Hidden Garden Junk Journal by Amanda Charlesworth!

Hidden Garden Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Amanda Charlesworth of Scrimping Mommy, one of our amazing  Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Hidden Garden 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 Amanda tell you all about her incredible project…

The Secret Garden story is a childhood favorite of mine as it is with many many people. The Secret Garden bundle caught my imagination and was firmly on my ‘to do list’. Then I found an old copy in a charity shop with a beautiful red cover and knew it was time to make one. As the story is set in Yorkshire… and so am I,  It was a must.

We have three signatures in the journal and a total of around 140 pages lots of decoration but at the same time lots of room for journaling. I used the cover of the old book and did a hidden spine. I favor this technique as I am not the best at sewing straight so this helps my work look neater. I added a large key to the spine and matching lock to the front to replicate the gate lock to the Secret Garden. It’s strange as I have had the metal pieces in my crafty hoard for years ‘waiting for the right project ‘. I didn’t feel any further décor was needed as the book cover is already beautiful and in such good condition. The innards of the book were used throughout, making special use of the illustrations to help tie my theme to the book.

The Graphics Fairy have made a stunning kit capturing the beauty and key elements of the story. I used this and paired it with the Sage meadow kit as the colors and patterns fit what I had in mind for my journal. As I grow confident in navigating the site I am able to wonder at my leisure through the entire library of images picking up extra items that would fit with my theme. I have used lots of floral reference pages in this way. I even found a random document referring to greenhouses, you just never know what you will find on here I love it.

I wanted the journal to look like it had been perhaps found in the garden after many years and so gave all the pages torn edges. I created some of the pages myself using inks, stencils and Gesso. By keeping many of the pages quite plain I used the printed images as accents to the pages to make them really pop and be the focus of each page.

I created a host of pockets and tags and flips to decorate the journal and did have a lot of fun. My tags were made from a collaged sheet of scraps from the journal, then I gessoed and inked and stenciled with modelling paste I had a whale of a time making them and you will see a bee image here and there… he was a freebie on the site last month and I just adore him.

I hope the fun I had with the kit will inspire you to try your own Secret Garden theme project

There is a full flip through on the Graphics Fairy YouTube channel below, enjoy.

HIDDEN GARDEN JUNK JOURNAL SHOW & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Let’s take a tour of it together:

Bundles Used:

• Secret Garden
• Sage Meadows

 Amanda’s YouTube, Etsy and Instagram

Crafty hugs xx

Amanda

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!