable! 🤓

Until next time  💕 Take good care of yourself!

 

 

 

 

So You Wanna Junk Journal? 😃 Where To Begin…

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Today I wanna tell you how to begin your foray into the junk-journaling world.

And what an exciting, wonderful, freeing creative adventure it is! 🤓

What is a Junk journal? A Junk Journal (or Smashbook) is a Journal, most of them are handmade, containing a vast variety of papers and embellishments.

These embellishments, also called ephemera, can be anything that can be glued, stapled, sewn down.

I’ve been making journals for only a few months now, so the beginning stages are still fresh in my head 😁 and I can tell you, before you start make sure you have a nice stash of papers and ephemera. Otherwise it can get boring real quick 😉

That’s where the fun begins – shopping! 😅 In Thrift stores! 😍

So…what should you look for? Basically…anything made of paper 😁

Here are a few examples…

Office supplies

Game pieces

Greeting Cards

Souvenir Postcards

Cut outs (these are not thrift store finds)

Vintage Books with illustrations

I can feel some of you cringe at the idea of cutting up books 🙈 Believe me, I do too (my husband still can’t believe I’m actually cutting and tearing into books!)

But I found when I buy the books with the intent of using the beautiful insides (and sometimes the outside too 😊) for my journals, it makes it easier. Look at it as a way of saving it from the landfill, and giving it a new life. 🥰 It will be loved and treasured again. This time a little scrap at a time. 🤓

Of course, that doesn’t always work 😅 More on that later.

Cigar Labels

Vintage (or new) Sewing Patterns

Once you start looking around you will see the possibilities in a lot of goodies out there. 🤓

You also wanna pick up some scrapbook paper, and blank art papers, like a drawing- or painting pad. Even though you can sometimes find scrapbook in thrift stores, you might want to get a pad or two at your regular craft store.

While there, take a peek at the die-cutters. The small one – like this one

I picked this shape because I thought it’s pretty versatile. And I was right. 😉
It makes nice cut-outs you can use as ephemera, you can use it when making pockets

and it came in pretty handy when I made a page featuring a cookie! 😅

 

Then, of course, you need something to put it all together.

These are the glues and tape* I liked the best. You might find some from other companies…just make sure they’re ‘no wrinkle’. Trust me 😁

 Alright…while you go hunting and gathering your beautiful things, I will start writing the next post – ‘What to do with all your newfound treasures’
I’ll meet you here in a day or two and we can start glueing stuff down. 😃

Until then 💕

*no affiliation with any products shown here

The (first) Finished Journal 🤓📓

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek at my first journal. 😊

There will be lots of pictures…so you might wanna grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back, and (hopefully) enjoy 😃

This one is different than the first pages I showed you last week. I took a bound book, and worked on those pages.

The book I chose was ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

Here it is with a few pages of coffee-stained paper…

The inside cover

On the left is a piece of handmade paper I found in a Thrift Shop. I made envelopes, pockets and tags – you’ll find them, and some original illustrations, throughout the journal…

The back-inside cover

Here are some tags and inserts…

All of them have a decorated front, and a blank back…lots of room for writing and doodling 😍

In the end I felt that the vintage look of the inside didn’t really match the plastic-y cover. So I gave it a new cover 😁 What do you think?

This is the end of my ‘ Show and Tell’ 😅 I hope you enjoyed the little trip into the Wonderland. Did you? A little note in the comments would be greatly appreciated! 💕

I’ll see you soon! Take care! 🤗

What Do You Do When The Crojo Is Lost?

Hello my lovely friends 💕

I hope this finds you well! 😊

The question in the title line was one I asked myself many, many times over the last few weeks. And it’s also the reason why I took a timeout from writing for you.

I did try hard to get it back. I searched high and low for inspiration…spent WAY too much time on Pinterest 🙈 I dug deep into my creative pool – and my yarn stash 😁 – and came up empty.

What to do, what to do?

Then it hit me…I don’t HAVE to crochet. There might be other pretty things inside me waiting to be made. 😊

During my hours on Pinterest I saw many gorgeous handmade journals. Beautiful pieces of art, and creativity. I found myself going back to them over and over. I finally felt that little spark of inspiration 😍

I read about ‘Smash Books’ – it’s like a scrapbook, but not. It’s messy, it’s colorful, it’s awesome! 😅 You just take a ready-made journal or loose pages (to be bound later on) and start painting, cutting, glueing down any- and everything that strikes your fancy.

It’s completely new territory for me. I’ve never done mixed media, plus it’s an exercise in patience. See, you can’t just sit down and start or go out buy some supplies and begin the creative journey.

There is some legwork involved 🤪 and, I have to say it again, patience. Not really my thing 😅 so definitely a learning curve!

I visited our Antique Mall, and numerous thrift stores for old books, magazines, note- and greeting cards etc.

In between collecting these pretty things I coffee-stained paper. This is quite an exciting process. Even though I did it the same way every time, each page comes out differently.

Wanna see?

Pretty cool, huh? 😁

After a week of successful hunting and gathering the journal making began.

Here are my first attempts…

What I did, but will do differently from now on – I picked a theme for each signature.

What’s a signature you ask…I know I did 😊 A signature is a stack of loose papers (usually 5 or 6 sheets) that will be bound together to be combined into a book.

Anyway – I find that making themed signatures is a bit stifling…and time consuming. I’ll let you know, but I have a feeling that going with the inspiration, and combining snippets as you come across them, will be more fun. We’ll see 😊

So… I think it’s safe to say I found something I love to do 😍

Until next time 💕

The (scary) New Journal

Hello my lovely friends 💕

I’m not sure if ‘scary’ is the right word. Maybe ‘intimidating’…either way – the possibility of this beauty being ruined by “mistakes”, or a leaky pen does instill a sense of fear in me! 🙈

Do you know what I mean?

I’ve thrown away quite a few pretty (empty, never saw a pen) planners at the end of the year, because I was afraid to mess it up!

The same thing was about to happen with my new journal. I saw it, loved it, brought it home, admired it from afar. 🤓

Isn’t it beautiful? 🥰

But what good is a lovely journal when it’s not being used? And, after all, the creative life is messy, so why not the book telling about the journey!

So I decided – renegade that I am 😉 – to make the first page messy…even use paint 😲 And after that, what else could go wrong!

I always wanted to try ‘string painting’. It makes lovely pictures, and doesn’t look too hard. As a matter of fact, I heard from quite a few people that they did this in Elementary school.

So I got out some glass dishes for the paint, cut some cotton string, Latex gloves…and I was set.

Conquering the fear…baby steps 😄

I might be a bit rebellious, but still wasn’t about to try a new technique in this book.

Out came my spiral notebook with drawing-paper. Here we go…

Not impressive, but not terrible either 😌

It came out good enough that I wanna try it in the pretty book…and I did. And not just that, I wrote in it, 🙆🏻‍♀️ sprayed the page with glue, 😬 and sprinkled glitter – of course, what else – over the whole page! Done 😊

And that’s the first page. Ready to be followed by new ideas, more art, bits and pieces of my creative life! 😍

Do you keep a journal? Do you find the first step scary, or do you jump right in? I’m looking forward to hearing/reading about your experience. 💕