Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Mass Making Ephemera for your Junk Journal

Black Swan Journals uses food packaging (with both white and kraft-colored) backing to make tags, belly bands, etc. to have them ready to go into any journal she may be working on.

Brenda Clark aka The Happy Crafter takes 10 playing cards at a time and gets them ready for more embellishments.  She uses torn paper, tissue paper, washi tape, and oxide paints.  See the YouTube video here.

Shanouki Art made these tags six at a time!  Fun, fun, fun, different (and yet still easy!) tags from book pages folded into quarters, then sewn (or not), painted a bit with spray oxides, gessoed, painted, and stencilled...final touch a stamp with a bit of thread bunched up beneath the stamp.   Love, love, love them!  Thanks, Shanouki Art!

Tiny Tags are Like Junk Journal Candy!  The Paper Outpost, in her usual fun style, creates 3/4-inch by various length tags that are simple and fun and you can make a slew of them at a time!  Book pages, tiny toppers, stamps...you don't need much!  Here's the video.

How to Mass Make Journal Tags in Minutes - No Measuring!  Etcetorize paints one side and covers the other to quickly make a whole bunch of tags to have ready for further embellishment!  Here's the video.

I really love mass-making a bunch of clusters.  One of the first projects I tackled!  In her recent Christmas video, Lillian Guerrero makes quickie, ripped scrap paper clusters of three and then shows further embellishing depending on the theme.  Having a pile of these ready sure comes in handy!  See the video here.

Using Paper Napkins in Your Junk Journal

              

Liz the Paper Project
uses a glue stick to adhere napkins to book page envelopes and pockets.  She puts nothing on top to decoupage so you can feel the texture of the napkin.  Her YouTube video is here.

Creating Masterboards and What to Do with Them


Paper Outpost uses "ugly" scrapbook paper, covers it up with papers, then stencils and stamps on it to create a really cool masterboard/background!  Check it out here.

Tracie Fox Creative shows you how to create and 12 x 12 masterboard and then finishes the video with all sorts of simple ways to create tags of every shape and size.  Love it!  Here it is.


My Favorite Junk Journalers

Shanouki Art (Australia or NewZealand?)
No Nonsense!  Not a lot of stupid chatter.  Fast, clear, EASY ... I love her videos! 

Margarete Miller
Loves stamps, seems to be a collector.
Not a lot of crappy extra talk, just enough to hear her thinking.  Simple instruction that aren't dragged out.

Pink Monarch Prints
     I love that she preps all her papers ahead of time (cutting, ink around the edges) so that she just shows how she puts it together and you miss the tedium of all the tie-consuming stuff!  She makes most of her stuff from kits that she sells.

Kathleen Mower : Be Again Books, Creative Junk Journals and Inspiration
     No excess talking.  GREAT ideas, usually easy.  Videos aren't incredibly lengthy.

49Dragonflies - Barbara from Vienna, Austria

Annette Green

Camelia Crafts Designs - funny older lady with a British accent, enjoy her creations

Cathy's Garden

Cindy A. Lewis - Inspiring You to Create
       She usually gets right down to business and her ideas are wonderful.  Lots of ideas on masterboards.

Hither and Yon
This is one of my favorites she thinks like I do and is not particularly "neat."  Lots and lots and LOTS of page and ephemera ideas.  Her videos tend to go a little long, but all the talking is meaningful and she doesn't drone on and on about stupid stuff. 

Lealoo's Creations
It looks like she keeps her videos around 15minutes long.
She's created an IDEA book, where she puts in all her samples using white copy paper (Into a regular junk journal) with the directions.  Just found her on 2/17/25 and I think she's going to become a fave!

LeNae Creates
She doesn't go crazily long and doesn't seem to overtalk either.  She's a good one.

Lillian Guerrero
She rips and doesn't spend a lot of time inking edges.  Likes to give all sorts of additional ideas and her videos don't seem to drag on and on....

Liz the Paper Project
From Ontario, Canada, she has great ideas and although she talks continually all through her videos, she keeps working and showing you how it's done.  

The Paper Outpost
She talks fast (and a lot) and always has a mess on her desk. She cracks me up. She does stick her stupid, fluffy little dog into the screen at the end of each video and have it pretend-talk.  That's obnoxious. Part of her quirky personality.

Root Pursuit

Septeria18 - young woman from Sydney, Australia
She uses the scoring board tool to great effectiveness

Tracie Fox Creative

Vicky Papaioannou
A gal from Greece(?) with a very Greek-ish accent.  No nonsense, great, easy directions, doesn't seem to waste time!

Amy Plans Things is the QUEEN of Dutch Doors in Journals!


Creating Pockets for Junk Journals

 Cindy  A. Lewis has three folded multi-pockets that are QUICK and work really well!

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Hither and Yon uses 6 x 6 and 6 x 8 double-sided papers to make a cool, easy double-pocket to either glue onto the page or clip on. They're also perfect for mailing fun stuff in a card.  Love this one
I made a lot:



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On TicTok The Vintage Journal makes a folding, pocketed "insert" that's fun to make and to put anywhere.  Find her video here.

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Septeria18 uses scrap papers to make simple pockets... The video's here.
Cut a 2 1/2 x 5 scrap and fold up 1 1/4 inches.  Glue the two sides.  Punch a half circle into the upper right side of the card.  Glue onto a 3 x 4 leaving the side open for a pocket.

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Root Pursuit makes four corner pockets at a time with this method using scraps of paper and an interesting technique of gluing before collaging, then simple cutting.  The video's here.

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Septeria18 shows how to make a vellum pocket without the glue showing....it's 17 minutes long but most of it is talking, just zip through and there's about 30 seconds of helpful info.  This would be good for making a lot at once, too.  Video here.

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Rach and Bella Crafts
shows how to make three different pockets.  The first, a three-pocket pocket, is made of 8.5 x 11 paper and is super easy.  The second is even easier, two folds and tuck the ends in.  The third is made from a circle and is quite interesting looking.  The first one, for sure, would be nice to have a few on hand.  Check it out here.
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Pink Monarch Prints makes a corner pocket, similar to the above, but even BETTER!  It's made from any size square paper.  Video here.
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For this one I cut off the triangle on each side that was folded under.  It made it too bulky and now lays down much flatter!  
Pink Monarch Prints
uses a double-sided piece of 8 x 8 paper to make a pocket that looks like an envelope with multiple pockets inside.  I love her suggestion, at the end of the video, to make this what she calls a "Flip Flop" so you can put something underneath it and have a really different type of addition to a page.  Video's here.
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Crafted by Christy
made some "Super Quick & Easy Label-Style Pockets" from leftover paper....could make a whole pile at one sitting!  Here's her video.

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 5x8 papers made finished size 5 x 6 1/2
 
4 x 6 papers made finised size 4 x 5 3/8
3 x 5 papers made finished size 3 x 5

Inked Paper Art makes the coolest "waterfall pockets" that would have space for lots of journaling and are pretty darned cute.  It's on her Day 42 of 365 Days of Junk Journaling series.  This one's here.
After following along with her, it was a cinch to make the next few.  These are great.
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Lealoo's Creations easily makes a cute skinni-esh envelope with a tag.  This has a bit of a different look with a couple of interesting folds, looks fun to make, which is the point, right?  MUST try it out!  Here's the video.
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Liz the Paper Project
created this super-duper easy triple floating pocket from a piece of 8/5 x 11 paper.  Just a couple of folds and a little glue!  The video's here.

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Making a pocket that looks like a book shelf....I used Ann Kenion's example to create my own!
My example is below. The blog page I made is here.  Her directions are here.


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CIRCLE pockets!
Silver and Sparkles does some really cute circle pockets - could actually be any size circle!  Quick video here.

Using Playing Cards in Junk Journals

Annette Green photocopies a playing card so that it's a bit bigger (and white on the other side) to create a decorated pocket that a regular size playing card can tuck into as a tag. She also shows how to create a frame with kings, queens, jacks..... Find that video here.  

Here's the video that shows gluing tiny bits of book pages to playing cards and turning them really vintage-y.  Fun, easy process!  Find it here.  #Treasure Books

Week 3 - Playing Card Tags | Summer Fun Ephemera Challenge - Let's make Ephemera Series
Sweet Bee Designs Co.  (22:10)

Tash Marie Makes created some grunged-up yet sorta simple ATCs....she's pasted 3 cards on top of each other (a little thick?), then tissue paper for texture and so inks will stick.....They look great!  See the video here.

Cathy's Garden covers playing cards with watered down Elmer's gue, then covers with thin paper - tissue, napkins, etc.....then embellishes with a word or two, puts int a small grommet and hangs off a couple of beads.  Super cool!  Video's here.

Shanouki decoupages her cards (with both pattern paper, then napkins), adding lots of distress ink.  Then she sews on a piece of vellum for a pocket and shows a couple of cute little tags to go into the pockets.  I want to make a whole deckful of these!  Watch how.

Brenda Clark aka The Happy Crafter takes 10 playing cards at a time and gets them ready for more embellishments.  She uses torn paper, tissue paper, washi tape, and oxide paints.  See the YouTube video here.

Two Old Crows Mixed Media makes an accordian booklet that holds 10 cards (or more).  They look pretty darned easy!  Video here.

Sue's Journal Adventures uses two playing cards the same size to create a framed opening that shows another card inside.  She uses acetate to cover it, but I don't think you really have to.  A bit of work, but very worth it, artistic and fun.  See the YouTube video here.

Shanouki has a few easy steps to create very cool vintage-y cards....glue & rip small pieces of book page, using gesso glue on white tissue paper to each side, coffee dye , then add liquid pigment ink, then vintaged cello tape.  Cool, cool, cool, mass make a handful!  Check it out here.


Cathy's Garden
shows you a cute way to cut a circle or rectangle into the middle of a card, glue down some fabric (she used lacy fabric) and embellish it for a really different card.  Here's her video.

One Page Wonders Using 12 x 12 Paper


You can do so much using a 12 x 12 piece of paper!  Here's my first attempt, guided by #cathysgardenyoutubechannel. She's title it "One Page Wonder - Mini Journal - Journal Making":

Flip Flop File Album One Sheet Wonder from two pieces of double sided 6 x 12 inch paper.  Pinkstrawberryz.  Find it here.  This is a Christmas one, which is exactly what I'd like to make!

Cathy's Garden uses a double-side sheet (a rectangle a bit smaller than 12 x 12) to make a three-fold tuck-in with three pockets.  Cool!  Find it here.

LeNai Creates made a folio/flip page booklet from one piece of double-sided 12 x 12.  This is the way I made the gift card holder for Laura's birthday...and she asked me to make two more for her.  Then I made four more for my Book Club buddies.  The YouTube video is here.

Pinkstrawberryz makes a "One Page Wonder Christmas Passport Book Folio" that ends up being 6-inches tall with lots of pockets and a flip page in the middle.  It took her no time at all to make.  Here's the video.  I like her videos, she doesn't spend a whole lot of extra talking time...and uses all sorts of different glues.

This cool one-page wonder is made from a sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, looks complicated but is super simple!  Liz the Paper Project has oodles of one-page wonders.  See this one here.

Misc. Junk Journal Ideas

Mini file tab pocket folder using one 6 x 6 single-sided sheet of paper
Find it here.  #Septeria18  (really great for gift card holder)

Shanouki Art makes a "waterfall" notebook/stack of papers that fill the page from top to bottom.  Looks great!  Check out the video.

Shanouki Art also makes Index cards with Tim Holtz numbers - the background of the ordinary index card looks SO fun....first a few collaged tiny pieces of book pages, then a little white gesso wiped on with a finger....some spray Distress ink, splats of white and black acrylic paint, then some Tim Holtz numbers.  Very cool!  Here's the video.

Root Pursuit came up with lots of ingenious ways to use Christmas washi tap to make all sorts of cool ephemera in her Lots of Great Christmas Washi Ideas video.  Absolutely must make a mess of these.

Shanouki Art makes simple simple simple page corner to glue onto random junk journal pages when prepping the journal.  Wonderful!  See how here.

Okay, THIS is COOL!  Crafted by Christy takes long, torn up (plain and with words) strips and puts them into a container (could be a cardboard box, could be a dollar store 9 x 13 plastic...) then sprays them with different colored distress sprays.  You could even dribble on acrylic paint.  She wears cheap- plastic covers so that she can use her hands to mix all the papers up between sprayings - this distributes the ink all over.  After they all dry, she collages with them!  Gorgeous ---- and FUN!  Here's the YouTube.

Happy Paper People uses six layers of paper, circle punches, and paper glaze to mass make paper buttons!  Her 8-minute video is here.  

And Shanouki Art has her own take on this, gluing layers of cardstock together and then putting glitter (using double stick tape) around the outside!  You don't have to use the glitter, and her way to glue the layers together using a paint brush is super!  Try it....here!

Sleepless Page has 20 really fun scrap ideas...she just shares them, many need no step-by-step instructions, but she does refer to a tutorial if she's made one.  There are MANY cute, quick ideas here that I'd like to try.  Video's here.

Junk Journaling - My Current Obsession



I've made my Junk Journal, now what do I DO with it?



Artsy Pages I Can Actually DO!

Bits & Bobs - Small Ephemera to stick here & there

Card Holder Junk Journal

Using Circle Punches

Clusters are Fun and Easy!

Dangles for Your Junk Journal



Masterboards and What to Do with Them


One Page Wonders (using 12 x 12 paper)


Paper Clips - both hidden and brazenly showing!

Using Paper Napkins in Junk Journals

Using Playing Cards in Junk Journals

Creating Pockets for Junk Journals

Used Postage Stamps as Ephemera

Creating Snippets from Scraps

Tags, Tags, Tags...and Journaling Cards...and Inserts...and Tuck-Ins


Saturday, November 16, 2024

78. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

listened on Libby
368pgs.
2022
Adult Contemporary Ghost Story/Fantasy
Finished 11/16/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.92
My rating: 3

My comments: Well, I didn't take down notes on this and it's a good six weeks later.  I do remember the story, and I remember shaking my head about some of it....her relationship with siblings, why she never returned home, and why she'd do all the writing she did as a ghostwriter for a hugely successful series and not be compensated better....

Goodreads synopsis:  Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

Friday, November 1, 2024

77. The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

listened on Libby
384 pgs.
2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 11/1/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 4.25 
Setting: southern Maine coast community

My comments:   Ending seemed incomplete.  Loved all the historical facts that some readers considered "preachy." Took place in southern Maine with lots of social/feminist thinking.

Goodreads synopsis:  A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

October 2024 Handwork

Completed Projects: 
Groovy Gert
for Homeless Blanket Project
Finished afghan:  
129 sts. per row/ 53 stripes in length

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Monday, October 21, 2024

76. Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson

listened on Libby
384 pgs.
2024
YA Mystery
Finished 10/21/24
Goodreads rating: 3.78
My rating: 3
Setting: 1932 AND contemporary island on the St. Lawrence River

My comments: The story flip-flops back-and-forth between 1932 and current day.  The star of the story is a magnificent house on an island on the St. Lawrence River - in America, but close to Canada.  Six friends are going to spend the summer there giving tours and telling the tragic story of what happened n 1932 to a rich family of six adopted kids, all the same age and the deaths that happened there that summer.  Interesting story, but there was something amiss for me.  All 12 of the main characters are teenagers.  But there's something about the way the characters were developed that didn't work for me.  At least I think that's my problem - because unfortunately I do have a problem with the story, but I can't put my finger right on it.

Goodreads synopsis:  
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fiction (2024)   
From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Marigold Blanket with Larksfoot Crochet Stitch


Looks like a great pattern to try for my next Homeless Blanket!

I've saved the printed pattern on my home computer under "Patterns."

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

75. A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

listened on Libby
370 pgs.
2014
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 10/9/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 2.5
Setting: NYC 1911 & 9/11

My comments: Not a huge fan of this book, for a couple of reasons.  Told in two voices, one of a nurse, Clara, who survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 to "hide" on Ellis Island and a quilt shop fabric-lover, Taryn, who lost her husband on 9/11.  The majority of the story is told by nurse Clara ... whom I didn't like.  At all.  Her inconsistent personality (she flip-flops between a mamby-pamby-scared-everything watcher-of-the-world to a brazen in-your-face do-gooder) drove me nuts. A minority of the story was told by Taryn, ten years after 9/11, still bruised and barely living, which was more powerful and believable.  But not enough!  And the connection of this scarf was feeble, to say the least.  I didn't rate it lower because I enjoyed the history it shared and the 9/11 portion, but the 1911 lengthy section didn't work for me at all.

Goodreads synopsis:  A beautiful scarf, passed down through the generations, connects two women who learn that the weight of the world is made bearable by the love we give away....

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers …the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?