Flashback Fridays-Art Travels with Rain: Making a Junque Journal with Tangible Plans™ January 13 2017, 0 Comments

A few years back we had a feature called "Art Travels with Rain". Please note these may be altered from the original posts to update links, provide information on newer programs, etc.

And don't forget we are featuring Tangible Plans™ Kits all month in TB&CO Treasures!

Enjoy!

Hello fellow artists!

It has been a beautiful day in western Colorado…filled with fall color, misty clouds and first snow on top of the high mountain range I see from my porch. I have had the lovely experience of working on a new Junque Journal today, making pages using Tangie’s, Tangible Plans™ workshop. I love the Studio Box: Buildable, Printable Art Journal and the Tangible Plans™ workshops for transforming simple Composition books into my daily companion.

I make new ones when the last are filled to the brim with bits, pieces, ribbons, journal words, lists, photos, and all the vast amounts of ephemera that pass by my eyes in a week. I use these as a daily planner, a place to store my ideas, quotes, seed packets, doodled drawings, printed art journal pages, little paintings, ads that have colors or compositions I want to remember, on and on. I tuck in pressed flowers and leaves, receipts, bits of life I want to remember in the future, and hold close, as well as lists of information such as the passport stamps of the Art Journal Caravan™ by number. These aren’t scrapbooks with formal layouts and photos, or my art books of art journal pages, though many formal pages are generated from the ideas tucked into the Junque Journal. I don’t know how I lived without one close at hand at all times!

This week I will take a look at the nuts and bolts of printing and making the Journal, next week the making of the paper beads, and then the making of ribbons and cords.

Last week I posted about couching and the making of a Junque Journal cover…this one was a gift for a beloved sister-in-law, filled with printed off Tangible Plans™ pages, with lots of areas for her to write or paste on. This one is all mine.

On the binding side are paper and fused silk paper beads made with cut strips from the edges of my Tangible Plans™ print outs. Next week, I will show you how to make these terrific beads that can be used in many ways including jewelry, book bindings, on tassels and cords, and as buttons and closures. (This post was already featured on Flashback Fridays here.)

The cover is a page from Tangie Baxter’s kit, “Field Notes”, printed onto a photo paper and fused to a stabilizer. I made a collage of several flowers from Tangie’s "Día De Los Muertos {CUATRO}", bits of fused silk fibers, and a machine embroidered butterfly. Yes, that is a butterfly, for all of you that took the "The Symbology Project" and attended the chat where I deplored the overuse of butterflies! I actually love the symbol of transformation and the beauty of butterflies.

The cover piece was then free motion embroidered with variegated threads, and a few solid colors, including a zigzag stitch on the edges, then mounted onto the Composition book. I made a simpler backing in the same color scheme and also mounted it to the back.

Then I added the paper beads, the wrapped beads, a few embellishment charms, and hand stitched it all together with yarn and ribbon. Yes! Then on to the inner pages…

Below is an image of one 2 page spread from my last Junque Journal:

A few more pages that are for the new Junque Journal, in their beginning phases:

Above is a photo with one way to measure and trim the printed page before mounting into the Composition Book, by folding the side and top and then cutting off the excess.

Below is another method that I use the most often…using the Composition Book itself to trace around on the back of the printed page, then cutting it out and mounting.

Here is a view of my work table, and the pile of edges trimmed off the printed pages. I keep these in a basket for adding to the center bit of the Composition Book, or saving for the future.

And as a preview for next week, here’s a look at some paper beads in the making:

So until next week, I hope you can find some time to make art!

take care,

Rain

~~~~~

Rain mentioned some different workshops in this post that are still available as self-study workshops. Please note Tangie's not doing a 2017 Tangible Plans™ class this year, but 2016's is still packed with amazing goodness if you haven't taken it yet.

"Tangible Plans™ 2016 "How To" Workshop & Exclusive 2016 Packages"