Around the Christmas Tree Junk Journal
My Inspiration
As you all know, I absolutely love scouring flea markets and thrift stores. Whenever I go on a trip, I make it a point to look up thrift stores in the area I am visiting. On a trip last year with my girlfriends, they tagged along with me to a small thrift store in Glenwood Springs, CO. Once inside, I asked them to help me look for anything vintage in all areas of the store. My friend found a Christmas record album from the 1950’s. It was titled Around The Christmas Tree. I instantly knew I had to purchase it, even though at the time I had no idea what I was going to do with it.
The person at the check out counter gave me a deal since it was missing the record, $1.00. Funny thing is, I didn’t want the record, just the cover!
Cover construction
For a long time, I pondered how I was going to turn the album cover into a journal. It was way to large to use as it was….but I wanted to keep the images on the front and back cover intact.
Using a standard book as a size guide, I positioned the book over the images on the front and back cover and cut the album to these dimensions. The journal ended up measuring 6 ” x 8 1/2″. The Christmas Tree image was used for the cover and the photos below show how I used rest of the cut pieces.
Title of album as a bookmark 
Back cover of album 
Inside of front cover 
Signature center with album label as tag
Paper choices and Page Embellishments
All different kinds of paper are used for journaling pages: lined, unlined, penmanship, graph and cardstock.
I had a lot of fun looking through the public domain for images to use in the journal. I wanted to stick to the retro theme I had going for the journal. As you can see they are so cute!
Cute lady with tons of packages 
Retro Santa 
Fabric belly band with Retro Santa tag 
Naughty or Nice retro Santa journal card 
Center of signature with retro church image
In addition to all the retro images I found, I also added magazine clippings and pages from a December 1960 magazine I purchased at a flea market:
McCalls ad for colored aluminum foil used to wrap presents 
Life Magazine image along with journaling card from 1945 Beverly Hills Christmas Menu 
McCalls ad for making cookies using Gold Medal flour
Last but definitely not least, I created some ephemera with that retro look from the 1950’s.
Cardstock ornaments forming a tuck spot 
Christmas tree tag made from cardstock 
Christmas tree decorated liquid pearls and buttons
A full flip through is on my YouTube channel:
I hope this journal brings you joy this holiday season! The next time you are at a thrift store or flea market, check out the record albums! You never know what you might find!
Glitter on friends,
Pamela
I am a self proclaimed junk journal fanatic and creative crafter. If it is vintage, I am in! I recently retired from the corporate world and now have more time to devote to my love of creating one of a kind treasures. Besides junk journals my hobbies include thrifting, flea market outings, fashion, cooking, hanging with my girlfriends and daughter and golf with my husband. I currently live in the mountains of beautiful Colorado.
