Junk Journal

Hi crafters! If you are like me, you might have a big box or pile of scrap papers and today I am going to share a project that is perfect for scrap papers. In fact, the charm of this project comes to a large part from it being created from left-over pieces from other projects. 

The Eileen Hull Inspiration Team is creating Junk Journals this week, a theme that can be interpreted widely. A junk journal is usually made up of various recycled papers and I decided to use only my own scrap papers. I have a lot of papers which are left-over from projects or where I simply tried out a technique or tested a color combo. I use them a lot. Even the paper on the cover comes from that folder. I also used the Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set, which I am very happy to have designed.

Start by die cutting Eileen's Notebook die from mat board and from a piece of scrap paper. My scrap paper was a left-over from a gel printing session. Glue the paper to the mat board and let dry under a heavy book.

I picked out a pile of scrap papers in different colors. Since I use a lot of watercolor paper, most of them are watercolor paper. Some where tags where I tried techniques or where I hadn't been happy with the background.

The papers were cut into pages of different size, depending on the size of the scrap paper. The tags were simply folded in half.

Here are some more pages. 

I glued a piece of Tim Holtz Design Tape to the spine.

I stamped flowers from Thoughtful Flowers with green ink. I wanted a bit of variety from black ink, but still wanted the lines to show after coloring. The smallest flower looks like it is flying in the air, but it was easy to extend the stem with a colored pencil later. You can find more inspiration for this stamp set in these posts: Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden, Distress Ink Blocks, and Wildflowers No-line Stamping and Coloring.

Color the flowers with colored pencils. I used Prismacolor pencils and blended with a white pencil.

Punch five holes in the spine as shown here and thread with an elastic string. 

Here you can see the binding from the outside. I tied the string through a button and then tied it again to form a closure.

I tied two beads which I found on my desk to the ends of the closure.

Arrange the scrap papers into two signatures and simply slip them under the elastic band. Later you can easily add more papers or move the various pages around. The tag on top comes from my Sherlock Holmes Tag tutorial if you want to see how it was made. 

Your journal is ready to be filled with thoughts and memories.

I added a thinner piece of Design Tape at the side of the spine. Stamp sentiments from Thoughtful Flowers with black ink.

I also decided to add two butterflies from Thoughtful Flowers and stamped them with blue ink.

The yellow flowers look nice on the gel printed background. That background came from my Gel Printed Circle Background project.

Stamp grass repeatedly with green ink.

The back of the journal was left simple, but you could add stamping there too.

I let this page be the first page since I liked the repeat stamping. The sentiment comes from Tim Holtz Scribble Wonderland set.

The back of most of the pages is plain, leaving space to add color and writing later.

The page to the right was a test of colors and stamping for my African Night Watercolor art journal page, with Darkroom Door stamps. I remember when each of these scrap papers were created, making them more special. Some have been in my scrap folder for a long time.

The SSS Spring Flowers Background had been embossed in white and I tested a yellow and blue watercolor combo over it.

This little scene was also a test piece for my African Night page.

Stenciled and misted pages.

You might look at your scrap pieces in a new way. This little scrap piece almost looks like a landscape.

The bubble embossed paper comes from a gel printing session.

A simple landscape which was made when I was preparing an article for the Craft Stamper. I was so sad to learn that the Craft Stamper has now closed its doors. It was a wonderful magazine and I loved creating for it.

I haven't decided what to use this journal for yet. I might add small photos from this summer to it, and journaling about the summer.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today! I hope the tutorial inspired you to use some scrap paper.

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.

Other supplies

Eileen Hull Sizzix Notebook L die

Dry Embossing and Printing Layout

Hello crafters! I hope you had a fun weekend! I was planning to have taken the Christmas card photo of the boys this weekend, but it was rainy, so it has to wait a little, since we have a tradition of always taking it outdoors.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Thanks/Thankful theme. Don't miss the gorgeous Thanksgiving project by our November guest designer Jo, aka Let's Art Journal.

I started out planning to do an autumn themed project, and felt like a scrapbooking page. As I was looking through a pile of photos, thinking about thankfulness, I came across this photo of a humble little Common Daisy, or lawn daisy. I had to google the English name, in Swedish it is called a Tusensköna, which translates to something like 'beauty of thousands' or more literary 'thousand-beauty'. My grandmother had many of these in her lawn and she thought they were weeds. I couldn't understand why since I thought they were so pretty and almost colored the lawn. My favorites were always the ones with purple tips. I was happy to discover them in our lawn and they always make me think of my grandmother. She lived on the countryside and had a huge lawn, which must have been hard work. She used to cut the grass and then rake it all into a pile for us to jump in. 

So instead of an autumn project, I made a cheerful layout about thankfulness, for both the little things and the big things, with journaling on the back. 

The background panels are left-over from a gel printing session. I like to use dry embossed papers to make impressions and patterns when gel printing and sometimes those very paper end up looking even nicer than the prints. I have a tutorial coming soon on the printing process too. The panels were cut into squares, and I also distressed the edges. I used paints by Dina Wakley and Ranger's gel printing plates for the printing.

I wanted this page to be full of words and used a bunch of different sentiment stamps. They were stamped on left-over printed papers, so they coordinate in color with the dry embossed panels. Some were stamped on white paper. I used the following stamp sets: Inky Antics/Andrea Ockey Parr The Queen's Quips, Darkroom Door Nature Walk, AALL & Create/Tracy Evans clear stamp set #44, Tim Holtz Way With Words and Nature's Wonder.

For some additional flowers and even more color and happiness, I die cut flowers and leaves from more left-over gel printed papers, using Tim Holtz Sizzix Wildflowers, Funky Floral 1, 2 and 3.

I wanted the title to be white, and die cut it from white mat board using Tim's new Letterboard die. The letters were coated with Glossy Accents, which makes them look really nice and shiny.

I love the random paint on these panels and on the papers used for the sentiments and die cutting. A couple of the sentiments from Tracy Evans' set were small enough to stamp in between dry embossed areas. The third sentiment here comes from the Darkroom Door Nature Walk set. The embossing folder used for this panel is the Sizzix 3-D Lily Pond folder.

I really like both of these sentiments, and on that different path, you might also be more likely to see the flowers. The first sentiment is from Tracy Evans and the second from Tim Holtz's Nature's Wonder. All the panels were stitched to the background.

Some of the panels had only been used for one print, while others had been pressed on the gel printing plate more than once, giving them a multitude of colors. This is dry embossed in the Tim Holtz Gridlock folder.

The page needed more life and I stamped three adorable Garden Birds by Darkroom Door, designed by Godelieve Tijskens. They were stamped on more gel printed paper.

Here's another lovely sentiment from the Tracy Evans set. The photo was layered on vellum and cheese cloth.

Yesterday, when I was out walking, the weather was pretty grey and damp, but with a sense of wonder, you can find little treasures and beautiful things everywhere. So the theme for my walk ended up being moss and bark, both of which have gorgeous colors and interesting textures. The embossing folder used here is the 3D Leaves folder.

This lovely sentiment comes from The Queens Quip's stamp set by Inky Antics, designed by my SSS Monday Blog team mate, Andrea Ockey Parr. It was stamped on a die cut Stitched Oval.

I went wild with favorite sentiments on this page, since I wanted it to be filled with colorful words.

And I just had to add one of my favorite Tim Holtz sentiments, which fits well on a page about thankfulness.

This tiny Darkroom Door sentiment, fit perfect with the theme and the flowers.

To the right of the photo, there is a little cluster of wild flowers. Die cutting them from gel printed papers give interest and variation to the flowers, while also being very quick.

And another adorabel bird.

Here's a close up on the effect of the Glossy Accents on the letters.

I hope you will join us this week in our Thanks/Thanksgiving challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.