Putting together a Junk Journal

hello lovelies and welcome to the channel so today I have something a little different for you a different but same anyway so um today I thought I'd share with you how I put together my junk journals now if you've watched any of my videos you will see that I do a daily junk journal one I have a daily journal and basically I've had a journal for years most of us do and usually I just buy a store-bought journal and just ride in it and that's it well recently I've taken a fascination with junk journals I loved making them and I had absolutely no use for them or like I was making more than I could use so I thought what better way to use them up than to use them as my daily journal so I have four this is my fourth I'm making my fourth one here I get three months to a journal I do three signatures in each and I use one month per signature and I tell you what I'm having so much fun with it I would definitely continue to do this it has been a fantastic way to UM to journal I've got out general pages photos all sorts of random things and it's much more exciting than just writing in a journal every day so I thought I'd show you how I put my journals together so I have just a random book that I get from my local op shop and I've just got at it so I've taken out the pages and ripped them out why shouldn't I've cut them out and then what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna tidy up the spine a bit so I've got a piece of pattern paper that I've cut to size and I'm just going to glue that straight in the middle of my spine there with a little overlap on either side that I can also cover in a second so this is how I'm gonna neaten up the inside now I always do the inside first because when I put mice when I stitch my signatures in I want this to be all pretty and clean and obviously I can't do it once I've stitched into it so this is my first step I the Kaiser craft glaze I found it to be the best glue for this so far I haven't tried matte medium yet gel medium yet that'll be my next thing to try because I'm almost running out of this but I have found that using a silicone brush is much easier than anything else I've used a foam brush tended to absorb too much of it and wasn't applying because it is very hard to spread but it works the best so I'm using a silicon brush now this is I've found another piece of patent paper and I've cut it to fit on my inside covers and this is how I'm just going to ya pretty it up so I've cut this to size I tend to eyeball everything I don't measure which is terrible of me but I eyeball it and then I'm using the glaze again to attach these to the inside cover I haven't had any problem with this glaze I have made at least five or six of these journals now and I haven't had a problem with any of the paper the pattern paper arm lifting so yes especially on the bind on this is the spine and that's really important to me I really like to make sure that the paper it is properly but also that I really get a really nice crisp spine it's very important that I have that book looking spine you'll see what I mean later on when I get my bone folder out in school inside um all the grooves in that you'll see what I mean by that so yeah I do tend to move in and smush it a bit because when this dries it goes very hard and if you've if I've left it flat I find that it makes it very hard to UM bend afterwards so I do like to fold and manipulate my book cover just to make sure that everything's good and nice and attached I have already put my signatures together at this point that I find that that takes the longest part of this entire process making my papers cutting my papers and then putting my signatures together so I have not included that in this part of the video if you would like to see how I choose my papers how I make my paper and things like that let me know in the comments below and I'll do a video on that portion of putting together my junk journals but basically I've already put the signatures together and they're ready to be stitched in so this is what I mean by making sure I score in all the groove so that the glue attaches to the paper properly and so that I still get that book looking spine you'll see when I'm finished so this is my first signature now I've already put it together so I'll just give me a quick flip of what's in here I've got lined paper gel prints book paper any sorts of literally it's called adjunct general for a reason you can use any kind of junk most of people do that use junk mail and things me I tend to UM use scrapbook paper pattern paper book paper baking paper is one of my favorite things to include what else oh when I got one of these books I keep the paper from the inside and I use it in gel prints or in my junk journals as well so this is what I'm going to do now is going to make what kind of what I call a cheat sheet so this is a tip that I've picked up along the way you get a scrap piece of paper that measures the width of your book and then you put where your holes will be always mark the top because I found if you don't for some reason even if you measure all your dots perfectly if you turn it around do it the wrong way it'll be a or your dots will be off so basically I map out where I want my stitching to be and then I draw it on a piece of paper and then I line up the piece of paper with my book and I poke my holes generally with a pokey tool this is a horrible example because I'd lost my pokey tool at this point so I have a needle and I'm literally just stabbing it in with a pen so yeah don't don't do that but basically if you go off this guide when you poke the holes in your book and then poke your holes and your signatures they were all lined up perfectly so first I poke my three holes for my three signatures in my book spine and then when I go to stitch in my signature I will use this guide again line it up with the middle of my signature and poke my holes in the same place I set that way my holes in my signature and my spine will line up perfectly very important to do that part you may not think it's important but trust me it is otherwise you're going to be poking holes and they're not going to line up and you're going to have uneven pages in your books so this is that me being very very lazy and horrible poking holes yes pokey tools the best thing to use for this I do put a foam mousepad underneath because it makes it easier to poke my whole story so this is what I mean by poking those holes using your guide in your signature as well because that way all your holes gonna line up so I use wax seeds this is a poker tool much easier I used them wax linen thread I actually bought it off eBay I have a spool of it and I have gone through barely any of it I just cut off a section that I think will be enough and I can't so worth a damn I'm terrible but this I can do it's just from what I understand it's a simple pamphlet stitch so basically I go out through the middle hole through the book spine and then I'm going to come back through the book spine through the bottom hole back up into the middle hole and out again and then back in through the top hole now it may sound confusing but it really is simple once you do it it's very simple you're going through one in through the other back through back out now hopefully you can follow that I did attempt to draw a little schematic of that diagram but I think it was more confusing but if you have any problems just google a pamphlet stitch I'm sure you can find a YouTube video that explains it much better than I can but I cannot so and this I can do and I tell you what none of my signatures have ever fallen out so literally I'll show you again so hopefully you can follow but yeah I skipped my mineral signature this is my last signature now this signet a signature if you're not sure here's a bunch of pages basically so I divided my junk journals into three signatures which I then convert to three months so each signature is one month this being my last journal it's October November December this being my last signature it's going to be December so to make it a little Christmasy i am i used christmas papers I used Christmas story books this is an envelope of Christmas envelope that I got into like a coloring book thing you could color in your own Christmas cards and matching envelopes now to put an envelope in I have learnt there is a trick to it it works much easier if the envelope isn't glued down so as you can see this envelope still hasn't been adhered together yet so it makes it much easier to stitch an envelope into the middle of your signature if it isn't in one piece so it's sort of like you've unfolded the envelope so then what we're going to do is we're going to stitch through the envelope it's just like stitching another piece in your signature but it is easier if you if it's open and not glued together so you're not trying to stitch inside a closed envelope if that makes sense I had problems with my my holes for some reason they weren't lining up perfectly so I'm just having a quick flick through to see what's happening there and then I'm going to yes teach my signature together so if we pay close attention you'll see what I mean I'm just repeating my holes because they weren't lining up when you put your paper together it is good to line it all up and then hold it together with paper clips or bobby pins even something that will stop those pages from moving so that all your centers are in the same place so I go I start with the middle hole and I go through the middle and then out through the spine then I'm going to pick a hole doesn't matter which way you go I tend to go down I think and I go down to the bottom hole and come back in the spine in through the paper then you go back out through the middle again so through the middle signature and out through the spine again and then go to the opposite hole they haven't gone through yet and come back in through the spine in through the paper that way and then literally literally you just tie a knot and they're annoying you're done it's a very simple stitch if I can do it you can trust me and it's very sturdy I've not had a problem with it yet so it's a very sturdy stitch very simple I do tend to use a bigger needle because I use the waxed linen thread I have done this with cotton in the past just good old plain cotton you could use pretty much anything Baker's twine anything you wanted you just need to be able to have a needle big enough to pull your thread through so ya do pull it nice and tight I do tend to pull through each hole I go through because it is wax linen thread you got to give it a nice tug and make sure it's nice and tight the tighter you pull it the tighter your signatures gonna be in your book it did take me a little bit to get this to get this right generally it's not a high it's not a hard stitch at all but just you know making sure it's nice and tight and that I've done straight pretty much but you know the beauty of a junk journal is it's a junk journal it doesn't have to be perfect it's whatever you want it to be so now I'm going to glue together my envelope and as you can see once I have glued the flaps and everything down it's a it's an envelope stitched into my junk journal so it looks great so just flipping through that last signature for you and that's my Christmas signature we're gonna call that and yeah as you can see I've used on book pages note pages all sorts of things literally I have a great stash of things that I use i've used old gel prints paper i do watercolor and things too a lot of people tdye their paper to your coffee diet because I like to use bright colors instead of tea dyeing and coffee dyeing what I do is I will watercolor my pages I will use mist on them and that's how I color my pages for my journal so now I'm going to finish off the book and I'm going to cover my spine on the outside now a lot of people leave these as they are or cover their spine and then do this too just through it anyway some people like to see the stitches recently I found that covering them I can cover them and it looks just as good so that's what I do so I'm just going to cut another piece of paper that these are literally my off cuts from the scrap board paper I've used on the inside of the journal so I'm just going to cut that down to size I this one I do measure because I don't like to fold it over I just like to cut it so it fits perfectly and then I can just glue it straight over the top so I've cut it down to size and I'm going to use that same glue cover that piece of paper and then I'm going to press it down into my spine and then I'm going to use my bone folder and make sure I score inside all those grooves so that this attaches really well so that there's no gaps underneath or air bubbles or anything so I'm going to press it down nice and hard and then I'm going to get my my scorer and I'm just going to run that over it to make sure that yeah it's down nice and hard and then my favorite part is to get my bone folder and put it right in between that groove if you look on the spine of a book there are grooves in the spine I like to make sure I can keep those even though I've covered it because to me that's it looks like a more like a book that way and doesn't give you that hard square edge so I really that's my favorite part I really do like to make sure I keep that so I get my bone folder in there nice and hard and then yeah that's my general done so hopefully this wasn't too confusing for you I just thought it would be nice to share with you how I make my own junk journals and yeah I use them for all sorts of random things I have one for my boys just to put random photos in I use it as my daily journal you'll see many videos on the channel about that too so yeah lots of great ideas of what you can use these for so once you start making them it's very addictive you can't stop so hopefully I've shared that with you so thanks for watching I hope you've enjoyed the video and I'll be back here with mom bye for now

Channel: Chrissi Mannix

Views: 111,312

Rating: 4.9353185 out of 5

Keywords: junk journal, stitching, memory keeping, omni journal, journalling, journaling, pamphlet stitch, signitures, book signiture, book cover journal

Id: 4cY1fD0Ycds

Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2017