Junk Journal

This is the junk journal I made for a swap in one of my art groups.  I spent about 3 months pulling it all together and really had a lot of fun with it.

The front cover evolved as I worked.  The title banner was cut from a "Trader Joe's" mailer and customized with rubber stamping.  The bluebird is a cross stitch piece from one of my original patterns.  I made the little face in the bottom corner from a recycled piece of an aluminum can that I embossed.  Also included are printed paper, lace, paperclip, ribbon flowers, paper flowers, buttons, a puffy sticker, clipping from junk mail and machine stitching.

The back cover is rather plain, but includes printed paper with a piece of a mesh orange bag and colorful binder clips.  I also added an embroidered fish pin to the binding.

Attached to the binding coils are tons of ribbons,

 lace, and handmade charms. 

 I have posted more info about the charms on my hobby site here: http://www.hobbyloco.com/charms.html

 You can see from the top view that I made the book really thick and chunky.  It is full of all types of papers, pockets, tags, postcards, and random bits of this and that. 

I used the largest binding coil I had on hand & it wasn't thick enough, so I created a unique binding, which I call a "flip-flop" binding.  There are 2 bound edges, one on each side of the book.  When you get to the center of the book - you flip-flop it over and start from the other side.  The two parts are joined by a center panel that is attached to both binding coils.

I embellished several pages in the book, here are just a few:

I stitched a piece of clear vinyl to the inside cover to create a pocket, in which I placed an Atlanta postcard and a couple of handmade tags.

The pocket on the left side was made from a colorful ad in a magazine.  I stuck a couple of metallic puffy stickers on it for fun.  The cityscape on the bottom right was cut with a Cricut machine. 

I love this colorful hummingbird page!  It has a printed image with ink and painted detailing, stamping, ribbons, a plastic charm, and of course - feathers.

On the left side you can see I simply added a wax paper "glassine" envelope with pieces of washi tape.  I filled the envelope with little collage images from my stash and sealed it with a little puffy heart sticker.

The bluebird page is cut from a piece of junk mail (yes, junk mail).  The apple pie page was lots of fun!  I used printed scrapbook paper over a cardboard backing to start.  I cut the pie from a recycled greeting card (it has a touch of glitter sparkle). I punched the apple inchies from an applesauce package, and added a touch of glitter. The center inchie reads "Keep calm and have some pie."  This was punched from a catalog.  I made the little apple tag from another image I had and tied it to the page with red fibers. I cut the half circle on top from a piece of red metallic paper, and finished off the page by machine stitching a red zig zag around the border.

I think that is enough for now!  It gives you a taste of the book.  I will be posting some of the pages that have needlework embellishments on my other blog: http://chaosatlanta.blogspot.com/