MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - En Masse Journal

Good morning, ladies.

I'll be back around noon with a progress picture but I wanted to get something here so you'd know to come back. I should have been working on this post yesterday but I was busy clearing off the work table. The space needed cleaned/ reorganized and I'm still on the hunt for those dies.  4500 steps later, the work table is completely clear. I'm going to glue the junk journal pieces into place, take pictures then load them on Kizoa. I should have that all done by noon.

In the mean time, if you con't remember the En Masse Journal, click HERE to go to the original post.

This is the pile I've been collecting for the past week. As I came across something, I clipped the item down then tucked it into the journal so I wouldn't lose anything.

I started by dividing everything out into categories:

Window Envelopes.

I don't include the whole window area. I just like the different insides. So I punched them out with my Fiskars Octagon punch.

After gluing them in, I realized I had two pages for this. One has them punched out with the banner punch. Not sure if I'll combine or just fill both. 

I did the same thing with company labels:

After gluing them all onto one page:

I realized I had separate pages for food labels and company labels. Oops. Oh well, they will fill up fast.

Postage stamps:

Became this:

While this might seem like an odd project to some people, this is an interesting way of documenting a life. With a flip-through future generations will see the type of products we used, stamps, and all sorts of ephemera that show how we lived, what our interests were, etc. This is our Smithsonian. :-D

Creative Blessings!

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - En Mass Journal Returns!

Back in February of last year, I told you about a Junk Journal project I was starting - En Masse Journal. You can see the first post of how the journal began HERE.
The next post went along rather smoothly and on time (gasp!) HERE.
From there, I'm not sure what happened but the journal never made another appearance - because something got in my way (surprise surprise!) and I never got back to it.

So out it came for this week. Originally, I'd planned to run this the 4th Monday of each month. So I think I'll stick with that.
So here we are - October 23rd and I'm diving into one of the color sections of the Journal.

Originally, I had punched out all of the tabs for the journal, but had never sat down and labeled any of them. The initial pile looked like this:

I went to add them to the journal last week and they've vanished. Something in the back of my mind says I threw them out when I was decluttering the space, not realizing what they were for and determined that when I remembered I'd just re-punch them... so that's what I did. 

But this time... I labeled them and put them in place in the journal.. allowing a 2-page spread for each.  Here's a shot of the new tabs in place:

I used the tab punch as I had before for the categories. But the COLOR and ALPHABET tabs were punched from the new SU set  TABS FOR EVERYTHING from our current All Occasion catalog. I used Recollections cardstock for the colors. The letters were stamped using a retired SU set - Collage Alphabet, which I purchased from my stamping friend, Maggie  (aka Maggie's Cat House blog)

While I've not actually begun working in the journal, I can now that the categories and colors are in place. Each 2-page spread is interpretive. I can play however I want. 

I'm going to attempt to list the categories here - in no particular order just in case blogger throws me a curve in posting:

Circles, Finger Paint, Animals (wild), Tea & Coffee, Paper Dolls, Tags, Yarn & Fibers, Postage Stamps, Stars, Business Cards, Zippers/ Fastners, Textures/ Rubbings, Cowboys/ Western, Squares, Photos, Punches, Fabric, Washi Tape, Store Receipts, Faces, Triangles, Hardware/ Washers/ Gears, Glitter/ Sparkles, Colored Pencils, Buttons, Lace Doilies, Song Lyrics, Horse & Tack, Candy/ Food Wrappers, Quotes, Labels, Woven Paper, Markers, Rectangle, Leaves, Paper Scraps, Beads, Flowers, Crayons, Lists, Window Envelope, Security Envelopes, Dogs, Cats, Fruits, Vegetables, Birds, Books.

Then I added Holidays/ Seasons because I had pages left over in the signatures:

Snowflakes, Time, Valentine's Day, St. Patty's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Wedding

As well as things I love:

Planners, Baby, Teddy Bears, Negatives, Flags, Witches, Water, Football, Hearts

There are also 4 FREE pages to whatever I might find that would make a good category.

I'm enjoying playing again.

First off, I apologize for falling off the wagon on the 13 Days of Halloween. I just ran out of time. I had the projects but could not get them posted before I had to focus on packing and leaving for the conference. Then my BIL/SIL visited for a week. Rhonda and I spent the best part of two days in the studio. I managed ALL DAY on Thursday where I put together my October Daily album together from start to finish! Well, except for actual inclusions - but the base of the book is done. I'm still debating whether to use it for this year or put it away and I'll be ready to go next October. We shall see. I'll keep you posted.

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

TECHNIQUE THURSDAY - En Masse Journal

YouTube Intro

By Shannon Green

Before we go further, if you missed my first post about the En Masse Journal project, you can see that HERE

This is the massive amount of tags I punched for the En Masse Journal. There are 60 white ones and one of each color. They did not take long to punch... only about 15 min. I also scored them so they will fold.

I took the white ones from my white CS scraps:

Since it's a scrap journal, I couldn't see punching them from good white CS. These were a blend of shades. 

The journal itself, came together nicely. 

In this picture you can see the 4 black dots which were my stitch holes. I used waxed, non-flavored dental floss to stitch. Looking from Left to Right, I came up hole #1, down hole #2, up hole #3, down hole #4.. then reversed the process working my way back to #1. I did this with each of the 4 signatures:

Since I could not get that AWESOME travel journal cover Shannon Green was lucky enough to acquire, I painted mine a Chestnut brown, then covered it in brown packing tissue paper I had scrunched up into a ball then flattened out. After gluing the 3 pieces in place (one on the front and one on the back plus one over the spine area to seam the whole thing together) I then ran TH Walnut Stain Distress Ink pad over the cover, letting the raised areas pick up the ink. I heat -set that with my heat gun. I finished off the edges with masking tape.

I'm really happy with how the journal came out. This is my first stitched journal. I haven't decided if I'm putting any kind of a focal on the cover or if I just want to use twine and a conch shell as a belly band. We shall see as I begin putting things together.

Come back May 5th for the next installment. I'll have all of my tabs in place and can share my Journaling Prompt List with you. 

Creative Blessings!

Kely