Turning trash into a treasure

I decorated the front in ransom note style

Back in the winter, when our Melanie was struggling so hard and her family were nearly at the end of their strength, I became aware of something that I could do for her.

And that something was a junk journal.

Fashion magazines are a good source of pretty pictures

I just happened to see a reel on Instagram about this art form and was instantly intrigued.

It seemed so clever, using, as it does, mere scraps of paper and cloth and various other materials, to make something new and interesting.

A background page and smaller stuff on top

Now, what you have to know about Melanie is that she has long had a fascination with paper.

Long before I heard of junk journaling, we'd been saving fliers that came in the mail, and putting them all in one place so that when we saw her, we could take them to her.

Try to see the big picture

She would sit for hours just flipping through her papers and looking at the pictures.

Of particular interest to Melanie for a long time has been logos. As in, when she was in the car with her parents, she would point to signs with logos and vocalize with excitement over recognizing them.

I found an old newspaper clipping with TG's photo

And since lots of junk mail that comes to the house features logos of one kind or another -- from pizza joints to pool services and hamburgers to hardware and grocery stores to grease monkeys -- I figured, why not include those things in Melly's junk journal.

Business cards work well in this project

It was my hope that she would treasure it and keep it near her and never tire of leafing through its pages.

So I began to curate papers and ephemera from all around the house and of course from the mailbox, but I also began keeping a weather eye for papers available in the wider world as I went about my business.

In this layout I used a photo of Stephanie with her babies

I collected -- or kept -- paper menus and missionary cards and receipts and used shopping lists and food labels and magazines and deflated mylar balloons and bits of ribbon and paper doilies and aluminum foil and old letters and envelopes and crossword puzzles (finished ones) and postcards and brochures and ticket stubs and stickers and so much more.

(Apparently some people make a whole hobby out of looking for used shopping lists when they go to the store. I found my first one the other day, wadded up and discarded in the buggy. I nabbed it and it's now in line to be used in a junk journal.)

Ribbon and puffs of tulle give added dimension

You can use old photographs if you don't mind parting with them, or make copies of them and use those, making the journal so much more personal -- almost like a photo album together with mixed media, lending an opportunity to interpret and expand on familiar photos.

Adding text in the form of a Bible verse, or a song lyric, or a meaningful quote, snippet of poetry can greatly enhance any picture of anything in any layout.

Postcards can lend a special flair

I began watching reels about junk journaling, so much so that Instagram adjusted its algorithm to offer me more and more such reels. 

That's how I learned that although there are no rules to junk journaling, there are infinite ways to be creative and original in the execution of your journal.

I stuck some generic Splenda packets onto this page

For example, a junk journal can range from a simple collage-like concept -- just grouping random pictures and words together with no apparent established plan -- to carrying out actual themes.

You can do a junk journal (or a page of one) in all one color, such as yellow and have pictures of bananas and daffodils and bumblebees, or in all one idea, such as fruits or flowers or fun facts or fiddles or fluffy dogs.

Don't throw anything away

The possibilities are truly endless and all you need are a few supplies and some junk.

But then you have to decide the physical form that your journal will take. 

The little envelope contains memorabilia

For the first one I made for Melanie, I chose a thin Moleskine-type journal with a brown cover.

I'm not sure how many pages it had but I'm going to go with about fifty, and if I were doing it again I might glue two pages together and then do the same with the next two pages, and so on, to make the number of pages fewer.

Even bar codes are useful

The reason for that is mainly because when you glue stuff to every single page, the journal can get thick and unwieldy, and even begin to come apart at the binding.

Mine was sturdily constructed with string at the binding instead of staples, so I was in good shape but it did get really thick. Also depending on what type of glue you're using, some of the pages can take a while to dry.

Orient elements in unexpected ways

If they are not allowed to dry properly, they will stick together anyway, but not in a good way.

But once they do dry, they take on that wonderful stiffness that will remind you of the joys of gluing stuff onto pages in grade school. There is nothing like it.

Junk journaling will make you see scraps in a different way

As I went along, I learned about the various things I would need, and/or things I could use that I already had.

These included rubber stamps, a set of small ink pads in radiant colors, some paper punches, watercolors, stickers (including the 3D variety, like stick-on jewels and so forth), string, buttons, rolls of tulle and ribbon, washi tape, a label maker, and a scratch awl.

Stickers come in handy for fill-in

(I had to send TG out to buy me one of those. I'll tell you why in a minute.)

Magazines provide a treasure trove of options for your junk journal.

Paper punches help to change things up

I don't subscribe to a lot of magazines but I do have a few lying around with some great pictures in them.

Sometimes if you don't feel like actually working on the journal itself, you can sit with scissors and cut things out of magazines to use later, while you watch a movie or chat with someone.

Pet meds packaging ... why not?

You have to store your scraps of paper relatively flat, but a big envelope or folder is ideal for that.

Then you have to decide what kind of glue you want to use. 

Paper doilies and crosswords have their place

There are many options: glue stick, tape runner, rubber cement, liquid glue, fabric glue, spray adhesive ... and I am probably forgetting some or don't even know about a bunch or them.

The craftier ones among you will probably already have a favorite.

Go big or go home

I started with Elmer's glue sticks -- the kind you get your kids for their school pencil box. The kind that goes on purple but dries clear is ideal.

The only drawback to that is that if you really get lost in your project and are flying along just going nuts on finishing a page layout, depending on how much stuff you are gluing down, you can go through three glue sticks before you can say jack rabbit.

Deconstruct a few greeting cards

It's not like they are expensive, but it all adds up.

And the point of junk journaling -- or at least much of the point -- is that it mostly uses stuff that costs nothing.

Put some color on the edges of your layout

I do have a few tape runners that I bought from Temu because they were dirt cheap, but I haven't used them yet.

After my stash of glue sticks ran out, I replaced them with small bottles of clear glue.

You can buy packets of vintage-looking ephemera

The downside to that, I have found, is how wet it is. If you don't use just the right (small) amount, your pages will be sticky for days and you'll have to prop them open to dry lest they glom together, and it can hinder your progress if you want to do daily work on one journal.

Once I got started with Melly's journal, I enjoyed it so much that part of me did not want to see the end of that book, but part of me wanted to finish it and get it into her hands.

Hang onto those dry cleaning tickets

I felt a need to connect with her, and to let her know that I was thinking about her every day.

But as the book got thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier, I did become eager to complete it.

Turn it sideways and glue on a crocheted flower

And finally I did, and as this was back during the time when we were having such bad weather, I set it aside to wait for when the book could be delivered to Stephanie, who would take it to Melanie.

Eventually TG traveled to North Carolina to watch one of our grandson Andrew's basketball games, and he took the books to Stephanie.

Use stickers for the front of a tiny book of pages

As I believe I mentioned in this post last week, Melanie has not been able to live at home for the last three months.

Stephanie and Joel have been in constant contact with doctors and care workers and agencies dedicated to helping folks like our Melanie, to find her a place to live until she is stable enough to come back home.

Just pile up the papers and make a book

And although they see her several times a week, she is not able to move back home yet.

So when I made the junk journal for her, I was hoping that she would keep it on her bedside table (she has her own room in the care facility), and take comfort from leafing through it from time to time.

Ads and coupons work well

By the way, while I worked on that first book, Dagny was often with me. She got into the spirit of it and made a junk journal of her own for Melanie. 

So now we are both hooked on this hobby.

Once you've added the pages, trim to fit the cover

In the meanwhile, I found out about a different style of junk journal, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try it.

This involves choosing some material to fabricate a proper cover for the journal.

Receipts and food labels are recyclable

I had stopped throwing away those stiff brown padded envelopes that Amazon uses now.

You can cut these open and fashion a piece of the material into a book cover of sorts. The thick paper is ideal for the purpose.

You can layer things any way you like

Once you have your cover and you've folded it in half to form a book shape, all you do is pick out piece after piece after piece of random paper, and stack it all inside the book.

The pieces can be all different sizes, because you're going to trim it all to the size of the cover that you made.

The cover of this flip-top book is a pink box

Once you have just enough pieces of paper stacked up (it's a judgment call and you'll learn as you go how many is too many or how many are too few), you fold everything over once according to how you folded the cover.

This next part has a degree of difficulty and you can hurt yourself or do other damage if you're not careful.

Just stack up the stuff and tie it together

That's because it involves the aforementioned scratch awl.

What you do is, choose a place about a third of the way down inside that crease your formed when you folded the pages inside the homemade cover.

Dagny made this colorful layout

Then you have to use the awl to pierce a hole there. It has to go all the way through, and you have to be careful to hold all of the papers together so they don't get disturbed too much.

Make a second hole. Be careful not to stick the scratch awl into your own finger when you have pushed it through the layers of paper. 

Old greeting card envelopes lend bright hues

It hurts. I happen to know this because I did it. But just once.

Now, when you are doing the final push of awl through paper, you're going to have to have something to push into that is not your hand.

It's like capturing tiny pieces of your life

You can use another stack of papers, or an old pillow that you don't need, or what have you, but you have to be able to push the point of the awl all the way through.

Now you're going to need some string. I used the awl to push the string first through one of the holes, and back up through the other, and then went down and up one more time before tying a knot on the outside.

Food labels are drool-worthy

Et voilá! You have made a book of random pages and papers, and if you don't want to, you don't have to do anything else.

If you want to, you can decorate those pages, but it's optional.

I used some of Henry's papers found in a drawer

You can also decorate the cover that you made, if it's plain. I made one that was plain and needed decorating, and another that was made from a box that had held disposable face towels, and it was fancy enough.

We eventually sent all of the books to Melanie and although Stephanie did report that Melly was glad to get them, I don't know whether she uses them or if she's forgotten them and will reach for them again someday.

Be as abstract as you like

I do know that I am going to make her another one, because for me it is a satisfying craft. It's not hard, and it's fun and rewarding.

Stephanie told me that here lately, Melanie is happiest when she is allowed to have her mother's phone so that she can look through her mom's photos.

She loves and never tires of swiping through pictures of her family.

Corny but cute

There is one picture in particular that was taken last fall just before Melly got so sick, that she goes back to again and again and dwells on with great delight.

It was taken on a Sunday in late October when Audrey and Dagny and Erica and Rhett and Elliot and I were there for the weekend.

After the service on Sunday night, we all posed for a group photo. I think I'll get a print of it framed for Melly, to put in her room so that she can see it all the time.

This is the picture that Melly loves

It was shortly after that visit when Melly got sick and went into a decline that has partially now been helped with the right combination of medicines, but which was terrifying for many weeks.

So many times, I and many others told Stephanie that we wished there was something we could do for them and for Melanie, to help.

Making her a junk journal gave me a sense that I was helping in some way.

I didn't expect to love junk journaling as much as I do

Can you think of someone who might enjoy receiving a junk journal made by you? Or are you pretty sure that this would not be something you would like to do?

Let me know. And let not your heart be troubled, but be strong and of good courage, until the day break, and the shadows flee away!

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy May