A Vintage Autumn Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Kathleen Mower of BeAgain Books, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous A Vintage Autumn 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 Kathleen tell you all about her incredible project…

Hello everyone! I am Kathleen from BeAgainBooks and I am delighted to share a beautiful Vintage Autumn junk journal with you. This journal is my latest Design Team project for The Graphics Fairy and I’m pleased to join them here on the blog today. Autumn is truly spectacular on the Graphics Fairy Premium website. There are so many lovely fall images to choose from and I decided to take advantage of that to make a classic journal focusing on these beautiful images from four bundles. These are listed at the end of the article I started with a recycled book cover and completely altered it using a sponged painting technique with acrylic paint and glaze. A classic collage of various images also features on the front of the cover along with an elaborate metal bookplate and a vintage button closure.

I used one of my favorite Graphics Fairy images of autumn ferns as a journaling paper held in a vintage lace pocket on the inside cover. These gorgeous ferns set just the right tone featuring the sage green, brown, orange red and gold that you will see again and again. A double pocket flip shows off on the facing page. There are 32 pockets in this journal and these are stuffed with 36 pieces of ephemera. Most of pieces are created with the images .from the bundles.

The little collage cluster shown on this page is one of my favorite elements to make. I could honestly make these little clusters all day long and it holds smaller pieces of ephemera securely against the page. I love the presentation of the layered grouping of shorter pages and ephemera framed with the fabric ruffle behind them. I try to plan carefully to achieve lots of layers and texture that flows from one page to another.

This double collage pocket also shows my love of layering from the paint splattered page behind the pocket to the fussy cut flowers on top of the pocket. That bunch of flowers creates the second pocket – perfect for holding a small ticket or note card.

A beautiful harvest image of a woman holding a sheaf of grain peeks from behind a slim side pocket of gorgeous handmade paper. I added a little ink to accent the rough texture of the paper and to age it with a vintage vibe.

An ATC card of beautifully colored autumn leaves and a label from the printable pages in the Autumn Song bundle creates the pocket for this over-the-page journal flip. A vintage lace for a hinge, a fall sentiment and a crinkled colored leaf are the perfect details.

The most striking image in the Pumpkin Spice bundle is this large dark forest image with vines and pumpkins and cabbages. I wanted it to stand on it’s own in this signature center spread, but couldn’t resist adding this handsome owl from the Vampire’s Lair bundle – who could know that he would add the perfect touch to this unrelated image.

Printing four identical images allowed me to build up a perfectly layered pocket to hold several small pieces of ephemera. The large tuck space behind the pocket has plenty of room for larger papers.

More little clusters detail the lovely images used here. I also spritzed some water on a newly printed journaling card to create some intentional water damage to the printed image. It dissolves into a kind of mottled texture that adds a really great effect to the card.

All of the images I find from the membership site are perfectly prepared in large files that allow me to enlarge, cut and manipulate them in many ways to get the result I want. I enlarged this leafy squash image from the Pumpkin Spice bundle and fussy cut it to make a great wraparound double page pocket.

I love to take advantage of the designers at the Graphics Fairy and use the beautiful printable papers from the image bundles as often as I can. A page from the Pumpkin Spice bundle inspired me to copy the design in a physical way, cutting separate images and adding them to the page as a layered pocket.

I printed this stately owl image large and fussy cut around the image to create a cute journal flip out. Glossy accents details his eyes and beak and a fabric ruffle faces him on the opposite page to balance such a large element in the journal.

A darling squirrel from the Pumpkin Spice bundle features in the center page of the second signature. I used the frame from the same bundle and physically glued it on the image to frame his head. The extravagant wallpaper image creates the perfect backdrop.

Three brown moths from the Autumn Song bundle help make a useful bellyband with the !flap of a previous envelop flip. I love this envelope element.

Using the “stone texture” image from the Scratches and Grit Textures bundle is perfect to make my own distressed paper and color it to match the journal. This stone texture backs most of the journaling papers and cards in the journal. It’s just like using paint, but with a completely different digital technique. So easy and way less messy.

I hope you have enjoyed my Vintage Autumn Journal! Thanks so much for spending time with me today! You can see a full video flip through here at the end of the post. The journal will be listed for sale in my Etsy shop.

VINTAGE AUTUMN JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

Autumn Song
Bittersweet Hues
Fall Colors
Pumpkin Spice
Scratches and Grit Textures

I hope you will visit me here:

Kathleen’s YouTube

Kathleen’s Etsy shop
Kathleen’s Instagram

Thanks so much!

Kathleen

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!