MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - En MassE Journal

How many of you have a collection of magazines? Why are you hanging on to them? Do they need recycled?

I had a light bulb moment the other day. Magazines that are stapled in the center are nothing more than pre-made signatures!

These are all magazines I plan to mulch the garden beds with (they are not glossy pages - just the covers)

So I pulled 4 'signatures' for my new En Masse art journal

Before we get to how I'm using them, a bit of background on the cover..

When Bob was helping me organize the mixed media side of the studio the other day he was not

impressed with a box of food boxes. I had him sit and watch a video by Jennibellie on YouTube on making journals from Cereal Boxes.  I had been saving boxes for awhile.. but selectively. Only boxes that we purchase the same products of... such as this Stouffer's, cake boxes, BelVita bars or FiberOne cookie boxes.  This lets me narrow down what I keep and should I choose to do a journal of just chipboard pages, then I'll have enough that are the exact same size. FYI.. I'm loving the shape of Healthy Choice Steamer packages.

So with this Stouffer's box, I'm diving in! My first big project to launch the 'almost' completion of Creative Dreams Studio is to finally start an art journal. Not just any journal but an En Masse Journal.

I first heard about the concept from my junk journal mentor, Shannon Green over on YouTube. Shannon got the idea from Kagedfish

Shannon created hers from two Oklahoma Travel guides with the most awesome cover. You can see a picture of the most awesome travel guide cover EVER in the first picture of her En Masse Journal Post  HERE

First thing I did was order my Oklahoma Travel Guide... This is what I got:

Rather a let down from what I'd hoped. I guess Shannon's was the 2015. Oh well... I still liked the concept of the EnMasse Journal so I began with the Stouffer's box.I started by opening the box on the long side seam and trimming off that excess flap. Then I covered the entire outer box with Gesso.

Then I found the center of the 'spine' and separated the box into 2 pieces.

I did this because the spine was 2" wide... too wide for the number of signatures I plan to include.

I also tried what Jennie did by folding in the flaps. The glue was not holding so I wound up pulling them up and cutting them off.

With the Spine cut in half, I then layered them over top of one another to form a firm spine.

Once the Gesso dried, I covered the entire outer side with a Folk Art Nutmeg. I plan to use a brown packing paper crinkled up to form the final outside cover and I feared the product images would show through. Since I'm after kind of a 'western' theme for the journal, I thought the dark nutmeg beneath the lighter brown crinkled paper would add a nice depth to the overall cover. I left this to dry overnight

This morning.. and the reason the pictures are late... I came back in and marked the holes for  my four signatures. I made a template (shown laying on top of the spine)  and found the center. 

Then I drew four lines on the spine and marked these holes in the appropriate placing along each of the four signature placement lines. Here you can see the holes on the outside of the spine:

With the holes in place, I went back and covered the inside with this American wallpaper from my scrap bin:

I used Aleene's Tacky Glue and have a few wrinkles but this is a junk journal - a perfect opportunity for me to try and reign in my OCD tendencies and just see where this takes me. 

Next Monday should be the MARCH Tim Holtz Tag. From here on out, I hope to use the 4th Monday of each month as the En Masse progress post.

If you've never tried any kind of art journaling, I recommend starting with a Junk Journal of some type. We all have Junk! Why not make it pretty :-)

Creative Blessings!

Kelly