Retro Christmas Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Kathleen Lyle of Journaling Junky, one of our amazing  Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Retro Christmas 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 Kath tell you all about her incredible project…

Hi everyone, my name is Kath also known as JournalingJunkY, this is my third design team project for the Graphic Fairy Design team. Because the Graphic Fairy Premium Membership site has so many wonderful bundles, I actually struggled which theme I wanted to work with…..what a quandary! But as the Christmas season is creeping upon us, I decided I would go with this theme. Again, there is so much choice, this in itself was a problem, then I found the Christmas Retro digital kit and many others which are all listed at the end of this blog. These digital images brought back to me all the bright, garish colours that I remember at Christmastime. I was born in the early 1960’s and Christmas was ablaze with reds, greens, gold, silver; tinsel and streamers everywhere and everywhere was decorated within an inch of its life! This journal measures: 9 inches x 5 3/4 inches.

Most of the pages and ephemera have been stitched around, all pages feature light stencilling. I will give a list of the collections I have used at the end of the blog that I’m sure will be of help to you in your search for that perfect journal you are wanting to create. I hope you enjoy this bright and cheerful journal as much as I enjoyed creating it, not all of the pages are shown here, but can be seen in full on my YouTube channel. This journal is for sale in my Ko-fi shop.

The journal cover is a faux midori style which features a luxurious red satin ribbon wrap around fastening, the same ribbon runs along the spine and I have added two small golden bells, which can be removed. The entire cover has been made by hand including the base which is covered in a wonderful heavyweight hessian/burlap fabric and features striking red stitching. The background layers are vintage music paper and wrapping paper. For the main image, I printed two copies of the beautiful child, one I used as the backing paper, the second I die cut and mounted onto kraft card, I also added foam pads to add dimension. The beautiful vintage lace, pieces of tartan hessian ribbon and buttons were then added to the corners.

I simply couldn’t resist having Mr and Mrs Claus for the first page! I used scrapbook paper for the background which I sewed onto tea dyed paper for journaling space. I also added tea dyed paper behind the images and again sewed around the edges. I created the pocket again from scrapbook paper and added hessian and tartan ribbon and the lovely little bow.

For the page background I used a lovely tartan scrapbook paper. I created the tag from an image from the Merry Retro digital bundle. Isn’t the little elf  adorable? I added gold washi tape around the edges of the image and made a small gold ribbon bow which I really think brings out the beautiful reds in the tag. Behind you can just see a vintage children’s book page.
The opposite page has been created from a book page to which I added a die cut specimen tag cut from tartan paper and I added a fussy cut Santa and decorated with white and green string, the specimen card can be removed. The holds in place a wonderful envelope and blank letter from the Desk of Santa created from the Nostalgiac Christmas collection.

The backing page has been taken from a Christmas themed book. For the pocket, I used scrapbook paper and then added several pieces of ephemera from various collections which I layered and then added the fussy cut image of the lady in the red dress. I also added small elements of lace. I also added 2 pieces of aged ephemera to use as journaling space. For the opposite page, I did a search for Christmas themed papers which gave me a huge selection to choose from, the Christmas Carol page I chose is from the Dicken’s Christmas bundle.

These pages are from the centre of the journal. The background papers are exactly how I remember wrapping paper from the 60’s/70’s and I had to use them. I printed on both sides which helped me create a turn back to form the pockets. The top of the pockets was trimmed with reindeer ribbon for the extra Christmassy touch. I created the tags by using oval metal dies, I added snowflake acetate to the front panel and fussy cut Santa and Mrs Claus and various pieces of Christmas ephemera to make a cluster. For that extra touch, I added gold bells to each tag which can be removed.

The left hand page has been taken from a well known book which has a December theme and can be written on or pockets could be added to create even more journaling space.
On the right, again, I have used a printable which is has a very vintage/retro vibe. I created a pocket and add the lovely crochet lace, red checked ribbon and small holographic stars.
The tag is my absolute favourite! The image features Kewpi dolls, did you own a Kewpi doll? I certainly did (I called her Suki) and as soon as I saw this image I simply had to use it, simply adorable. I used the green star background to tone in with the green on the image, the image I mounted onto gold mirror card and finished off by added the gold fabric bow.

This page has been created to flip out and one which I am proud to say I created the image on the front using editing software, this is the first time I’ve done anything like this before. I created by using one of the Christmas music papers and added the tree and the lady in the red dress image, these come in PNG formats……it took me a while to get it so she looked like she was  touching the bauble, but I got there in the end. I mounted the printed image onto red card and added various fabrics to coordinate with the image.

The corner pocket was created from tea dyed paper and has a hidden tuck spot. The tag was created on red card which I layered with an organza fabric, when you move the tag you can see that it is decorated with red metallic spots. The wonderful family image is from the Merry Retro Christmas bundle and I chose to use the Christmas words collection which I found by doing a search on the website. I have also added a vintage cookery book page which shows a Christmas cake heavily decorated in a ‘vintage’ style – thick royal icing! The opposite page has been lightly tea dyed with added stencilling. I have fussy cut the image taken from the Winter Fun collection and added the red bobble fabric to the edges of the page.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about how this journal was created and look forward to reading your comments. Thank you!

RETRO CHRISTMAS JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

Digital images/collections used in this journal:
Nostalgia Christmas
Retro Christmas
German Market collection
Winter Fun
Merry Retro Christmas
Dicken’s Christmas
Searches:
Christmas papers
Christmas Music papers
Christmas Girl Images

I hope you will visit me here:

Kath’s Instagram

Kath’s YouTube

Kath’s Ko-Fi shop

Kath

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!