Circle Journal Blast off!

Hello!

A while ago I was invited to take part in a small Circle Journal group on FaceBook. This,bizarrely, is my first ever swap here in England,lol. We could choose our theme and size and any rules we wanted to encourage,and initially I chose Altered Birds for my theme,as I love these and it gives quite a wide margin on what can be done. Unfortunately the making of the journal took place exactly when I took over Make The Day Special,so I got off to a veeeeery slow start,plus at that time,my eldest daughter was having a tough time on chemo,so I had to put a halt on a few extra curricular activities. When I tried to make the covers,I was struggling so much to get inspiration that in the end I thought  'You know what,life's too short to be doing something you don't enjoy-I am doing this bad boy on something I really love and makes me happy! Something I am always inspired to craft on;Halloween. (and Autumn,if one of the ladies doesn't celebrate Halloween).' Thus,the new improved CJ was born! I lobbed 3 inches off the covers to make them 6x6" and gathered some bits and bobs together for my theme; 

***

I made a flower using my favorite technique that I used for the Shabby Chic Swap,with a Halloween bottle top that I got in a Swap last year for the center,and I FINALLY tucked in to my stupidly hard to get over here Ravenhead Manor paper and embellishments that was so kindly sent to me in a RAK (You know who you are,and I still love you madly for that ;-) ) Slowly a front cover emerged. I got the sewing machine down and covered the covers in old black silk (there is a LOT of machine work on this journal! lol It is more fabric than paper )

The inside cover and next page:

***

My double page effort: (I wanted a sort of creepy vintage childhood diary feel to these-pinned insects,moths in jars,old hairclips,precious personal ephemera.)

 I tried to replicate the hair clip from the photo,but with an old feel. Like it had been in there for a while-precious,documented,kept.

***

And the sign in pages at the back:

 And the back cover:

It has now been sent off to catch up with the others :-) I cant wait to get it back in a year and see what everyone has done :-D

Freakshow Junk Journal (warning-veeeeery long post!)

Helloooo!

Look at this-I'm back again just DAYS after my last posting! ;-)

Ok,so this post will have a LOT of photos,so you may want to grab a cup of something hot and sit down...or just skip it entirely. 

I took part in a Junk Journal Swap over at Your Paper Pantry,and the theme was circus/sideshow freaks,anything weird and wonderful along those lines. What a theme! I was super excited to do it,and couldn't wait to get started. Boo had a vintage book about a circus pony that she had never liked,for some reason,and I kept thinking how perfect it would be as I started planning the journal. So I decided NOT to tell Boo I was going to 'upcycle' her detested book and managed to remove it without detection,because in true child style,we must NEVER EVER NEVER throw anything out,even if it isn't liked much. Just in case. (Oh dear,she's a hoarder like her Mama:-/) This meme very much applies in our household...

Yup. That about sums it up! Anyway,so I dissected this book and used its covers for my journal covers,and some of the pages that had particular relevance. The rest are bits from the awesome Graphics Fairy,vintage ephemera and other bits and bobs. Here it is,all finished

(Inside the front are two mini pull-outs)

Now are the other pages in order,hope you like a bit of weird,because these certainly are!

Whew! There were a few more pages,but I spared you ;-) I bound it using the ball chain method,so it can lay flat when it is open,and it ended up super chunky so I'm glad I chose the ball chain over rings-I don't think they could have handled it.
Anyway,I hope you liked peeping through it-I LOVED doing it so so much-right up my alley :-)
Toodle-pip for now!
xxx