Junk Journals | Bookbinding Evolution

I've been working with paper off and on for most of my life. In middle and high school I cut up magazines and put together collages. Throughout college I created altered book scrapbooks. Then I took a four week bookbinding class, and a few years later I found myself drawn to making junk journals from scratch. Each of these skills and phases came together into a single activity--and I haven't stopped yet.

The very first altered book I made was to document the first summer after graduating from high school. I found some sort of botany book at a thrift store and tore out most of the pages. The remaining pages were sectioned together and glued into single, thick "pages" (between 5 and 10 at a time) before they were decorated and written on--no stitching or dismantling involved. I used it like a general diary and photo album (embarrassing adolescent images not included). I also included scraps like movie tickets and receipts.

My next altered book was something for a community college English class. We were supposed to combine all of our essays from the semester into a pamphlet or book. Then they were displayed in the library for other people to look at. The class wasn't even a creative writing class, so I'm not really sure what the point of putting our academic-style essays were into books was. This book was made in the same way as the previous one. But since so much of this book was covered by scrapbook papers, I'm not sure what it originally was.

After making around a dozen altered scrapbooks (mostly for myself, but also for other college classes), I took a few years off to pursue other creative things. Once I started my Bachelor's (finally at a four-year college) I took a bookbinding class. It was somewhat of a workshop since it was only four weeks long, but I did learn how to properly cover book board and the basics of a few different binding techniques. I was most interested in making traditional books--the ones that have each signature stitched together. But since the class was so short (and not well prioritized), I didn't get much of a chance to perfect the technique.

This journal was originally in that traditional style. The signatures were badly pieced together and some of them were quite crooked. After learning that I could stitch them independently and directly to the spine, I re-constructed it. I had left the book blank (except for the collaged end pages shown here) and only just recently decided on what to put in it. I began filling it with family photographs--most of which were never digitized. I put them in as close to chronological order as I could figure out and accented most of them with patterned scrapbook paper frames (you're welcome from being spared the terrible and embarrassing photographs).

Most recently I have been making books entirely from scratch. I used a little of both techniques (altered books and traditional bookbinding) to create one of a kind journals. This Cup of Tea junk journal was the first one that I made. I used an empty cracker box, some fancy gift wrap, and dozens of found papers. I decided to keep it for myself, but it's so pretty that I'm still not sure how to fill it. I made other journals in a similar vintage/garden style as this one for family members and friends at the same time.

After the initial prototypes, I began creating other themed junk journals to sell at local craft fairs and on Etsy. I've made themes for different interests and holidays in varying sizes and colors. I've also started making traveler's notebook inserts--which are so much quicker since they only have one signature.

Since December of 2016, I've made 35 junk journals and 25 traveler's notebooks (with more in the works!). I'm not sure how long I'll continue making them, but for now they've been a lot of fun to put together.

#junkjournal #travelersnotebooks #personal