A few years ago, I created some i Ching stickers for my journal. 

They were not functional, they were mostly to decorate the notes of my readings.

I changed to glyphs with rainbow backgrounds. 

 

I took the rainbow rectangles and printed them on 

ivory card stock and painted the back black.

I wrote short words of encouragement and inspiration. 

I want to use them as subject tags in my handmade books.

 

100 day project over:

 The 100-day project is over. My main goal was to post more artwork. I created more posts. Behind the scenes, I created more trinkets for my journals, which involves, printing, painting, cutting out and doodling, sewing and glueing, and calligraphy practice.

 

Here is a peak at what I was working on when I didn't post.

I really would like to improve in this area.

Garden love

 What I am eating and growing.

Flashy butter gem

and Little gem, both Romain lettuce from the grow box. 

Perpetual spinach, Flashy Butter Gem, Merlot,

and favorite radishes.

 

I used all of these to create this salad:

 

 

 

 i like to take remnants of ivory card-stock, and write calligraphy, and doodle.

The remnants come from the back of printed artwork that i paint black.

when it dries, it has an aged feel.

Illustrations using my new favorite font "Happy Star"

I bought bulk herbs/seasonings from Vitacost.

I repackaged them in

recycled containers and made fancy labels on sticker paper.

 

100 day project

 The 100-day project has been going on approx 70 ish days.

                                             One of my favorite ways to make a journal.

                                                       Bee ephemera for beekeeper journal

 

 These cards are stuffed among other things inside the journal. Some have 

pockets on the back.

 

one hundred day project

 

 

It's very challenging for me to post my artwork.

For my 100-day project I will be challenging myself to post artwork that I haven't posted,

and would love to share.

I would like to get into the habit of making time to share my work. And working on my blog every day.

So for the next 100 days I will work on this blog. This may not add up to 100 posts, but I will be working on it every day!

 

my favorite junk journal to make

Tons of unsolicited mail.

 

I use envelope and scrap brown paper. junk papers, stuff I usually throw away.

scraps of brown packing paper

You might say, "I get so much junk mail, how can 

I use enough of it in a project to make a useful dent in it?"

 Painting helps to flatten the papers out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I present a journal that I created from over painted water color paintings, 

with painted paper recycled packing papers, recycled art 

and empty junk mail envelopes

 

The cover has a pocket with affirmation cards 

and a sheer organdy ribbon tie closure.

 

Journal pages with pockets stuffed with affirmation cards, 

and cards you can label with your own words. 

 

The pockets and backs of pictures are hand doodled 

with simple symbols.

 

The pages are copies of my paintings, cloud designs. 

Each page has a pocket. There are 5 signatures one page with 

a tiny insert. The signatures are attached to the single 

thickness spine hand sewn with black and white backer's twine.

The finished journal is embellished with charms, painted pages, 

and paper-doll angels.

There are tucks, papers for journaling.

 

This journal was such a joy to make, challenging me with

new ways my artwork is changing, and the surprising (to me)

forms that it could take.

Pink Junk Journal

 

 Most of this journal comes from junk envelopes,

 the kind that you rip open or they have safety liners, 

odd unmatching sizes, or there are just too many of them.

In order to use the envelopes in a meaningful way, 

I painted them black and hand drew simple doodles on them, 

turning the trash into signatures.

The pockets are from painted brown paper, 

that lines the shipping boxes.

I made tags printed on tea dyed paper, tea dyed cardstock.

The cover is made from acrylic painted 140 lb watercolor paper.

The signatures are sewn with bakers twine. 

Foliage is cut from texture card stock, and jewels 

and charms are clipped to the pages.

 

The inspiration for this book and the rest in the series 

 am making are the medieval manuscripts from the  century.

Journal Elements

I like to have a supply of flaps, pockets or tags ready ahead,
to add to my journal.

It’s also fun to have some bases ready when I want to improvise
and play.

When time is short, I make these in advance. I cut out random rectangles smaller than the journal page or tag pocket.

I use manila tag paper like this, because I use a lot, but file folders are the same paper.

I also use heavy kraft mailing paper, or scrap brown packing paper.

These are painted with matte black acrylic paint, leaving a tiny border.
The corners are rounded and inked

When they dry they will curl and if the paint is thick enough, they will dry flat.

 

Painting them on the back helps them to lie flat when they dry.

  I take a colored pencil and doodle lines across the tags. The tags look better if the lines are night ruler straight. In your natural writing. As you practice, they will get to be more even.

 

Here are some journal page sames of some tags in use. The one below has scrap papers and a colored pencil drawing on a kraft paper scrap.

From the same journal, flips on top of flips.

Drawn on like a chalk board with colored pencil

A tag inserted into a book pocket.

The gemstone fussy cuts are available here.

junk journals

 

 

Paper bag junk journal 

this journal is made from brown paper that stuffs

and pads boxes for mailing. It s my favorite junk journal making material.

 

 

 

 This journal is my composition junk journal. The embellishments

in this journal are leftovers and elements from abandoned projects.

I'll post more pages, and eventually a video.

These are shapes I explored in a class by Julie Hamilton.

I used a thick sharpie marker, and colored them digitally in Inkscape.

 

 

I printed them on tea dyed paper. I cut them on a scan n cut. 

In another post i'll show you my cutting challenged method.