Mini Christmas Junk Journal

One of my goals for October was to start working on a journal using one of my Bigz Dies. The aim for this month was to make the cover and one signature for the journal. I decided to create a mini Christmas junk journal using the Pocket Notebook die by Eileen Hull. 

I've had some rolls of double-sided adhesive sheets in my stash for a long time, but never actually used them because I was worried about 'wasting' materials. I always tried to be frugal using my materials, but I've realised that I have so much stuff, and I should just use it! Using these sheets to attach my card to the mountboard before die-cutting was much easier than trying to line up the cover and card after cutting them.

The journal cover is created by joining the spines of the 2 pieces together. The spine for this journal has 3 scored sections. Initially I joined the two covers together by overlapping one section of the spines and attaching them with red-line tape but I wasn't very happy with the results, so I cut off the joined section and tried again! The second time around I overlapped the remaining two sections of spine and again joined it using red-line tape. The result seemed much sturdier. 

I wanted to create two signatures for my journal which are similar in style but not identical. I started by cutting pages for the journal from Christmas papers and plain cardstock. For the first signature I created a pocket page using plain card-stock and a window page using some snowman vellum. For the second signature I used a pearlescent card blank to create a page with side pockets and patterned paper to create a page with a diagonal pocket. Each signature has a pearlescent envelope to create a central pocket page, and a cover made from foiled and embossed cardstock.

I created 3 different journal cards to go with the journal:

1. A simple card using the aperture die-cut from the vellum page, decorated with peel-offs
2. A card featuring a tree and snow-flakes made by layering two die-cuts together, then decorated with some stickers and peel-offs
3. A card with a vellum window and the word 'winter'. To make this card , I folded a piece of white card and placed the fold just inside the edge of the die. This meant that the two die cuts were joined along one edge, so I could add some vellum in between and the two layers lined up perfectly.

This journal is a handy size and pretty quick to make, so my goals for next month will include a second Christmas journal using this die, along with some more items to go in both journals. 

I'm entering this journal in the following challenges:

1. ABC Christmas Challenge - V is for Vocabulary (on the journal cover and journal card)
2. Tic Tac Toe Challenge - TTTC #137 (Dies, Snow and Tree)
3. bastel-traum Challenge Blog - Christmas
4. Christmas Crafts All Year Round - October Challenge - Something that starts S or T (Snow, Snowmen and Trees)
5. CraftyHazlenut's Patterned Paper Challenge - October 2021 Patterned Paper Challenge
6. CraftyHazlenut's Christmas Challenge - CHNC Challenge #566
7. A Bit More Time To Craft Challenge - Challenge #146 October / November Anything Goes