Handmade Junk Journals

journals ready to be sewn and decorated

One of the pages in the junk journal.

Fabulous old music paper!

This week I had so much fun teaching a class on junk journals.

11 women joined me at a local library to make these fun books.

I was actually nervous the night before -- it's been a while since I taught.

I was worried about the supplies I'd chosen.  A silly concern!

What a gracious group of students.

They used what I provided in their individual unique ways.

While I don't have the venue to do this on a weekly or even monthly basis,

I sure would love to!

The kits I provided to the students

A sample page I made

Below are the fabulous pages my friend Mandy made during class, using the kit from class and a few items she brought with her.

Mandy is a wonderful artist in her own right and it was really fun that she signed up for the class and came out.  I know she inspired many of the other students.

 

Heros

"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often."

- Winston Churchill

 

Perhaps it's odd to have as heros two men who made their greatest contributions during the 1940's.  But there it is.  Wealthy men, for whom the politics of helping others was their greatest passion.

My junior high and high school history classes included a lot about WWII, the Great Depression.  And both my parents and my four grandparents lived through those times less than a decade before I was born.  It was talked about a lot.  These men were talked about a lot.  It never seemed odd that, despite all family members before me being registered Republicans, these men's liberal views were considered heroic.  

In looks Roosevelt reminds me a little of my Grandpa "G," as he always wrote it.  They are of the same generation.  Also snazzy dressers!  But then I have always been very fond of men's fashion from that time.

I've been feeling a little adrift lately.  Not feeling I've ever settled into one thing, but having changed jobs and careers and homes so many times over my lifetime.  So this quote cheered me up this morning.  And seeing it was another wonderful Churchill quote, I wanted to pay tribute to some heros of mine.

Journaling, Endings & Beginnings

I treated myself to the newest Antiquarian Sticker Book -- Imaginarium!

This page is the end of a journal I began in May.  While I was actively using it, I kept track of the inks I had in my fountain pens.  Now that I have no pages left, I say "thanks for the fish," and move on the the next journal.

I started journaling when, at 15, I took my first plane trip to visit my best friend.  I still have that journal, tho I've lost track of the number of journals I've kept since then.  A couple years ago I shredded about 10 journals.  They were a mess -- I'd only written in them to dump negative emotions.  My mom was difficult, marriage challenges, teenagers --  I'd never want my kids to read any of that, specially after I'm gone.  No regrets about the shredding at all!

But then I took this class with Susannah Conway and it changed the way I journal.  I still write when something's bothering me, but it's much harder to spew when I'm writing on a page with pretty images!

Inside front cover

This is my 4th journal since I started using this brand.

I used stickers, magazine pages, washi tape to decorate these beginning pages of my newest journal.  The journal cover is red, so I looked for images or embellished with red.

Next page

I have subscription boxes from Your Creative Studio and I'd seen a video recently by an artist who uses them to create small collages.  So with the addition of a few papers from France, I made the collage on the left.

You can see the contents of the box in the pictures above and below.

Inside back cover

This post is for my friends at Journal Love Club!  I'm hoping that my desire to include more than one photo in my posts to you will get me to blog again, cuz heaven knows I don't seem to do it for myself!

Day 4

 Texas, New Mexico, Arizona

Berke's family homesteaded 5 acres in the California desert when he was 5 years old.  He's loved the desert ever since.  Even if I might be more of an ocean and mountains girl, that love of the desert has rubbed off on me.  I'm pretty sure our son loves the desert just as much as his dad.

Monday our drive took us through that glorious part of the Southwest.

I think it was my favorite day of travel.

A large wind farm in Texas.

New Mexico scenery.  It speaks for itself.

There was a bit of rain this day too . . . 

. . . but it just made for some magnificent cloud formations.

Tomorrow we drive to California.

Day 3

Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas 

Many of the states bordering Missouri don't allow the sale of fireworks, so as you leave the state, these businesses flourish!

It was early in the day, but it started to get dark as we headed into Oklahoma.

Lots of freight trains.

The story of this day is RAIN!

Storyteller is my word this year and stories keep showing up!

I'm pretty sure it does not rain, torrentially, every day in Oklahoma.

But I'm also pretty sure I have never driven thru OK without hitting  some rain.

This is a photo of what it looked like to my camera :

And this is what it looked like to me:

Berke says it only rained this hard for 45 minutes.

It seemed like 3 hours to me!

Eventually the rain stopped and as we drove into Texas.  

The clouds were glorious!

Day 2

 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri

We arrived in Youngstown, Ohio last night, and woke up to breakfast at the hotel.
I cannot be responsible for clear photographs at 6 am

It really is beautiful countryside driving through Ohio.

Even the rest areas have pretty spots to walk a dog or eat a lunch.

The obligatory art-y photograph.

One of the challenges I'm finding in documenting what I see is how fast everything speeds by at 70 mph.  I see cool stuff and by the time I've turned on the camera and directed it out the window sometimes all I get is a partial image.  Still this is a cool partial image.

Through the middle of St Louis.

Not sure I'd want to live this close to I-55, but this row of houses is cool.

PS:  Let me know if these photos seem too large.  I tried larger images for this post.

Day 1

Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio

Berke & I left Friday morning at about 6:30 am.  The car packed with suitcases, sandwich fixings, snacks.  Oh and cardboard boxes for packing up the things from my mom's house.

One last look at my fav Dogwood tree.  

By the time we get back the white flowers will probably be replaced by green leaves.

Taking non-blurry photographs from a fast moving car is not easy!

Often we were past a thing before I had a chance to take a photo.

This was my view out the front window for most of the driving day.  

I took a lot of shots, but honestly they all look about the same.

Towards the end of the day the sky in Ohio was glorious.

Another view out my window.

Road trips are all sorts of things -- fun; tedious; a chance to see the country, even if it's mostly from a fast moving car.  There are opportunities to talk - a lot; and then again, opportunities to be quiet.  We're going out for my mom's memorial service, so I've been thinking about her and my dad a lot.  

I'm glad Berke has never minded listening to my stories, even the ones I've told before, cuz well I keep being reminded of family stories and sharing them with him.  That is one thing I really liked about my mom -- her stories about her childhood.  She & her best friend used to get into the wackiest situations and I loved hearing them over and over again.

Day one done. One-fifth of the trip outbound is done.