Botanical Themed Vintage Fabric Junk Journal

My inspiration

Often, I don’t have a specific idea in mind when I start a new junk journal. My inspiration comes from many sources. Whether it is Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube, I always know I will be inspired by all the beautiful images/post/tutorials out there. Although in this particular case, the idea came to me after I found a remnant of vintage fabric at a thrift store.

I absolutely fell in love with the colors and images on this fabric! With my new inspiration found, my thoughts and vision for this journal were forming. I chose to stick to the pink and blue color scheme along with green and yellow as accent colors.

Page assembly

The next step was to go through my ever increasing scrapbook paper supply and pull out anything I thought would coordinate. In addition, I grabbed various ribbon, vintage papers/music, along with bird and flower graphics I have collected. Fabric was also collected, I used lace from a blouse I cut up and bits and pieces in my stash. I even threw in a paper bag, coloring book pages of flowers, doilies and an envelope.

interior page with vintage bird postcard and music

As you can see I had a great time embellishing these pages. While I was compiling all my scraps and fabric, I put together various clusters and snippets using the leftover pages and fabric. I found this is a great way to have coordinated embellishments ready to go when decorating your pages.

I like to mix up my pages, I like the variety when looking at each page.

Cover construction

I used a cereal box for the cover. The journal measures 7″ x 9″ with a 2 inch spine. I folded the cardboard to these dimensions and mod podged the inside with blue patterned scrapbook paper. I placed the fabric over each edge approximately 2 inches, to create a pocket on the front and back cover. Once the fabric was positioned evenly across the back, I attached the fabric using mod podge. Once dry, using my sewing machine, the edges were secured all the way around.

front interior cover with loads of ephemera/trim with a fabric snippet in right hand corner

3 signatures make up this journal, each has approximately 10 pages that are folded in half. Each signature was attached to the spine with a 3 hole pamphlet stitch.

I was ready to embellish the cover. A tie ribbon closure was the best way to secure this chunky journal. After positioning the burgundy and cranberry colored ribbon/trim closure in the middle of the journal, I used E6000 to tack down the ribbon to the spine. I left the remaining ribbon loose.

I had a snippet leftover that did not fit inside my journal and it ended up looking fantastic on the cover. This snippet was put together by layering corrugated cardboard, vintage lace, fabric, ribbon, faux flower petals/ leaves, glitter, beaded trim and cardstock. All topped off with an antique clip earring.

In my opinion, the upper left hand corner of the cover was kind of bare, so I added a mini snippet using the same materials as in the large snippet.

Lastly, a long strip of blue grey lace and more burgundy trim were adhered again using E6000 along the outside of the spine. The edges were tied using the same ribbons as I used throughout the journal.

I am so pleased with how this journal came together. I hope this gets your creative mind going…. you never know where your next inspiration will come from.

Glitter on friends,