Junk Journal January Days 4 - 6

Have you ever junk journaled before? It's such a fun way for me to use my stash and carve out some creative time in a mixed paper journal. I already shared some inside pages and close-up pics here, and here are Days 1-3 of the Junk Journal January challenge. I've been playing along with this green + blue themed mixed paper journal. 

JUNK JOURNAL JANUARY

Day 4 | Morning Pages
I’m not even sure what morning pages are, but here you go - and it’s done and was fun. I'll let you in on a little secret...this page spread may have been done at a time that wasn't technically morning. What???

The date journaling spot is something I'm thinking of adding the shop, in a variety of colors, and decided to give it a test run. For my journaling, I punched it out with my 1" circle punch and used a foam dot to adhere it off center to the circles on my pattered cardstock.

I used my black pen to doodle some around my page a few times.

Day 5 | Textured
Let’s see, I used a stencil and molding paste, a torn paper doily, a journaling spot, a white tag I watercolored and stamped, stickers and a printable date die cut round. 

There’s a mix of goodies from my stash as well as goodies from my Etsy shop. The roller skate stamp prompted me to document my lingering thoughts on the first time I went roller skating as a kid. I was probably in the 5th grade, very shy and had short hair. 

And yeah, I was too shy back in the day to tell those skating rink people that I wasn't a boy, even if I did have short hair, and that I wanted a pair of girl skates.

Day 6 | Stickers
Anyone else ever walk in on their kids with a whole roll of your self stick stamps going to town with a random sheet of paper? I know I can't be the only one.

You can find a sticker collection in the shop that includes the red label I used for my journaling and as my date holder.

CLEARANCE SALE

While supplies last, many items are now 60% off in my Etsy shop, I Love It All.

JOIN THE CHALLENGE

Want to join in the Junk Journal January challenge? Find out more info here.

Find this journal here and also more journals + mini books in my Etsy shop.

Read more of my Mini Book blog posts.

Clearance Sale

Shop the 60% Off Sale, several are "last one available" and some items have already sold out!
Thank you for choosing handmade, I appreciate your support, and I hope that you find new things to love.

Be The Girl

Junk Journal January Days 1-3

I already shared some inside pages and close-up pics here, but now I can share Days 1-3 of the Junk Journal January challenge I've been playing along with in this green + blue themed mixed paper journal. When I went about choosing papers for this journal, I knew that I wanted something bright and inviting after the intense holiday colors of the December journal I had been using.

Here's the journal + embellishment kit you'll see me using this month, see what I mean about the fresh feel of the color scheme?

JUNK JOURNAL JANUARY

Day 1 | New Resolutions
I am not one to make resolutions because I seldom seem to carry through on the list I've made. I did make list, though, of creative projects I want to work on this year. You can see how I do with that by following #my2020creativeprojects on Instagram. You can find the printable tag labels here.

Day 2 | Cozy Vibes
I’m all about the cozy vibes and a warm blankie to cover my legs while I journal on the couch or watch a show or even write up blog posts. And layering a journal page with bits and pieces to add texture gives me a cozy vibe, too.

First, I layered my paper bag with some modeling paste using a stencil, but only filling in parts of the stencil in a random sort of way. I used the Made Me Smile printable label for my journal prompt holder and placed in top of a heart pattern speech bubble. I spelled out "cozy" down by my journaling with my letter stencil.

Day 3 | Upcycled
I have always been a fan of collecting bits and pieces from interesting packaging or clothing tags to use in my journals. The book page tag comes in the embellishment kit included with this journal. When I was playing around with where all the items in the embellishment kit would go, this book page tag certainly fit on the page...but, I wanted to do something unexpected with it. So I did.

I folded over the bottom of the tag to form a pocket and then punched some holes along each edge, placing it atop an old mouse pad so as not to damage my craft table, then hand stitched along each edge to form the pocket. The pink along the left edge is a used sticky note that I tore the edge on and placed beneath the tag and the kraft paper is recycled from a travelers notebook that was trimmed to size.

In my stash, I found the corrugated cardboard tag and used the backside of the cream colored hangtag from some flannel jammie bottoms we bought before Christmas as my journaling spot.

CLEARANCE SALE

While supplies last, many items are now 60% off in my Etsy shop, I Love It All.

JOIN THE CHALLENGE

Want to join in the Junk Journal January challenge? Find out more info here.

Find this journal here and also more journals + mini books in my Etsy shop.

Read more of my Mini Book blog posts.

Gratitude Journals for 2020

This notebook has been part of my gratitude journaling lineup for years. The cover proves that it has been well-loved and used often: it's dinged up, the hexagon shapes I added to the front are dingy, it has some battle scars for sure. I fall back on it when I want to journal more than my mixed paper journals allow me to do, when there are more words than my 4x7 journal can fit. 

Sometimes, I write several days’ worth of journaling on one page and other days I use the whole page. For January 1st, I did a sort of manifesto of what I'd like to "make" in 2020. 

SHOW ME THE JOURNALS

If you’re looking to be more aware of the simple joys that touched your heart and made you smile, the friends who shape you, the moments that change you, I invite you to journal your thankful thoughts and grateful moments. I’m on a year-long practice of gratitude journaling every single day. Even though I’ve been journaling since 2010, it’s been a very long time since I journaled every day. So my wish for next year is to document what makes me smile.

This one is a DIY journal I made with a black binder ring, one of my paper pack kits from the shop and a stack of journaling cards. You could also use this pack and trim it to size.

I used one of these label die cuts to reinforce the hole I punched in my cover page and this is the printable journaling card set I used.

pink Grateful journaling cards

If you know me well, you know how I love to embellish a journal page...and I know that won’t be possible every day so I’ll be adding this lined notebook to my journaling lineup. It will be the perfect solution for days that my creative mojo hasn’t kicked in but I still want to journal. 

FINISHING UP IN MY 2019 JOURNAL

This chunky little mixed paper junk journal has filled my heart with joy. It has reminded me to take a few moments throughout the week to ponder, reflect and document the simple joys that made my day, made me smile and made my grateful for this life I live.

So, here are the last few entries for December in my 2019 Gratitude Journal.

...and that's a wrap. This chunky monkey is full!

ONWARD TO MY 2020 GRATITUDE JOURNALING

I can't wait to share my 2020 journal pages with you each Thursday here on the blog and on Instagram every day! This is the cover I decided to go with this year and I'll share my pages with you next week.

WHAT IS #ILOVETHURSDAYTHANKS

What is #ilovethursdaythanks? It's a way for me, and you, to connect with other like minded souls. Those of us that find joy in documenting our thankful thoughts and grateful moments. Those moments that sometimes could be so quickly forgotten, those thoughts that haunt us and won't let us go, those words that touched our heart when we needed them most, those people who made a difference just by being there.

Join us over on Instagram and share your #ilovethursdaythanks#ilovethursdaythanks.