July Junk Journal Challenge 2025 - #JJJC2025

 I have been taking part in a July Junk Journal challenge on Leigh's Art and Journal Wonderland where you have prompts for each day and then create a page around the prompt.  I particularly enjoyed this one as it was only on weekdays, so that you could catch up over a weekend if you needed to.  Leigh created a video for each page and had a big list of other people who were also doing the same, so there was always plenty of inspiration.  Below are some of my favourite pages that I created and I tried to make the pages interesting with flaps, fold outs, tip ins, tucks and pockets, so that the journal has ended up being quite interactive.

The prompts for these were A Touch of Gold (although the gold does not show up well in the photo!) and Botanical, which uses one of my slow drawings, a piece of embossed card, a piece of scrap book paper and a piece of a paper bag from a shop.

Something Vintage included a copy of an old photo (I bought a set of old photos on ebay and have scanned some in so that I can keep the originals), an old postmark and various vintage book pages. Tag on the right was using inspiration from Alison Bomber from Words and Pictures.

Bird on the left has a flap and Tea Bag on the right has a pressed blueberry leaf from last year under a tea bag on top of a piece of paper painted with tea marks.

On the left, you can see the flap lifted up, with stamping, the negative of the die cut bird from the front, a digikit image of birds and a feather in a 'slide'.

On the left is Ticket which has a combination of real and digital tickets, while on the right is Book Page, which has one of my carved stamps as a focal point, over watercolour. It folds out to reveal...

A leafy stem drawn with a brush pen and another hand carved stamp.

This was a lovely challenge to take part in and I really enjoyed it.  Working in a small scale meant the blank page wasn't too scary.  I found that sometimes leaving a prompt to the next day helped me to come up with a better/more interesting idea, rather than going with my first thought. 

Here's to #JJJC2026!

Junk Journal July 2024

I took part in Junk Journal July, run by megjournals, where you are given a prompt for every day and then create a page based on that prompt (or not, depending how you feel!).  I made a little journal for this challenge and here are some of my favourite pages.  Above on the left is 'observe'  and on the right is 'scraps', which is what it says!

'Petals' is on the left, using photos of some of my roses and 'aged' is on the right, using old papers, tea-dyed papers and digikit images.  

'Free' is a simple page, using one of my favourite bird stamps and 'Tag' is on the right.  For the tag page, I was playing with some new rather gorgeous stamps from Paper Artsy, designed by Alison Bomber.

'Timeless' is on the left, using some of my hand carved stamps and 'Tip in' (where you add something that folds in or out to a page) on the right, where I used Alice in Wonderland illustrations.

For 'ephemeral' on the left, I used all sorts of tickets, bits of writing, and book pages and for 'tea-dyed', it was tea-dyed copy paper, and bits of tea bag as the background.

Finally, there is 'shine' with texture paste stars and then 'celebrate' with scraps of digikits, and a mushroom print which was done by a friend.  Chris said it looked like a chimney sweep brush!  It was an interesting challenge to work on, which I enjoyed.  

Junk Journal January 2024

Last month I took part in Junk Journal January for the first time.  This is organised by Meg from megjournals on Youtube and there is a list of prompts and daily videos from different people showing what they have made. I decided that it would be a good thing to start using some of the paper, digikits, and ephemera I have been collecting and this seemed do-able. Below are some of my favourite pages.

This is 'throwback' so I went for a vintage feeling, making a pretend slide with insects on it.  I made my colleague a birthday card similar to this last year so used some of the digital images I had left over, together with stamps, a postage stamp and some digi labels. 

There was 'eclectic' which was a mix of gel prints, a digikit photo, a die cut flower which I watercoloured, a leaf and a flower I made from last year's art journal, and a label I had inked and stamped.  An eclectic mix indeed, but I like it!!

'Fabric' was a sort of patchwork of scraps with an inked and dried baby wipe used as the focal heart.  

'Ombre' was easy with a watercolour background but I didn't know what I wanted to put on top until I thought about slow drawing so I added these ginkgo leaves, which are so relaxing to draw as they are lots of repeated lines.

'Translucent' was inspired by a piece of gel printed paper. I echoed the brushstroke pattern on a piece of tracing paper to become the translucent element.

Here's what's underneath - music paper, book page, the gel print paper, labels and a digikit camellia.

Finally, here is 'reflect' which I took to be reflecting on the whole Junk Journal January experience.  This page has a piece of paper pad, labels, book pages, ivy from a napkin, a piece of packaging from some bulbs and a digikit photo.  

I made this little journal for the challenge and I really enjoyed filling the small pages. Junk Journal July is also a challenge, so I may join in with that too.

Junk Journal progress

 I have recently decided to have a go at making a junk journal with pockets, tabs, tucks etc. and interesting things to look at.  I am not sure whether I shall use it to journal in, but it will be a nice project that I can work on as and when I feel I want to. I have been working on a few pages and here they are.

Here is a pocket containing a card...

...and here's the card.

Another pocket with images from a magazine...

...and another pocket with bits of collage all over it.

This pocket contains a little book with Beatrix Potter illustrations in it.

Another large pocket waiting for me to make something to go in it.

This 'Alice' flip out was made from a junk mail window envelope.

Inside is Alice in a couple of different illustrations.

They are a mix of scrapbook paper, book pages, scraps, gel plate prints, images from books and the internet, digi kits, and any other bits and pieces I want to put in.  I am really enjoying the relaxing collaging and this will be an ongoing project, which I may share more from occasionally.