Junk Journals

Last week end I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful art week end in the Twin Cities.  It was sponsored by Bella Crafts.  I took six different classes.  We may talk about some of them another day but today I am going to talk about the class I took with Cindy Shepard.  You can find a link to her information here.

Cindy brought all the junk we needed for our Stash and Smash Junk  journals.  I imagine she collects this all the time and also has friends and family collect junk for her.  In our pile to create our journal was a manila (oops my pictures have manila spelled differently) mailing folder, a piece of copy paper, a piece of cardstock, a piece of music paper, several envelopes in different sizes and a piece of brown paper bag. 

Our first step was to paint the brown paper bag with gesso and lay it aside to dry.  She gave us a pregessoed piece of paper bag to practice our technique on.  We used gelatos to color our paper.  If I remember correctly, I stenciled a design on my page with acrylic paint and then applied different gelato colors over the top, misted it and spread the color.  I imagine you could use many different methods of coloring your brown paper bag. 

The piece was bigger than our book so you ended up with a page that had a fold out on it. 

She also showed us how to make a pocket on one of our pages. 

We also made a small accordion fold out from patterned paper. 

Cindy also showed us how to sew our books together with waxed thread.  I will not explain that to you but I am sure there are many videos on the internet that show you how to do this. 

My friend and I are using our journals to record our fun for the week end.  Here is one page where I wrote on ledger paper which is added to a piece of the grocery bag.  I wrote the name of the classes I took and the instructors.

Here is another page where I put my ticket and the print out of my classes. 

I came up with a name for a little fun my friend and I were having with some techniques we learned in a background class.  We called it Bad Ass Stamping Art.  I made the background and added the lettering and coloring it in.  Around the piece I wrote some of the things/classes from the week end.  My name badge is also on this page. 

In another class Cindy taught us to draw these cute little birds and do some Zentangle.  I know I will never be a Zentangle expert but it was fun and I have been drawing birds since then. 

I have painted the outside and inside of the cover with Dylusion Paints.  I believe I am going to decorate it with some of the geli plate prints I made in another class.  Pictures of the projects I completed will go on other pages.

Here is another page - I had a happy accident with this page.  The gesso on the cover rubbed on the patterned paper.  Love how it turned out.  Don't you like that cute little wine glass and saying.  

So, start saving your junk and make yourself a Stash and Smash Junk Journal.  I think it would be a fun activity with children also.  I know have a box where I am collecting good junk.