In last week’s post, I talked about scrapbooking in a way that sounded like I don’t do it anymore. Maybe I don’t do it in the traditional sense of the word, but I do still create pages in which pictures of my family take center stage. Except they are now on smaller pages and accompanied by more “advanced” art mediums, like paint and charcoal, or markers, rather than just paper, stickers, and stamps. Journaling also takes up a big chunk of my pages now.
Until recently, these creative pages have been in my journal, but I’ve been thinking lately of making it a family thing. Something my kids can look through whenever they want. As it is right now, they can’t do that because all the pages I’ve made are in my personal, intimate journals.
For my birthday this year, my son gave me a journal! It was so nice that he knew which one to choose. It meant that even though he has laughed at my pickiness about them, he has listened to me and my explanations of why these types of journals are the best. I love so much that my kids are interested in knowing about me, my likes and dislikes, and that my “hobby” is leaving them with something to treasure.
So, let me try to explain here what journals these are. Specifically, the ones I buy are from Barnes and Noble and I was lucky enough to find a red one, a blue one, and a light brown suede-ish one when they sold them because now they only have them in black and brown in faux leather, or leatherette (is that what the material is called?)
What I like about the Barnes & Noble journals:
- They have four strong hand-sewn signatures* (at least, they look hand-sewn)
- The flap is wide and reaches half the width of the entire journal
- The string, made of the same material as the journal, is nice and long enough that it goes around the journal twice (less, once it starts fattening up)
- The leather-like material is soft and accommodates itself to the journal as it thickens with all the pretty pictures, delicious papers, and ephemera.
- The size is just perfect: a letter-size paper folded in half.
- The signatures are sturdy and hold up really well to all that handling!
The only downside is the paper—it’s not the best quality or color. But I let it slide because there’s so much else I like about it. It works fine for what I usually do, like adding paper, pictures, and paint. It’s really just the wetter stuff, like ink or watercolor, that doesn’t hold up too well—but that’s easy enough to work around.
Usually, when I want to use ink or watercolor, I paint on a separate piece of paper—like watercolor paper—and then glue it onto the page. Sometimes I use watercolor ground directly on the page instead. It’s not exactly the same, but it works well enough for a fun, messy journal.
Since words are sometimes better when accompanied by pictures, here are a couple of pictures of the journal my son gave me, and of which I have several, all filled up. I’m excited about this one, though, because I’m gonna make it into a family-friendly one! 😀
My tips for choosing a photo journal/junk journal/art journal/creative journal/etc.:
- It should be expandable because you want to have room to fit all your fun stuff inside (a journal with signatures is best for expandability)
- You should be able to securely close it. A long string is the best because it will wrap around to size
- Choose a perfect size for you. Do you want small? Big? Medium? Tiny? Enormous?
- Ensure that the paper is thick enough to handle glue, tape, ephemera, and paint if you plan on using that.
- And of course, the cover should be attractive to you to make you want to come to it. Or, if it’s decorateable, that’s good too!
*A signature is a group of pages bound together to make one section of a journal. So, for example, my journal has four signatures of 32 pages each.
This week on IG:
This week was my week off on Instagram, but I have been working on the color pencil drawings–the medium that people voted for. They are destined to become part of a zine. Zines are books that have no one’s permission to exist except yours. No submitting, no waiting, no one interpreting your work to come up with a book cover design. I love zines. Really, they’re handmade magazines, not books, but I see mine as books because I like centering them on little-known information on a specific topic.
Like this first “public” one, for example, will be about cacti, or cactuses. I think it’s okay to say cactuses now, isn’t it? I’m so excited about finishing it! That is the work this week. By the way, the best zine YouTuber I’ve found is Bree. You should check out her channel if zines catch your attention.
Here are pictures of the voting options I gave. Which one would you have chosen?
