Secret Rose Garden Journal

Hey, everyone! Ingrid Carlsen of Karatootie, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Secret Rose 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 Ingrid introduce herself, and tell you all about her incredible project…

It is hard not to create a masterpiece when you are working with such gorgeous images! I am so excited to be designing a journal to show you just a glimpse some of the images that you can find on the Graphic Fairy’s Premium site! So, grab a warm cup of tea and get in a cozy reading nook as we go through the pages of this sweet journal together. Be ready to be transported to a secret garden full of fairies and whimsy. Throw in a touch of french style, old world charm and magical little surprises.

The journal was created as a true labor of love and a piece of my heart is intertwined in each page. I started off by removing the pages from an old book that I had. Using the covers, and adding a
fabric spine. I distressed the cover with paint, added a fabric cover, and some deliciously yummy fabric that may or may not have been hoarding. If I was hoarding it, I’m very happy with that decision because this was the perfect home for it!

I wanted to make sure that each page told a story and that it represented old world style with lots of layers. I kind of create in an Edward Scissorhands type of way, so I printed, and printed and
printed more images. I was cutting up a storm and only discarding the negative white spaces. You’re going to see that I pulled from a lot of different places, not just the corresponding bundles. I
encourage you to pull images that speak to your heart and intertwine bundles! I wanted fill the pages with whimsy and a soft calmness and for each page to be a treat for the eyes to do the images justice. In this spread I used images from the Ephemera Collection bundle which is gorgeous! I fussy cut the rose frm the Ephemera Romance bundle and layered it over the ledger paper, which is all layered over this beautiful blue image from the Delft Blue bundle.

On this spread, I made my own digital paper using procreate and Graphic Fairy’s florals. It was easy to find a TON of images by searching for: florals, flowers, and roses. The images were all so
beautiful that I HAD to make some as background papers! It was very easy to do, using the tutorials that walk you through step by step, on the Premium site. I am definitely a floral girl at heart, and I was in pure delight scrolling through the pages of florals I found.

I added more pieces of myself to this journal with my watercolor art which you can find scattered throughout, which, were inspired by the graphics fairies beautiful florals.

I used more items from the deft blue collection. I look at pieces in white and blue as neutrals that can go with anything! This envelope comes already done…all you need to do is cut it out. I printed it on vellum to give it more dreaminessI was going back-and-forth trying to decide the theme of my journal when I came across the bundle of ballerina fairies. It was almost instantaneous that I knew that they would be the stars! This girl’s image was actually from searching “ladies” in the search bar, but I think she blended in perfectly! When I was on the premium site, I used the search bar and looked up “women” and “girls” to find additional images that coordinated with the fairies.

The sweet pixies, were my inspiration for the secret garden theme, which is why you can find them adorning a lot of the pages throughout. This spread used a check from the French ephemera
kit and a label from the black and white apothecary kit, which I painted in gold to use in the layering process to add a little whimsy.

When I saw this grand hotel invoice on the premium site, I knew that it would be perfect to use as a layering piece to add some old world charm to the journal. I also fell in love with the french dog
cover prices image and printed it on vellum for layering.

Here are some more background papers that I created. Also don’t miss the gorgeous green book cover from the garden club tour kit that I printed on vellum. I love the way you can see the ledger paper peeking through the vellum! And yes I loved that gorgeous ledger paper so much that it showed up on several pages!

I remember when my kids were little that we built little fairy doors to put outside. And although I know there aren’t fairies in real life, the whimsy of pretending that there was a tiny fairy that danced on flowers and flew with the lightning bugs that lived behind one of those doors, is such a sweet memory. I am still aware that fairies are mythical, but today they live on in this journal. Just be careful when you open this journal a little pixie dust may come out!

Take a tour of the journal in the video below and, if you’d lik to see how my creative process in building the journal I’ve posted another video on my YouTube. I can’t wait to hear  what you think of my creation and I hope that you RUN to get some fairies of your own! Thank you for going on this journey into my secret garden!

Take a tour of the journal here:

SECRET ROSE GARDEN JUNK JOURNAL SHOW & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Ephemera Collection

Delft Blue Ephemera

Ephemera Romance

Garden Club Tour

French ephemera

Black and White Apothecary

Follow Ingrid’s Etsy shop

Follow Ingrid on Instagram

Follow Ingrid on YouTube

Thanks,

Ingrid

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!