Spring Birdwatcher’s Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Sharon Coughlin of Mad Paper Crush, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Spring Birdwatcher’s 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 Sharon tell you all about her incredible project…

Hello everyone! It’s Sharon from Mad Paper Crush back for another design team journal flip-through. Thanks so much for joining me. My journal for this month was inspired by Spring, and bird watching! I’ve been hearing so many birds around my area, I thought it would be fun to highlight them in my design team journal.

This journal is small – around 4” x 6”, perfect to tuck into a backpack or bag on your way out to catch sight of birds heading north after a cold winter. The base of the journal is a green denim and using several graphics from The Ornithologist kit, I collaged them onto the front with some torn black eyelet fabric and some brushed nickel brads.

As you might know from previous journals, I love to add pockets to the front cover – and this one is no exception! I covered the flap with one of the Spring Meadows graphics and used a little digital magic to add a nest to a book cover from the Antique Paper Scraps journal for the pocket. Then my first page is from the journal pages included in the Vibrant Birds kit – and I shrunk them down to print them out to fit my small size.

The Central Park Bird Watcher’s Club kit has this amazing old map of Central Park, and I couldn’t wait to include this in the journal. I printed it out in 2 pieces – put them together with some aged tape and then distressed the whole thing. I folded it up accordion style and it slips into a pocket towards the front of my journal. On the right side of this page – I added a little fabric flip and put a side pocket on top using a photo card back from the Mini Ephemera Pieces journal with a beautiful bird from the Vibrant Birds kit on top. I imagine the tickets on the inside of the pocket being for travel to the best birding locations, and maybe a ticket into a local aviary!

In the middle of my signatures, I left the binding strings long and created some chipboard medallions that peek out the bottom of the journal. I included several pages from an old bird book I have, and added another fabric pocket to hold more bits of a birding adventure.

I always try to add some extra touches of fabric, lace or ribbon, and on this page with swallows, I attached some decorative lace that I think goes great with the graphic.

While out there birding, I’m certain you’d want to catalog any species you see – so I took one of the labels from the Black & White Apothecary kit and changed it up to make it a specimen label for birds from the Emerson School of Ornithology. And yep, that one came straight out of my imagination!

I made a few tags using the Spring End Papers and some other decorative papers that I collaged with book pages, fabric bits and ribbon. I also included some old calendar pages with some journaling on them because every good birder would want to document their days.

Throughout the journal I’ve included postage stamps from a pintable in the Catharina Klein Birds kit that just tie everything together.

I created a notecard by backing this book page from the Central Park kit with some coffee dyed paper and it fits inside a tuck spot I created with another photo card back and the line-up of eggs from The Ornithologist kit.

Here’s another center of a signature showing some more chipboard medallions and a book page from The Warblers of America that has gorgeous illustrations from John H Dick.

Using two of the bird plates in the Bird and Nest Ephemera kit, I made a little pocket to hold a little journal tag from a printable in the Sage Meadows kit.

I printed the Vintage Feathers kit onto clear sticker paper and fussy cut them all out – they are spread throughout the journal – on top of book pages, tags and as you can see here front and center on a notecard I created with another photo card back from the Mini Ephemera Pieces kit.

As you can see on this page, I took another Black & White Apothecary label and added a bird to it – creating a little tuck spot for this collaged tag.

On the last spread in the journal, I’ve added more pockets that include another journal tag as well as more vintage feather stickers on a script ephemera piece. Plenty of space to journal and record all your bird watching adventures! Thank you so much for looking through my Spring Birding journal with me and I hope you get out and enjoy spring wherever you are!

JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

Central Park Bird Watcher’s Club
Bird and Nest Ephemera
The Ornithologist
Vintage Feathers
Vibrant Birds
Mini Ephemera Pieces
Black & White Apothecary

Sharon’s YouTube
Sharon’s Etsy shop
Sharon’s Instagram

Thanks so much!

Sharon

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!