Sweet Summer Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Susan Miller of Miller’s Laboratory, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Sweet Summer 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 Susan introduce herself and tell you all about her incredible project…

Hello, Friends, and happy summer! My design team project is entitled “Sweet Summer”, and is full of memories from my childhood. I grew up in Traverse City, Michigan, the Cherry Capitol of
the World, where summers are all about the cherries. We participated in the National Cherry Festival and had summer jobs in the industry. And when we were little, my mom would take us
to pick cherries, as well as strawberries, peaches, and more. We loved to eat them fresh, but she’d also bake terrific desserts, and make freezer jam that we could enjoy throughout the year.
Sweet summer memories! So when I chose my fruit theme, it quickly evolved to include the growing, picking, preparing and preserving of my favorites – strawberries, blueberries,
raspberries, and of course, cherries.

The 10 X 6-½” soft cover is made from a piece of an old quilt, with extra vintage quilt and apron scraps and bits from an old fruit themed tablecloth slow-stitched down. I’ve tied the book closed with some pretty eyelet, and onto the bow I’ve pinned a stunning bunch of celluloid millinery cherries from Germany.

The orchards in blossom around Traverse City are a beautiful sight to behold. To represent that, I created a couple different digital collage pages using images from the bundles Weathered Lace Backgrounds, Cherry Blossoms, and The Beekeeper’s Cottage. The pretty girl on the right is from Cherry Blossom Lane.

I did a LOT of fussy cutting for this journal, including images like this blueberry bunch from the Blooms and Blueberries bundle. I embellished the pages generously to try to create the feeling of lush abundance.

I scanned and printed onto vellum this postcard image of a group of raspberry pickers. The page beneath it with the cheery cherry border is a piece of vintage shelf liner. In the upper left corner, I placed a pretty cherry label from the Summers Bounty bundle, and added a button and fabric scraps from a couple of old aprons.

The page on the right has a framed window in it. The frame is from Tattered Paper Treasures 2 and I printed it out twice, to go on both sides of the page. In this photo it’s framing the image of the girl from the Green Gables Inspired bundle. But when the page is turned, the cherries on the left, from the bundle Berries and Cherries, will be framed.

I used a little strawberry I found on the Graphics Fairy free site, along with another Weathered Lace Backgrounds image, to create the repeating background paper on the left. The layered page hanger on the right features a gorgeous bloom from the Cherry Blossom Lane bundle.

The glossy burgundy page on the left is decorated with one simple image, these raspberries from the Berries and Cherries bundle. I printed it large, so it overflows onto the right hand page which is from a 1940s cookbook.

This lovely painting of a basket of cherries is also from Berries and Cherries. I made it a pop-up, and I thought it was special enough to get gold photo corners.

Another beautiful painting, an orchard in bloom from the bundle Printemps, forms the entire page on the right. It is balanced nicely on the left with the black cherries (from Berries and Cherries) on the vintage telegram worksheet page. The polka dot fabric tab is from a vintage apron.

This simple spread has a coffee dyed red page on the left and a vintage ledger page on the right. The (very) fussy-cut strawberry image is from the Country Lane bundle. The scrap of paper you see on the left is one of many I used in this project that came from a 1950’s scrapbook – an antique store find.

11. On the left, I used these Queen Ann cherries from the bundle A Trip to the Orchard, along with a piece of vintage wallpaper. To make the page on the right, I printed out two sheets both front and back with an image of wood from the German Christmas Market bundle. I cut them into strips and wove them together to create the look of a berry basket.
12. Here you see the other half of the berry basket page. Peeking over the top of it is another scrap of vintage wallpaper and to the left, more vintage apron fabric tabs. On the right, I used berry tickets, or chits, to create a tuck spot. The base of the journal card is a recipe card dyed with cherries. The image on it is from the Graphics Fairy free site.
13. This photo of a little boy, Maynard, on a picker’s ladder was scanned from my postcard collection and printed onto vellum. I used more of the shelf liner cherry border along the left-hand side, and added cherries from Berries and Cherries on the coffee dyed light blue page to the right. Here is a tip for you: You can slightly alter colors with your computer, and print images in different sizes and/or mirror-image to use them more than once without looking repetitive.

Thank you so much for taking a look at my project! It’s been a joy and an honor to be a part of this design team.

SWEET SUMMER JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

-A Trip to the Orchard
-Ballerina Fairies
-Berries and Cherries
-Birds on Branches
-Blank Paper Ephemera
-Botanical Fruit
-Cherry Blossom Lane
-Cherry Blossoms
-Country Lane
-Fall Wallpapers
-Farmer’s Market
-Flourishy Labels and Dividers
-German Christmas Market
-Junk Journaling
-Kitchen Ephemera
-Parcel Post
-Printemps
-Tattered Paper Treasures 2
-The Beekeeper’s Cottage
-Vintage Office Supplies
– Vintage Paperie
-Weathered Lace Backgrounds

I hope you will visit me here:

Susan’s Instagram

Susan’s YouTube

Susan’s Etsy

Susan

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!