Crafting in the Our Household

 Good morning everyone! I hope your day comes in bright and beautiful, and starts you off to a wonderful weekend!

Today I want to share one of my passions with you. I am a junk journal maker. I am also a journalist. Yes, really. One of those people who writes articles and books. You won't find many of my books out there, but I still write. Simply because I love to.

I am happiest when I am, what many say is mindlessly working, at work on my junk journals. I make them for myself, friends and family, and to sell.  I am going to show you my latest completed junk journal (JJ for short) below.

To start with, some of you may be asking, 'What is a junk journal?'. Well, it's a cross between a diary/journal and a scrapbook, is the best way I can describe it. You will have places to journal, with themed, or not themed, decorated pages. I have always themed my journals, I'm just not talented enough to complete one otherwise!

So, what  is a JJ made up of? A front cover, a back cover, a spine, and in between lots of decorated pages. These pages are grouped together in what is commonly known as signatures. These signatures are then sewn into the JJ. And there can be any number of signatures in a JJ. The journal I am about to show you has five signatures with 50  papers total. Now, you may say that's not very many pages, but let me explain. Each signature has 10 sheets. When the pages are folded and sewn in place, one page of sewn paper suddenly equals 4 pages for the JJ. The easiest way to see what I mean is to take a page of copy paper. Fold it in half, from top to bottom and rotate it 90-degrees. You will be looking at a book shape. Notice there is a front and back page, and 2 inner pages. That is the 4 sheets we are talking about. Take each signature with 10 pages equals to 40 pages total. And we have 5 signatures of 40 pages, there is a total of 200 pages to a book! But your book may be less, or more. It really depends on how thick your spine is. I am currently working on a tiny book that has two 20 sheet signatures. So, how do we figure out how many pages we will have in our book? We take one signature of 20 sheets and we multiply it by 4 that gives us 80 pages to that signature. But these tiny books have 2 signatures of 80 pages each, so that gives us a total of 160 pages total. Okay, let's take a look at part of this current listing heading to eBay soon! 

Again, I apologize for the clarity, and hope to have a better camera working soon!

This JJ is a Grimoire. It has many, many full pages of journaling lines. This is great for the Wiccan who might want to use it. It is great for a Halloween decoration. And perfect for journaling your child's yearly Halloween costume and parties; both in pictures and in writing! With that said, here we go:

This is the front cover of the Grimoire. It is dark green and everything is edged in gold.  There is a ribbon on the front that says "Compendium Maleficarum". Not pictured is the back, which has 2 quarter moons and a pentagram. The inside covers are done in woody sepia print.

Inside are many pictures of the "physical", along with flora and fauna.

There are plenty of pages that have printed lines for journaling. Perfect for writing, or adding photographs!

There are several pages with corner pockets that hold little goodies. Including this one with an envelope with a sweet letter.

The poem 'The Raven', by Edgar Allen Poe.

More great photographs.

A large envelope full of photographs.

And here is the back of the journal!

Be watching for more JJ in the future!

Have a great day everyone! God bless.