How My 2024 Crafting Project Came To Be

Paid a price to fly from -45° to +25°...
and not just in terms of dollars!

Hello!

Is anyone here?? Or has everyone fled to greener pastures? (Remember, they could be fake!😉)

Anyway, if you are here, thank you for stopping by. I hope you've been keeping well. Me, I haven't been as lucky. I was sick over Christmas and barely recovered in time for hubby and I to head off to Mexico in mid January for our first "fly out" holiday in over four years.

The morning we left, it was -45 degrees Celsius at YEG airport; that's -49 to you Fahrenheit folks. Too cold to de-ice the plane before our scheduled takeoff, our departure was eventually delayed by over ten hours. Yep, love to fly... not!

The first couple of nights at our hotel, we were blasted by an AC unit that may not have been very clean. With my compromised immune system, I promptly ended up with a nasal infection that got progressively worse. On the day we were to fly back, I was literally without voice. Miraculously, the frigid cold temperatures of the Great White North seemingly KO'd whatever bacteria was infesting my respiratory system once I got home; I recovered substantially overnight – could talk at least – and within the week, I was "clear". But it sure wasn't fun for a normally healthy person to have spent the better part of six weeks being under the weather. (Not to mention being super paranoid about getting sick again ever since.)

Anyway, enough about my unexpected health challenges. Let's begin today's post by flashing back to January 6, 2024.

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It's the early morning hours of the first Saturday in ten years on which no new blog post will appear in this space, and I'm lying awake, composing in my mind some of the words that you'll be reading here in the coming weeks. Yes, old habits are hard to break. (That being said, I did not miss having to schedule weekly posts to go up over the past couple of months, which surprised me.)

No posts scheduled for a long time!

I was reminiscing on how, back in the latter part of November, with all of my remaining blog posts composed and merely awaiting last minute edits, my YouTube attention had been captured by a channel called Treasure Books, hosted by a talented individual named Natasa, who creates magnificent works of art under the guise of junk journaling. (Boy, that's one long hummer sentence!) I had originally come across her channel three years ago I made my personal project portfolio.

image courtesy of Treasure Books...

For those who are not familiar, junk journals are pretty much what the name implies: they are journals (i.e., books that you write in) made out of things that one might normally throw out or toss into a recycle bin. A common variant of a junk journal is actually made out of a discarded hardcover book, keeping the cover intact and often retaining and making use of some of the pages.

Anyway, if you go back to my last regular blog post, I had talked about having taken up a daily routine of handwriting and scribing life affirming quotes. Towards the middle of December, the notebook that I had been using for that purpose (the back of which is shown here at left) was down to its final pages and I was pondering what I wanted to use going forward.

For a variety of reasons, I didn't want just a notebook anymore. (No matter that there are so many different styles to choose from at dollar stores these days, like the one here at right.) Some of the quotes that I had been collecting were "keepers", and a more permanent place for them – where I could flip through and see them featured in creative ways – was what I really wanted. As I scribbled towards the last pages of my original book, the concept of a quotations themed junk journal bubbled up in my head, along with immediate ideas for various things that I could add to the mix, to make it be everything that I was looking for as a solution.

After a quick visit to YouTube, realizing this idea became my crafting focus for the latter part of December, and essentially, for all of 2024.

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Why all year? 

Because in many ways, compiling a junk journal can be a never-ending process that doesn't require completion (and certainly not in any given timeframe). As it's turned out, it was precisely the kind of diversion that I was looking for to occupy my time during this transition from regular blogging.

Since I had to keep to myself between Christmas and New Year's, I had a lot of time on my hands. I took advantage of it and made tremendous progress on my journal, which had by then already been dubbed the Jumbo Junk Journal. (It currently weighs three and a half pounds!)

An up close peek at the edges of my jumbo junk journal...

It was jumbo not in the sense of being large in overall page size, but in girth. From my exploration of online videos, I found that I really liked the creative treatments of the edges of junk journal pages. Using different elements to add bulk and extend them in quirky ways appealed to me. Purposely aiming at irregular and uneven is antithetical to the normal order and neatness that I strive for in everyday life, which is yet another reason why this is the perfect transition project for me.

I have many, many, many of these greeting cards that I cannot possibly use... but maybe now?

I was originally motivated to make a junk journal for the repurposing and upcycling opportunities. Certain things were accumulating that weren't necessarily garbage or trash, but were definitely adding up beyond my needs (and certainly beyond my wants). I'd been gathering up such items to take to a local "reuse" store, but as I said in my post about donating, reusing at home is always the preferred solution.

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As you might suspect, junk journals are generally "no sew", paper-based things. (Although as you can see in Natasa's sample above, some makers like to sew decorative stitching around the perimeter of the papers used, as a way to embellish them.) As a sewer, of course, it was always my plan to come up with a custom fabric cover, one that would wrap around and protect the entire journal, overlap on top and then cinch closed with a ribbon belt. I also envisioned a fabric pen holder inside to keep various writing implements handy.

Most importantly, perhaps, the cover had to accommodate a notebook. Yes, back to the notebook.

My junk journal has a removable notebook component built into it...

After careful consideration, I thought, there's no reason why I can't have a junk journal that incorporates a regular notebook for daily use. The creatively adorned junk journal pages can be used to preserve the especially meaningful thoughts and quotes, while the basic lined sheets of a notebook would provide the necessary space for my handwriting practice.

In the end, I managed to come up with a solution that allows for easy daily use. The notebook is an integral part of the entire junk journal; it's not just slipped in as an afterthought. Even though it's removable (so that it can be replaced once it's filled up), it is securely attached in the meantime and is functional without having to contort anything.

Over the upcoming weeks and months, I'll be sharing bits and pieces of my junk journaling adventure here. But... is the subject remotely captivating to any of you who have read this far?? (Remember, I have zero ability to gauge whether a topic will be a hit or a miss!) If this doesn't snag anyone's interest, then most of these next posts will truly be a "blogging for me" effort.

But then, that's been my philosophy since the beginning, so that's okay too! (¬‿¬)

'Til next...