I made these junk journals for my nephews to use for collecting fun things they find on nature walks, to draw in and practice their writing.
MiMi Dibble
THEscrapinator5000
Summer is here and although it's time for the beach and sleeping in and vacations, we want our kids to stay academically active. I know there are summer school programs out there but this is a great way to help the little ones stay creative during the summer. I made these junk journals for my nephews to use for collecting fun things they find on nature walks, to draw in and practice their writing. These junk journals are made from recycled food boxes, return mail envelopes, old maps, plastic zip bags from packaging, old nature books, flashcards and then a variety of papers they can write on. I typically only make my junk journals out of recycled and found papers but for these boys, I wanted to make sure there was plenty of room for them to draw, use sticker and practice their writing. I used some old constructions paper and colored copy paper that I have had forever. The colors are faded but perfect for this project. I made pocket, tabs and fold out pages to make it interactive for them. I tried to pick super fun boxes to make this journal with and didn't cover up the writing or images on them. I just left them. They love the Cheez-It guys and the funny muffin cow. This page below is a noodle box with a plastic window. I left that and put a picture on the other side. I decided to make these journals with C Rings so my sister can add pages or art work if needed. I just used my 3 hole punch with the holes set to the middle and then one inch from the top and bottom. Making junk journals is really fun. I hope you give it a try and share with me.
MiMi Dibble THEscrapinator5000
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I recently hosted and participated in a Junk Journal swap in the Facebook group Scrappy Diva's. We decided to do the Junk Journal Swap in honor or Earth Day. There was one swap rule: all the materials used to make your junk journal needed to be reclaimed, recycled, reused, re-purposed materials. There were to be no commercial products used besides paint and glue: no scrapbooking materials or embellishments, no pre-made or bought items. The swap was a lot of fun. I wanted to share with you the book I made and the book I received. Here is the one I created for my partner, Vibeke Hoby Holman. This next group of pictures if the book I received in the swap from Vibeke. She has a fantastic YouTube where you can see videos of her art and hear her wonderful music she makes as well. Check her out here. I just love all of her pockets and interactive pages. She has tons of picture windows too with fun bits like fish in them. She did lots of sewing and painting...I just love her style.
I hope these books give you some ideas and inspire you to try a junk journal. Thanks for stopping by. Next up will be a junk journal for kids. It's a great idea for the summer. MiMi Dibble THEscrapinator5000 I have some super talented friends who have made junk journals and I wanted to share those with everyone in hopes that it will inspire you. Enjoy! This junk journal was made by Wendy. I just love all of her painting, strips of paper and flowers in this book. Wendy hand sewed the journal together. You can find more of Wendy's art at http://planetscrappymom.blogspot.com/ or her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PlanetScrappyMom. This next one was made by Debbie. This first slide show is the junk journal before she decorated it. It's all made from recycled papers and bound with 3 rings. This next slide show is after Debbie decorated her pages with paint, sketches, stamps and stencils. You can find more of Debbie's art on her blog at drdunnit.blogspot.com. The last one I want to share today is made by Betty Molnar. You can find her on Pinterest here. Hope you liked these different styles of junk journals and I really hope it gives you some ideas.
The next blog post will feature 2 junk journals from a swap I hosted in Scrappy Diva's Facebook group. One journal will be the one I made for my partner and the other will be the one she made me. Thanks for stopping by. I do hope you leave me a comment and let me know what you think of these journals. MiMi Dibble THEscrapinator5000 Next up in the junk journal series is a machine sewn journal with 18 pages, used to document our Spring Break activities this year. It's a very simple journal that has not been painted and decorated. It has pictures and journalling. The cover is wall paper. The machine sewn seam is reinforced with yellow painters tape. The lettering and numbers on the front are cut out from magazines and just glued on with Mod Podge. It's tied together with an old shoe lace. Here are some pictures of the inside pages: In the next blog post, I will share some junk journals that other people have made. There are lots of different styles and fun ideas.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the Staycation 2013 journal. MiMi Dibble [email protected] Finally! A page flip of the big huge, awesome, chunky, junk journal made from recycled materials. This is the 5th in the junk journal series I started in April in honor of Earth Month. To view the complete set of posts for this series click here. I hope you enjoy the flip and let me know if you've made a junk journal. I'd love to see it and possibly feature it on my blog in a coming post. Here is a slide show of the rest of the pages. Click the pictures in the bottom bar or the arrows in the top right corner of the large picture to advance the photo. The next blog post will be showing you the inside of this junk journal I made for Spring Break this year. We didn't go way like we usually do but had fun activities planned for each day. I'll show you how I added pictures and journaling. As always, thank you so much for stopping by and please comment below and let me know what you think.
Also if you have a minute, check out Emma Goddard's blog here. My junk journals are featured on there today. Peak around, there are lots of fun things to check out. MiMi Dibble THEscrapinator5000 Decorating a junk journal can sure be challenging but I have admit, I had the most fun ever decorating this one. I am sure it would have been easier if I would have allowed myself to use scrapbooking scraps and embellishments but I wanted to stay true to the intent of this series. That intent was to create and decorate a junk journal only using junk, recycled materials, found objects or items from thrift stores or garage sales. I did this in honor of Earth Month and have had a great time. In fact, this junk journal is my favorite book I have made to date. The Process1. Decide on the structure of your book: What kinds of pages will you have, paper or cardboard? Will you use envelopes and bags? What will your cover be made out of? How will you bind your book? My typical junk journals are made out of recycled papers and envelopes. For more information on choosing junk journal papers, see my post here. The covers are usually cardboard or wall paper. For this book, I decided I was going to use a lot of cardboard as my pages in this book because I wanted them to be thick and sturdy. I also decided to use a lot of envelopes and bags, and that I wanted to use an old interoffice envelope as the front and back cover. The last decision was to use rings for a binding. I thought this was the best type of binding method given that I would be using cardboard materials for my pages and would not be able to machine or hand sew them. For more information on cover options as well as instructions on various binding methods, see my post here. 2. Gather all your materials: I pulled out a variety of different types of cardboard boxes, bags and envelopes. I varied the sizes and shapes. I also used a coffee sleeve, packaging, wallpaper and a toilet paper roll. 3. Get out your paint and glue: I wanted all my pages to be painted or collaged with recycled papers. Painted pages: I used craft paint and homemade sprays along with found objects, homemade stencils and stamps to create patterns and designs. I used a variety of bright colors to make it really fun. Some examples of found objects I use to create patterns for backgrounds on my base pages: Collaged pages: I used recycled papers for collaging some of the cardboard pages that I didn't paint. Some of the papers included newspaper, phone book pages, dictionary paper, music sheets, magazine cut outs, maps, word search pages, old wrapping papers, napkins, paper towels used to wipe up paint, and foreign language book pages, After I collaged my recycled papers down to the cardboard bases using Mod Podge, I got my paint back out and did some spraying and stamping. I also used paint markers to doodle. 4. Add the Extras: Once all your base pages have been painted and collaged, it's time to add some extras. Here are some extras I used to add a fun decorations after my backgrounds were done:
5. Charms: Besides pony bead I purchased from a thrift store, I used a pop bottle cap, large washer from the garage, old jewelry, bread closure, green twist tie, fabric and jean scraps, and some paper beads to make a couple long charms to hang on the binding rings.
What's up next?The next post will be a page flip of this junk journal. You'll get to see every page layout, all decorated. After that, I have a post on junk journals for kids and to finish up this series, I'll have a post with my favorite recycle/upcycle links and also share some other junk journals that friends of mine have made to give you lots of different ideas.
I hope you are enjoying this series as much as I have. Thank you so much for stopping by and please leave me a comment. I'd love to know what you think and if you've made a junk journal. MiMi Dibble THEscrapinator5000 |