Sea Green Ocean Junk Journal
Hey, everyone! Jane Chipp of Willow Blue Vintage, one of our amazing Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Sea Green Ocean 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 Jane tell you all about her lovely project…
This journal is a real feast of mixed media. I’ve combined the beautiful images from the Graphics Fairy with vintage papers, stitch, antique silk, wax, flower petals and paint. I’m never happier than when I’m sailing or by the sea and this is a journal to celebrate everything nautical.
The cover is made from fabric and is removable so that it can be used on other journals if desired. I printed the image of the lady in the ocean (Ocean Blues bundle) onto fabric and made the cover using a technique called reverse appliqué. The cover has several layers of fabric that are stitched, cut away and embroidered to look like water ripples. I’ve made a tutorial video for the Premium site to show how to make the journal cover.
I made a small bookmark from a piece of driftwood that I found on my local beach, and I collaged onto another piece of driftwood that is glued in…they add some extra texture and authenticity to the journal.
I used a color palette of chalky blues, greens and neutrals with occasional touches of gold leaf…like pieces of treasure at the bottom of the sea. As always, I was overwhelmed by the choice of GF images and designs to use for this journal. I knew that I wanted to have a slightly sea-worn, sun-faded look and the Sea Green Backgrounds bundle was the perfect source for many of the pages. I printed the backgrounds onto a variety of different weight papers and used them either as pages, or as collage pieces.
In a few places I made port holes in pages that allow you to get a glimpse of what’s on the next page.
I really enjoyed making sea-distressed images by adding encaustic wax as a resist to some of the images. I put the word ‘distressed’ into the search bar in the premium site and found a beautiful, sailboat image with a faded map in the background. I used part of this to make a postcard, painted some molten wax on top and then rubbed acrylic paint into the card. It created a lovely, aged effect. I used this technique a lot throughout the journal.
I used a few shell images that I found by searching the ‘Sea and Nautical’ filter of the Images section of the website. They added a lovely soft pink to the journal that blended well with the other colors. I used one of the shell images as the basis for a painted piece…by adding acrylic paint on top I created a piece that looks like I painted it. On this shell I also added a touch of gold leaf.
I added dried seeds and flower heads onto some of the pages…some look like tiny fish whilst others look like dried seaweed. There are several pockets and tuck spots. My favorite is one made from a fine net that looks like a tiny fishing net and holds a mermaid card.
Tucked into the back cover is a small fold-out book that I made from images that resemble jelly fish…all tucked behind a peep through hole in a ship’s steering wheel. Again, I added wax to distress the images and they are stitched together with silk.
The journal will be available to buy from my Etsy shop on 21 April 2021 and I will also list some ocean goody bags for you to use in your own ocean journals with pieces of drift wood, sea pottery and other lovelies!
SEA GREEN JUNK JOURNAL SHOW & TELL VIDEO TOUR
Let’s take a tour of it together:
I hope you enjoyed looking through the journal and that it’s given you ideas on how to use some of the beautiful bundles. I’ve listed below the ones that I used:
- Seaside Holiday
- Mermaid’s Cove
- Ocean Blues
- Sea Green Backgrounds
- Distressed Texture Photos
- Vintage Postcards
Plus, I used various images that I found by searching using the ‘Sea and Nautical‘ filter on Images
The journal will be available to buy from my Etsy shop on 21 April 2021 and I will also list some ocean goody bags for you to use in your own ocean journals with pieces of drift wood, sea pottery and other lovelies! https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WillowBlueVintage
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See more of my work here.
Jane Chipp
Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!
