The Remains of the Day journal

I finally finished this one. I bought the class for it almost 2 years ago, worked on it for months and then got stuck. Couldn't decide whether I should sew in the 2 signatures the class called for or the 3 I had made and just let it ride.
Well, it finally is done - with 2 signatures which simply felt better.
Lots of pictures, few words, I hope. And I did not take pictures of every page, we'd all be here for hours and I'd tear my hair out uploading and editing.

The cover, fully closed and tied.

With the tie undone.

Still the front, with the flap open.

The back of the journal cover.
I limited myself to fabric in my scrap baskets only. Nothing out of the big stash upstairs, no yardage, no new purchases.

The inside of the journal withe the first signature, I used gift wrap I found at my favorite re-use center in Berkeley/Oakland. Quite a lot of other papers came from the same place.

More re-used paper plus a pocket made from a sheet protector. There is a lot of sewing involved in this journal, papers that wrap around the edges of the pages, papers to fill in gaps, papers to close open edges of the sheet protectors. That was a big part of the class - sewing together papers to make a full page and took me quite a bit of time.

The journal includes quite a few security envelopes, both whole - opened up - and repurposed as shown above.

A page from an old Sears catalog and a page from a notebook from the re-use center with some decorative bits sewn on.

The interesting paper on the bottom is actually from a salami wrapper. My husband had won the salami in some contest and I held on to the wrapper for ages, long before I had ever heard of junk journals. On the right is another sheet protector pocket. The blue dotty paper is from a gelli print I made, copied and cut into strips. There are quite a few of those included in the journal.

Another re-used security envelope with a heart sewn on top.

A guest check, a real one, I usually use blanks, but this one came from a visit to a favorite pizza restaurant from a visit to central Oregon to see our grandchildren.

More old Sears catalog and another Target envelope, plus map paper.

The beginning of the second signature. Ledger paper and a heart doily.

Another spliced together page, more ledger paper.

Here I used a petty cash receipt as a pocket/tuck spot.

Pages decorated with paper, fabric and a doily.

Another pocket made from a page protector with a map page showing behind. I took pages from an old road atlas.

 

Map with a goose from a children's book.

A fabric doily.

Some vintage ephemera sewn to a page. I did not have much when I started this journal. Much better supplied these days.

Map and dictionary page sewn together.

Another page decorated with both paper and fabric. On the left is yet another page protector pocket.

An old bingo card.

The spine. I used 5 hole pamphlet stitch to bind the journal.

The view from the top. Two signatures with the threads left showing.
The class, BTW, is called "Remains of the Day" by Mary Ann Moss. It's an older class, I am late to the party, as usual. It was a great learning experience. I knew very little about journals, junk journals, collecting papers, sewing papers together, ephemera etc. etc. when I started this class. Maybe that's why it took me so long? I know I agonized over the cover for weeks, finally came up with something I liked. I made many more pages than I needed, that's why there is a whole signature left over. Who knows, maybe I'll make more pages and another cover, now that I know what to do. But, then again, there are plenty of other classes to take and more things to learn. I find I like learning bookbinding techniques, the various stitches involved in holding papers together and Mary Ann Moss teaches more of those.
Here is a link to Mary Ann Moss' blog, the links to her classes are easy to find.
Whew, apologies for the length of this post, obviously not few words. Sorry!

A Beginner's Junk Journal

One of the administrator's of a FB group I belong to issued a challenge to all the beginners to make a simple junk journal and she was kind enough to make videos of the process. I am just barely sliding in under the deadline, actually, my little journal (and its sisters) were finished quite a while ago, I just never took pictures. Here are pictures, finally, just of the first one I made:

The cover, it's constructed of a 9x6 envelope. I glued a pretty print-out to the front and left it at that. I'm a bit of a minimalist.

A stamped page, coffee-dyed with the corners rounded.

 A pretty glassine envelope to hold extra paper or tags.

A corner flip pocket, this one holds a tag and a journaling card.

Coffee-dyed ledger paper with a doily and a book page cut-out meant as a tuck spot for tags and journaling cards. And a coffee-dyed guest check.

A belly band holding more cards and cut-outs.

A small glassine envelope holding more tags and other pretties. Behind it is a book page.

Another corner pocket in the center of the journal. The ends of the thread have been covered with tiny cut out hearts.

More ledger paper and, on the opposite page, another doily serving as another tuck spot.

A gusseted bag I made following a tutorial on YouTube (I used a Chinese book page) holding another tag.

And another belly band and the other side of the glassine envelope. All holding tags, journaling cards and other pretties.
It was a fun project and the instructional videos were excellent.
Here is the first of the videos and the group I belong to is here.

A Flowish Journal

One of the women in the FB group I belong to sent me a flowish journal (photos still to be taken and blogged about). So, I thought I'd make one for her and here is what I came up with:

The outside, I used a file folder I really like.

This is what it looks like with all the papers etc. inside. The top one is how I had originally arranged it. I took everything out to photograph the individual papers/pages and couldn't get it back into the same order. Oh well ................ Everything is easily removable and being held in by a stretchy head band.

There is a glassine envelope from the post office taped to the inside and a recycled envelope inside the journal. Both contain cut outs, ephemera, small envelopes, office forms, book pages etc. etc.

From left to right: gift wrap, music paper, a funky magazine page and in the front a gelli print I made.

Assorted office papers, time sheets, sports score sheets, and the page in front, I believe, is meant for a gardener.

An antique ledger page, an architectural drawing and a chart I found in an older astrology book.

A cross stitch graph from an old German magazine, more music paper, pages from an old Sears catalog, various book pages - from a Chinese study book, an old children's book (the stories are German stories, the ones I grew up with) and a Chinese children's book.

Assorted scrap booking papers.

A craft catalog, various napkins (they can be decoupaged) and a couple of menus from favorite restaurants.

Maps from an older road atlas.

And finally some digital images I printed on vellum and a recycled security envelope.

I hope the recipient of this flowish journal likes what I put together. I love what she chose for me (and, as I said before, there will be pictures)

Swap Journal

It's been a long time since I've posted something/anything. Partially it's because the muse had left me, partially because I've been making, but not finishing anything, partially because I just don't like all that photo editing. And this post and all the pictures to follow reminded me just how much I don't like it. But, it had to be done.
I joined a couple of junk journal groups of Facebook and after lots of YouTube video watching and playing with paper, I finally took a big breath and signed up for my first swap. Not a completed journal, but a "flowish" journal. These are based on Flow Magazine/Book - something for paper lovers, meant to be taken apart and reused in a handmade journal.
The swap is for a "baby" journal which refers to the size (4.5 - 5" square) and I opted to have an international partner which meant only 15 sheets and even that is a lot in such a small journal. I agonized over the cover, but had a lot of fun with the inside, going through my embarrassingly large stash of papers all over the house.
Apologies in advance for the many, many photos. Most of the women in my group do videos, but that's something I haven't learned (yet), not sure I will. 
So, here is what I came up with:

I used a vintage fabric for the outside of the cover and while I originally wanted to quilt it in a rather contemporary style, the fabric let me know otherwise. So, I appliqued a bit of lace to it and used some sari ribbon for the tie. This cover is loose, so it can be used for something else, not really part of the requirements for the swap.

This is the real cover, a file folder cut down to size, a bit of lace to hold the pages in - they are meant to be removable - and a lot of seam binding - coffee dyed - to hold the folder closed.

The inside pages - scrap booking paper.

More scrap booking paper, this one cut up into small sizes.

From left to right: scrap booking paper, guest checks (I have a mild obsession with office forms) and some folded up gift wrap.

Gift wrap on left, some digital images printed on vellum.

Again from left to right: more digital images on Vellum and a menu from my favorite Indian restaurant.

An envelope folded in half (pink) and more office forms.

A folded up page from a very old Sears catalog and a folded up form for a gardener - I think.

On the left a page from a Chinese language learning book and more images on Vellum.

A page, folded up, from a Chinese children's book.

A rather old page of scrap booking paper.

And in the very center - a folded up glassine envelope.
I did not photograph the other half of the journal pages, pretty much the same as the first side. I also cheated a bit when putting all this together. I simply could not bring myself to cut a lot of the pages to size and just folded them to the correct dimensions.

Some of the things I included in the journal are small bags and envelopes (here is a selection) filled with cut outs, ephemera etc. And some mini file folders I made. There's a little bit more, a sheet of handmade paper, coffee dyed doilies etc. that I did not take pictures of. I might, but at this point I am all photographed out and, besides, it's time to get started on dinner and celebrating my wedding anniversary. Many, many years today.