HAPPY NEW YEAR

 Welcome to our blog, Pelican Crafts (of Long Beach).

Diana and I love to create and plan to keep you interested, on your toes and busy with paper crafting ideas galore.

Diana primarily focuses on stamping (in all its forms) while I focus on junk journaling.  BUT; here’s the twist, we both love to stamp and to junk journal.  You will see projects in both areas from each of us from time-to-time … and maybe a combination of the two.

JUNK JOURNALING is what it sounds like, take that nonsense mail and turn it into little works of art – journaling with junk.  The best part of “junk” journaling is “junk” means different things to everyone.  There is not a right way or a wrong way, it is what makes you happy and becomes your style.

Be prepared to learn a whole new vocabulary, lol.  Below are a few definitions to get you started, but I have many more to introduce to you, as will Diana.

JOURNAL:  A junk journal is a “book” you create; whether you repurpose an existing book or create one from scratch.  A junk journal can be anything and contains signatures (described below), such as:

                    a) a daily journal with space for your thoughts and feelings;

                    b) a record of an event; i.e., a wedding, being pregnant, a trip, a subject you are interested in, a place, a memoir;

                      c) life experiences; or,

                      d) whatever you think of to journal about

JUNK, again, is exactly what it sounds like – junk:  It can be trash you plan on throwing away; i.e., an old envelop you received in the mail or from someone, a cereal box (to use to create a cover for your journal), a newspaper, a magazine, a clothing tag, a receipt, an old book, an old birthday or Christmas card, a flyer you received, the plastic tab off a loaf of bread, the metal ring off a soda can, old jewelry, old photos; if you can think of an item to use, it is probably junk.

                       Then there are printables – a whole new world will open up to you.  You can find images you want to use on line (be sure the copyright has expired) or you can visit many sites (stores like the ones on Etsy) where you can purchase whatever you can imagine.

SIGNATURES:  A journal (or book) contains several pages.  The larger your journal (the more pages you have), the more difficult it becomes to put together.  Therefore, we use signatures (or small groupings of pages) to help make it easier to bind.  A journal can have one, two, three or more signatures.  All depending on what YOU want it to be.

                EXAMPLE:  Let us say your journal has 30 single pages (or as in most journals 30 single pages could turn into 120 pages, I’ll explain in my first video) and you try to bind 30 pages all at once, it can become rather bulky and difficult to complete.  Consider taking those 30 pages and breaking them down into small increments; like three batches of ten pages or six batches of five pages.  Each “batch” is called a signature. Each signature is then added to your journal by sewing it in (again, I will discuss in my first video).  By breaking it down you are able to manage your pages easier.  Using the 30-page journal as an example, all 30 pages can be the same subject no matter which signature they are in (like a cook book), or each signature could be a different related subject (like a journal of a trip to Scotland, England, France or Italy).  Each signature could pertain to each country you visited. 

Starting to make some sense out of this?  Still confused?  I sure was when I started! (And truth be known, some days I still am, lol).  It can be overwhelming, but it does become easier the more you play around.  Watch some videos on YouTube (I’ll mention my favorites throughout my videos).  If I learned a technique from someone, I’ll let you know where and from whom I picked up that technique.  Let your imagination have free reign and explore the world of junk journaling.

Diana and I encourage you to come back every day or two to see what we have been up to.  We encourage you to ask questions and we are happy to help where we can.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 2, 2023 -- Overview of Junk Journaling Video

Both of us are looking forward to your visits and your feedback.  See you soon.