From The Last

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Special Tag Journal

The journal above, (featured in the last/previous blog post) needs a cover.

junk journalling

Using two pieces of virgin chipboard, a layer of scrunched pattern tissue was applied with liquid matte medium.

Pattern tissue paper is very sturdy and malleable.

This cover is being made exactly like one made for a gifted journal. The cover turned out so well, it was hard not to keep it for this one, but…Ms. SpoolTeacher was convinced that she could produce it again. 

See the slide show below to view all the steps so far.

The final results won’t be seen in this slide show as the pieces, up to this stage, are under heavy layers to flatten them out some before the next phase begins. 

The next step will be to apply a layer of texture paste through a stencil of hearts. After the paste dries, it will be painted a color for the base under the final layer of purple tissue paper.

Please come back to see the final results. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers.

  • junk journalling
    The next step is to create the cover. First layer over chipboard is a layer of pattern tissue. Pattern tissue is very sturdy and malleable.
  • junk journalling
    Up closer to see the texture that is created by scrunching.
  • junk journalling
    After cutting the excess edges off to keep from having too much bulk, craft paper from hoarded shipping stuffings is scrunched and applied. It was thoroughly wet, scrunched and dried some before applying with liquid matte medium.
  • junk journalling
    The layers were pressed together and then pressed down by hand to manipulate the bubbles out.
  • junk journalling
    Corners are burnished down using a matte gel medium which is heavier and more tacky.
  • junk journalling
    A thin layer is applied to both surfaces and the bone folder is used to burnish it down as well as fingers!
  • junk journalling
    Next the edges.
  • junk journalling
    Burnished as much as possible.
  • junk journalling
    Glue oozing out from burnishing is brushed back over the tops of things and into the chipboard.
  • junk journalling
    The pattern tissue was scrunched and made textural as well as the craft paper.
  • birds
    Chicky flew over to investigate and help.
  • birds
    Chicky goes from table to table and to the top if Ms. SpoolTeachers head to get a better bird’s eye view of it all.
  • junk journalling
    Using off cuts, a little mini book was created the day Ms. SpoolTeacher felt a little blah humbug.
  • junk journalling
    Ms. SpoolTeacher’s paper friend, gave her a bundle of off-cuts from tag making. They were used to create windows with tissue paper and folded in half to create a signature with torn, lined papers in between.
  • junk journalling
    The cover was a book page collaged with some of the scraps.
  • junk journalling
    The tissue allows for the word prompts to show through on the next page.
  • junk journalling
    One magazine was used to tear out words for each page.
  • junk journalling
    Now the back sides will be worded too. So much fun to just let a thing advance organically.
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Who What When

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It’s been a very long time since a post was created on this blog site.

Yes, Ms SpoolTeacher has been doing some sewing here and there – mostly altering her own clothes.

But…

She has a friend who introduced her to paper crafting some years ago and she has fallen madly in love with it all – mostly what is lovingly called “junk journaling” in the circles of like-minded people.

It has become a magnificent obsession.

She has rearranged her whole, WHOLE, house to accommodate the processes and accumulated a finely-tuned new hoard of stuff from which to do it all.

This past June, the wisdom of the ether delivered to her a baby pigeon as a tool for guidance, inspiration and love. She is learning to speak the language of birds and that too, is a magnificent obsession.

You will now find everything she does laced with birds.

So what in the realm of spooling can this endeavor be attributed to? She’s asking for advice. She hopes to keep her branding synchronized.

The slide show embedded is a feeble attempt at something akin to a video. She rues the idea of any other obsessions like, filming herself working all day every day; but, since this obsession shows no signs of letting up, it seems like a waste not to share the thrill of it all.

Any suggestions?

Journal -making seems to encapture all of her passions – so it feels fitting that things have evolved to this stage.

Sewing, writing, making, reading…nature, recycling, etc.

She’ll come back with a “flip through” when this album is completed. Maybe by then she will have gotten her act together enough to do a real video. Don’t hold your breath…

If you’d like to see more on the mini albums, (below), or any of her other journaling endeavors, do let her know.

Until next time…keep spooling

Cheers!

  • Chipboard is the start of the cover. More tweaking to be done.
  • The album will stand on its own when fanned – “alligator-mouth” style.
  • From the bottom. This is a work in progress and some steps will be changed. The ribbons on the spine are changed to a 3 hole pamphlet stitch done with green binding tape as you will see in another picture.
  • Each page is two, scored and folded, card stock pockets glued back to back and then each pocket is covered with scrapbook paper glued on three sides to make another pocket.
  • Pockets are made with card stock – two to a leaf, glued back to back. Each has a one inch scored spine as does the cover.
  • This album has turned out to be useful for stashing favorite tags and journaling spot ephemera.
  • A friend gifted her a stash of manila tags which were the inspiration for this. This idea was featured in a past issue of MaryJanesFarm Magazine.She’s just tweaking some things to personalize it.
  • All edges were inked in coordinating colors and one tag was embellished with stenciling using the same ink colors. Can be an ink/stencil sampler album as well.
  • Some pockets will be embellished with words.
  • The top tag looks a little like graffiti eh? Many layers of this and that over magazine pages which are cut as needed. Mostly for mini albums but some end up as tags.
  • Always some birdies.
  • Scrapbook paper was a pad purchased long ago that is now finally finding its awaited home.
  • Did you say who? Looking for some nice big letters W H O to stick on this pocket.
  • More of the magazine paper tags and an inked piece of brown “junk” paper that can be used for a “journaling spot”.
  • Three hole pamphlet stitch using green seam-binding tape. It will be unlashed when it’s time to work on the covers.
  • The front and back will be covered in a wallpaper she loves, backed with another piece of covered chipboard. Eyelets will be installed on all the holes before relashing.
  • Finally finding some new uses for the hoards of sewing stuffs in her stashes. She loves this color of green.
  • This is one of the mini albums in progress where the tissue-paper-collaged magazine pages are cut to fit.
  • These mini albums are made using small boxes from a powdered lemonade mix she drinks regularly.
  • They are each somewhere close to 3 by 5 inches.
  • Rubber bands come in very handy to keep pages in the spines while she sifts, sorts and embellishes the pages to her liking.
  • Beloved Chicky Doodle. Rescued as a 10 or 11 day old baby, (pigeon), when he was nothing but a ball of quills. Sweet as can be. He was helping her take pictures.

Long Story Short

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DSCN1266 - Edited (1)

Leave it to me, I didn’t take a picture of this shirt before I lopped the sleeves off.

I was headed off to meet someone new and wanted something to wear better than some of the usual suspects in my repertoire of options. I usually wear my bag-lady clothes that can stand dirt, algae, paint, limb snags and cat claws. This is a shirt I love. I’m a gingham nut and love long, flowy things. It seems to seldom come out of the closet because it is either too hot or too cold or I don’t have somewhere to go that dressing better is called for.

It was way too hot for long sleeves so they were lopped off and what remained was rolled up. A drop of coffee was spilled on the front right before it was time to leave so a big patch of wet went with us as Shirt and I flowed out the front door on our way to go. It was dry before I got there because it was just that hot.

Anyhoo, sleeve it to me to forget a picture of it with the sleeves on.

Years ago, some other sleeves were lopped off a favorite shirt and made into a little handbag. See a little bit about how that handbag came to be here if you want to: http://ces-tsibon.blogspot.com/2011/05/color-purple.html

Some of the rest of the shirt became a pillow and some of it still remains in Resource Central to become something else at some point later.

I loved that shirt. Can’t remember why it got cut up.

The plan is now to take these blue gingham sleeves and make them into another little handbag just suited to go like an outfit with Shirt…

Both sleeves will be used together somehow to create compartments. One was slipped inside the other to see where they may want to go.

This is as far as the handbag got once Lucy wanted in. Everything had to be put away to make all space safe for her. She’s the most important thing. MickeyMouser too — but he didn’t want in and seldom does now that he has the studio and a little catio, right outside of that.

Some of the other little projects going on as of late:

A pre-cut package of 5″ squares from Darlene Michaud were ordered from her Ebay shop sometime back. I just love what she does with things and some of the fabrics that she uses. It was a random pack of odd balls. They were separated by me to be little groups that seemed related. The more modern ones, lying on the plate, have high hopes of becoming a postage-stamp-sized quilt that might make Barbie and Ken happy for their bed.

The window blinds were washed real good outside lately and the Waverly fabric panels that had been hanging over them on each end were also taken down to wash. Meanwhile a king-sized thrift store sheet was split to pin up on the ends to filter light when the slats are opened. I’m not at all happy with too bright of light. I was a little tired of the Waverly print anyway and especially now that things are being really fine tuned to be just the way I want. Now the thought is that the stripe will be the lining for some patching of old hankies and other things to be pieced to be on top of.

We’ll have to wait and see. I’m chomping at the bit but getting things in order has to stay at the front of the queue.

The door opening panel was taken down as well. It’s was a finished piece that really needed to be hung from close to the ceiling because it is so long — but the brackets for the rod came out of the holes they were hanging from and it has not been fixed. Some of the yo-yo quilt pieces that have been stitched together are simply hanging on a tension rod there in front of a piece of sheer just because I like to look at them. The balloon thing is just me playing with a remnant piece of fabric I like there to see what it might become. It too, would need to be hung way higher up if it is to stay there. Time to get some toggle bolts out to make the rod stable from those drilled out holes. There had been wood brackets there. I could always glue a piece of wood to the wall that the brackets could be screwed too? 

Long story short, the things in the studio are coming in and put into see-through tubs so the kitties have that space without any of my fear of them messing things up.

When Lucy’s in the house
When Lucy’s out of the house

Some T-shirt yarn in one of the tubs inspired me to make a new hanger for a newly gifted succulent plant.

As soon as the bedroom floor is painted and that room is cleaned up for real, I shall lay the nearly finished housecoat blanket out again for you all to have a look see. For now, this is all that’s on offer because the rest around the edges of the bed are way too messy to show.

Patches

And that’s about that.

Sewing is uplifting and uplifting is what we are so much in need of so sew, sew, sew! Keep your happiness high.