Golden Prairie Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Susan Miller of Miller’s Laboratory, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Golden Prairie Junk Journal for us this week. As you know, we feature one new Junk Journal project each week created by one of our creative team of artists. Our Design Team Members select from the 100’s of Vintage Image Bundles on our Premium Membership Site, for their creations, in order to show you beautiful ways to use those images. We hope you will be totally inspired by this series!

Therefore, please make sure you check out the video tour at the bottom of the page…please scroll all the way down to see it. Are you ready to be inspired? I will step out of the way and let Susan introduce herself and tell you all about her incredible project…

Hello from beautiful west Michigan! I am Sue Miller of Miller’s Laboratory, and for me it is a dream come true to be a new member of the Graphics Fairy Design Team. I am very excited to
show you my ideas and art over the next year!

My first junk journal’s theme is The Golden Prairie. I was inspired by the Prairie Style bundle from the Graphics Fairy premium membership site, the warm golden tones of the sunlight in late
Summer and Fall, my love of nature and all things Little House on the Prairie, and my collection of antique school books. I chose a 1918 Kansas reading book as my cover, reinforced the spine
with golden fabric, and stitched in the two signatures with a cross-stitch pattern. The cover is embellished with more fabric and lace, and some tiny antique buttons. The book’s dimensions
are 5” x7-½”, and there are 126 pages.

I’ve kept the original title page from the book as I always try to do. I’ve also left the name of the child that owned the book and some of her handwriting. I think this adds a lot of charm to a
journal. I provided a book plate with birds and wheat that I found in the Autumn Song bundle. Around it are strips of patterned paper added like Washi tape. The pressed flower on the right is
called Yellow Rocket, which is a weed where I live. It is ironed between two pieces of waxed paper and stitched onto the page with embroidery floss.

I’ve used many vintage and antique book pages throughout the journal. I adore old math books especially! The color palette on the left is from The Artist bundle. I love how it sets the
tone for the book’s color scheme. The flower image is from the Prairie Style bundle, and so is the postage stamp. On the computer I created a grid of the stamp image, printed it, and
perforated between the stamps to make my own stamp sheet. You will see them used again elsewhere in the book. The little label is from a printable label sheet from the Autumn Song
bundle, and the scrap of handwriting is from a letter in the Cows and Dairy bundle.

For this spread, I found an old alphabet image on the Graphics Fairy free site that I have used to make three pockets. In one of the pockets, I tucked a small envelope created from a
quilt pattern in the Prairie Style bundle. Inside it are two little photos of ladies which I also found on the free site. They live in pretty frames from the French Newspapers and Ephemera bundle.
The other two pockets contain Reward of Merit certificates which I backed with plain paper, one from the free site, and one from the Attic Paper Stash bundle.

Surprise! Here I have created a pop-up with an image of a sunflower that I found on the Graphics Fairy free site. It’s made from a simple origami square base fold. I used one of the
sunflower’s folds to create a secondary pop-up of a lovely bee. I’ve used many images of bees, yellow birds, and yellow butterflies throughout the book that came from many different bundles
on the premium membership site. I just did a search for those words and all of the glorious images came up! There are so many to choose from, you’ll feel like a kid in a candy store!

This corner tuck is made from another pressed flower called Cat’s Ear (another weed) which is ironed between two pieces of waxed paper. I hand-stitched around the edges and stitched it
onto the page. Because of the transparency of the pocket, I created a simple journal card to go inside from a coffee-dyed index card collaged with bits of book pages. If you look closely, you’ll
see what looks like an old discolored piece of scotch tape. I created this by printing an image of old paper from the Blank Paper Ephemera bundle onto clear address labels.

Isn’t this a pretty image with the meadowlark? It’s a printable journal page from the Prairie Style bundle. I didn’t need to do a thing to it, it’s so lovely as-is! For balance, on the left side I
created a small collage including a piece of a seed coupon found in the Chelsea Flower Show bundle.

Here I’m letting the late 1800s arithmetic book page shine on the right side, because I think it’s so pretty. On the left I’ve created a small cluster which also serves as a corner tuck. Images
in the cluster are from a poem called Ode to Hope which I found in the Script Ephemera bundle, and a label from the Twilight on the Lake bundle. The journal card is made from a photo back
from the The Photographer bundle, and the black-eyed Susans (a personal favorite) came from the On the Farm bundle.

Notice the pieced pocket on the left. It’s the first thing I created for this book! I searched for many patterns throughout the premium membership site that looked to me like calico and I
printed half sheets of them out onto linen texture paper. You will see bits of these throughout the journal, but I also punched out squares from them, inked around the edges, glued them to a
backing of brown packing paper, and tied them in the centers to create a paper quilt. I cut that up and used it in several places throughout the book. The journal card is made from a page
from an old sketchbook that I picked up from the “free” table at my local library book sale. I think the image of the bushel basket is perfect for my theme! I’ve embellished it with some yellow
flowers from the Prairie Style bundle. And on the right is a page from an antique German primer.

Simple techniques can be very charming! The butterfly specimen page on the right is from the Autumn Woods and Flowers bundle. Before I glued it down, I carefully cut out some of the
butterflies with an exacto knife. I glued them to the facing page so it looks like they somehow escaped and flew away free.

I couldn’t believe it when I happened upon this lovely image in the A Country Lane bundle. It is a printable folded greeting card that I chose to use as a page. The Laura Ingalls Wilder quote
is so appropriate, and it inspired me to use other quotes of hers throughout the book.

The book page on the right is from a James Fenimore Cooper book titled The Prairie. When I found it in a thrift store I felt like it needed to be here! The sunflower image is my own photo
from a recent visit to a local farm. When I printed it out it seemed way too vibrant, so overtop I printed an image from the Tattered Paper Treasures 2 bundle which has an aged background
that toned down the color a bit. And I think the handwriting makes the whole thing look much more interesting.

To understand this photo you really need to watch my video! This page is designed to have motion, and to represent the sight of grasses blowing in the wind. The images of wheat, from
the Prairie Style bundle, were printed directly onto the book page and also onto several sheets of paper and cut out. Each piece is hinged onto the page with a small piece of tissue paper,
overlapping across the pages. These images act like a waterfall – if you lift one side they will all flip over in a wave. What do you think, did I successfully execute the notion of “amber waves of
grain”?

The three belly bands you see here are strips from the sheet of postage stamps I created. The journal cards are my own sunflower photos printed out onto acetate. After I cut them out, I
glued them with spray adhesive to some beautiful collage page printables from two bundles, Tattered Paper Treasures and Tattered Paper Treasures 2. I love the complex layered look this
achieves and it was so simple to do.

On the last spread I am sharing with you here, I used another grain image from the Fall Botanicals bundle folded over the page on the right to create a large tab. On the left, I glued a
frame image from the Attic Paper Stash bundle to make a pocket. I embellished it with a white flower from the Prairie Style bundle. The journal card inside has a pretty photo of a woman with
a book, from the Antique Portraits bundle, a yellow bird clutching more grains, and a pretty yellow silk ribbon bow. I also glued a snippet from one of my old school books that names this
lady, “the teacher”.

Thank you for taking a look at my first contribution! I hope you’ll watch my video to see the rest of the book. And if you’re interested, I am listing it for sale in my Etsy shop.

GOLDEN PRAIRIE JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

● Autumn Song
● The Artist
● Prairie Style
● Cows and Dairy
● Blank Paper Ephemera
● Fall Wallpapers
● Spring Endpapers
● Pumpkin Spice Ephemera
● Tattered Paper Treasures
● On the Farm
● Gothic AtumnRich Marbled Endpapers
● French Newspapers & Ephemera
● Attic Paper Stash
● Delicate Endpapers
● Fall Botanicals
● Chelsea Flower Show
● Twilight on the Lake
● Script Ephemera
● The Photographer
● A Trip to the Orchard
● Family Album Pages
● Antique Album Paes
● Family Tree Genealogy
● Beekeeper’s Cottage
● Butterflies and Blooms
● Book Lovers Only
● St. Patrick’s Day
● Sunset Hues
● Autumn Woods and Flowers
● A Country Lane
● Garden Roses and Bees
● Tattered Paper Treasures 2
● Pumpkin Patch
● Antique Paper Scraps
● Antique Portraits
● French Romantic Frames
● Mini Ephemera
● Hallie Quinn Brown

I hope you will visit me here:

Susan’s Instagram

Susan’s YouTube

Susan’s Etsy

Susan

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!