My Dirty Little Junk Journal Secret - How it all began The Paper Outpost

Yep, here it is. My dirty little secret. My dirty little junk journal secret. Oh gosh. Has this happened to anybody else? This has gotten a little out of hand. Okay, a few paintings. I'd like to also draw. Oh my god. But the journals! The journals, people! Oh my god. They're multiplying like rabbits in here. I literally don't have any more space. I've got quite a few and I apparently cannot stop making them. I just love the feel of the paper. The crinkly paper. And they come in all different sizes. Yes. I've given them to friends and family and donated many, but I keep making them. Yep. All different kinds. Soft covers. Hard covers. All different sizes. Shapes. This is my all-time favorite. Yep. One of the first ones I made. Fell in love with that journal. Ah, they're like my little babies. Cutie ones. Thin ones. Different techniques. I like to try different techniques. Do you guys like to do that too? It's like I get around the paper, the glue, and the scissors and I go crazy. And I just zone off into some other world and I'm gone. And I just produce these things. They're coming out of my ears. Sometimes they've got fabric covers. Vintage photos. I love using vintage ephemera. All sorts of receipts and coupons and photos and postcards. And oh god, I go crazy at the antique stores and the outlets. Oh my god. The softie. Softie cover. Experimenting. Oh yeah. This was an interesting journey. I actually had to learn how to sew in order to make journals. You don't have to learn how to sew, but I realized that you could do so much more if you just knew some basic sewing stitches. And so off I went. And I've experimented with using recycled book covers to making my own covers. To making just writing journals. Like this one's almost all paper. To heavily loaded, can't get. Oh there's like one one in here that's crazy found. Fat. Oh I can't even find it. So fat. It's gone. Where is it? Nope. Not there. Yeah under there. Oh these are baby journals. Little teeny journals. Who knew we could make journals as small as that? Yeah. Isn't that cute? How about this? Oh yeah. Random bookmark. Gotta make those when you're making journals, right? Anyway, just wanted to share my madness and wonder if anybody else has this little dilemma going on. I'd like to happily say that I've minimalized the rest of my house. Gotten rid of all. I've KonMari'd myself in the bedroom, the closet, the kitchen, all that stuff. But not my journals. Oh this one's really soft. It's got a nice soft cover. Feels so good in the hands. I don't know. It's just something about the the feeling of the softness and the crinkly of the paper and the the lace and getting the glue string stuck to my fingers. I don't know. It's just like I love the whole process. Oh here I found a leaf and I decided to embed the leaf under some cheesecloth with Mod Podge. That was fun. Oh yeah. A little chunky monkey. I would say I'm an overstuffer and I'm a gator mouth gal as far as I tend to load them up. Not too bad sometimes. Sometimes they're more reasonable. But most of the stuff comes out. You know how it goes. A little gray one from the... Oh yeah, a little chunky monkey there. Gator mouth, get comfy, gator mouth. Oh lord. Oh yeah, there's that big fat one right there. Here, let's see if I can pull it out. Making it all secure. I'm sorry. Oh this was one of those days when I said I've got way too much stuff. I just gotta, I gotta, my solution was, well I'll just make a bunch of journals and I'll use up all the stuff. But see the stuff doesn't really go away. It just transfers form. It's now in a journal. Yep, yep, yep. I've made a water book, watercolor books, sketchbook journals, a fabric journal, a lace journal. We could do this for days. Oh here's, oh yeah, here's one of my fattest journals I ever made. Fat little chunko. Huh? I don't know, just sometimes it's just whatever hits you that day. Yep. What on earth? Oh I love this picture. Isn't she great? Oh looks like my Aunt Mary. Love you Aunt Mary. Anyway, just wondering if anybody else has this little, little issue. Journaling for me has been amazing. I mean, not journaling, making the junk journals has been amazing. I'm not a very good journaler. I do journal. I actually made my own journal. Trying to force my, here, I'll just show it to you. Oh I tried to force myself to, to journal. Here it is. Yep. Here is my handmade personal journal. It's fat. It's got 12 sections in it, so I can log my life of this year. And I'm not, like I said, I'm not the greatest journal, journaler. So when I go back and I, uh, whoops, I miss a page. I go back and I put a quote in there, something, uh, sentimental that I like to store. Maybe a little piece of mostly quotes. I'll put, uh, good quotes that I find on a blank page and that helps me, uh, fill it up. But this has actually been fun and it's been like a go back and forth with it. Like sometimes I'll write in it like crazy and then I just ignore the poor little Gipper. It's like an unfed pet or something, you know, and then it calls to me and then I have to go back to it and spend some time with it and that. But, um, anyway, I just wanted to share with you my, uh, little dirty secret and I was just wondering if this is happening to anybody else. Is this happening to anybody else? Tell me please. I'm not the only one. Thanks guys.