There are some things you can never have enough of, like chocolate, love and money. Then there are those things that seem to multiply much to our dismay, like bills, trash and leftover craft supplies.Usually I can deal with a few extra scraps from paper projects but over time they have really gotten out of hand.

 

I have two boxes of small pieces of scrap booking papers, maps, wrapping papers, old book pages, advertisements and who knows what else. My name is Helen Hauser and I’m a paper hoarder. There, I publicly admitted it. I feel so much better. But what to do with them all? No, throwing them out is NOT an option.  Since I have really been getting into journal and album making lately, I decided to make an itty bitty junk journal for a very special young lady.

 

First I got a cup of tea. Then I selected scraps of paper that had similar colors. Oh look, they all have pink. How did that happen? I also picked out some embellishments for the journal. Don’t worry if you don’t use everything you picked out because we can always find another project later (and it will give me some more blog fodder).

 

I picked one of the larger pieces to be the cover and then I randomly folded and layered the other pieces. Not all of the pieces were folded exactly in half either which gives you a more interesting journal. I folded an old coin envelope in half and added it. Unfortunately since it’s the end of the month I didn’t have any cash to put in it!

I even glued a folded piece of paper to an old Monopoly card so it could become a page.

 

I clipped all the inner pages together and then made three holes in the spine with an awl. I really wanted to use a power drill, but this journal is just too small for that much fun. Then I laid the outer cover, which is a bit larger, over the bundled pages and made holes in the cover to match.

I sewed up the spine with pink embroidery floss and a large needle. I just went in one hole and came out the next and when I got to the end I sewed back down sewing in the opposite direction. When I got to the end (which is also the beginning) I tied it off and added a little blue flower charm. I know that probably doesn’t sound like it makes any sense so just sew it up any way you want. If you want to cheat, you could even staple it together!

 

Next, I glued some seam binding ribbon around the spine which will be tied in a bow to close the journal. You could use any ribbon or string you happen to have on hand.

 

I decided to add a layer of paper over the ribbon to make it sturdier and to hide the ribbon, but if you wanted, you could just let the ribbon show.

 

I decorated the cover with words, pictures and embellishments I had on hand.

 

I embellished the pages with stamps, ephemera, lace snippets, words and cancelled postage stamps.

 

 

I think this little book turned out really cute. And to think this was all scraps and stuff I already had in my stash. It didn’t take that long to make, and once I figured out a system I should be able to speed up the process for the next ones I make.

My only regret is that this cute little journal did not make any visual dent in my stash. I will have to make journals for everyone I know, and even some people I don’t know, in order to use up my scraps. I think I’m going to need another cup of tea!!!