Embellished Vintage File Folder Junk Journal

This embellished vintage file folder junk journal was inspired by the beautiful woman I cut out of a magazine. At the time I didn’t know what I was going to make with her, but I knew the idea would come to me sooner or later.

One day I decided to use up a bunch of manila file folders I had lying around. There were a total of 8 regular size folders which I cut in half lengthwise. Make any width and length you want your journal to be. Once my pieces were folded in half, they measured approximately 4 1/2 x 4 1/2″.

The construction of this journal was relatively easy. After all the file folders were cut, I stacked them up one on top of another. I glued the bottom of one to the top of the one underneath. To create a tuck spot between the file folders, glue all sides except for the outer side, or leave the top unglued. It really doesn’t matter how many pages you end up with, it just depends on how big you want your finished book to be.

At this point I looked through my ever increasing scrapbook paper pile and chose some colors to compliment my beautiful lady. They ended up to be an array of soft pink, white, tan, and sage green. Once these were gathered (along with various music, book pages and graph paper), I distressed some of the papers around the edges using Tim Holtz distressed ink in Antique linen. I continued by cutting and pasting these papers to each side of my file folders. One thing to note: I left what was to be my front cover and back cover plain. Now I had an accordion style book.

To cover the front and back of my book, I took a sheet of craft paper that was long enough to go around both the front and the back and secured it with mod podge. The easiest way to do this is while the book was open face down and lying flat. Once dry, I folded it back over to the original book shape. This was not a big book so I didn’t have to worry about the spine being too large and not being able to fold the book over.

Now comes the best part in my opinion: embellishing! The sky’s the limit here. I have a tendency to want to add sparkle to every page, but that is just me. Sequins, jewelry bits, ribbon, lace, postage stamps etc. Anything works!

I hope this inspires you to make your own style of a vintage embellished file folder junk journal!

Glitter on,