Alice in Wonderland Junk Journal

  

There are always two things that you can always count on finding at Alpha Stamps - Halloween and Alice in Wonderland!

Leslie asked me to create a junk journal and I didn't have to think twice about it - I love making them. If you don't know what a junk journal is - it's basically junk you put into a journal. There are no rules, no right or wrong way to make them. If you can cut and glue then you can make a junk journal! 

This journal is much neater than what I normally come up with, but I love the way it came out all the same. Normally I like to use a lot of vintage text pages, old dictionary pages, postcards, receipts and assorted vintage ephemera.  I will draw over the text pages, but if I want to write on them I will use a light coating of gesso on the page. The old pages are also pretty cool to collage on, or before I sew them into a signature painting over them on a Gelli Plate. Once the signatures are finished, then I'll glue the signatures into a vintage or antique book cover. 

Onto Alice!

I always have Alice in Wonderland collage sheets around and thought it would be a good theme to go with. Aside from always having Alice hanging around, I have fallen down the rabbit hole on more than one occasion so the story and characters are near and dear to me. AND!! This super cute AIW fabric just landed at my doorstep a few days before Leslie asked me to make the junk journal! The line is by Cotton + Steel and called "Wonderland" if you're interested. This main pattern on the cover can be hard to find but it's out there, try the usual suspects: Etsy, Ebay, Google search.

 

This is the inside cover above, and the right page opens up with the cool AIW background paper and a few characters. I love the color palette from the Stamperia Alice 12x12 Paper Pad, it just seemed to perfect with the faux aged paper from the Ledger journal.

About that Ledger - no matter what you do with it the actual journal is awesome! The paper is aged nicely and it has a nice weight. The paper didn't get all krinkly either when I was gluing down larger pieces of paper on top of the pages either.

The Red Roses Dresden Scraps is one of my favorites, who doesn't love roses? At the time of having to have photos and this blog post done, I didn't have time to add tiny Alice in Wonderland book pictures to the bottom of each page, like the snarky rabbit here. Why am I wanting to do that? Because I love the old illustrations, some of the expressions on the characters and sometimes just seeing them makes me smile. So I hope they bring a smile to whoever is the  recipient of this junk journal !

The person I am making this for loves tea, sending out postcards and is a prolific reader so I tried to combine all 3 in the junk journal.

This is the Tall Tag Folder that opens up to show 2 bookmarks (tags). One was papered and the other one has fabric on it. I have a new sewing machine that can sew through fur and leather so I figured it could sew through manila card stock as well!

The postcards from the Stamperia Alice pad are too flimsy to use on their own, so they're backed with a really heavy weight card stock from the Vintage Remnants line. Light colored paper from the pad were chosen so that the writing would be legible. The paper pad is sold out, but there are still some single sheets available here.

Every once in a while I covered a journal page with assorted scrapbook paper. Photos, museum receipts, journal entries or even postage could be put on the page. These Vintage Metal Binder Clips arrived at Alpha Stamps too late for me to receive and use (Alpha Stamps is in the Bay Area and I live on the very strange planet of Georgia) but would have been perfect to use to clip a book of post card stamps to the page.

How cute is this page? The 3 Inch Simple Pocket is the perfect size for tucking in a bag of tea.  The map and image of Humpty Dumpty and Alice were sewn onto a piece of paper I had laying around, then the pocket was just glued down.

Cutting and gluing...it doesn't get any easier than this! (Sewing too if you're sew inclined. Pun intended. heh.)

Below are a few more random pages that were done.

 

This page is not finished yet, or it may just get left that way.

Tea time!

 The 3 Inch Square Folder is another piece that works well for tea bags. (See photo below...for the life of me I can not get 2 photos to be on the same line with Blogger.) Something I'll have to look up on Google!

If you decide to cover your junk journal with fabric, be sure to remove the paper off of the front.

Initially I had glued the fabric to the cover, and watched it start to lump and bump up almost immediately. So I pulled the fabric off and some of the cover came off with it. A craft knife or sharp pair of scissors will help you get the rest of the cover off.

The fabric couldn't be reused because it kept the lumpety bumpety look. There was a good spot that ended up being used for the bookmark.

The floral fabric went onto the back of the bookmark.

Remember - there is no right or wrong way to make a junk journal except to have fun making it!

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