I got a wild hair to make junk journals for the first time, and sort of wandered around my house looking for materials, and realized that my mother’s Golden Book Encyclopedias had not been thrown away. They have lived in crawl spaces, basements, and barns for a couple decades and were in terrible shape, and Mom decided it was finally time to get rid of them, but instead of putting them at the curb they found their way into a box my dad brought to me to go through. I had very sadly determined to toss them, but apparently never got around to it.
At the same time, I am going through 6 enormous totes full of basically everything my sister and I ever did in elementary school, 40 years ago, that my parents just kept all these years and understandably don’t really want to keep keeping any more.
Enter the well-timed random idea. I found several flyleaves with mom’s name written in the corner, and asked her what her favorite articles from the books were, then pulled out a selection of pages about stuff she enjoys, like space, flowers, sewing, swimming, etc. I added sheets of paper from the bin, including a set of leaf rubbings where me, my sis, and my dad had each done one, and they are very clearly sycamore leaves from the tree at my childhood home, and I did some gelli printing to some pages. I built a cover out of one of her old Readers Digest young readers collection books, and added hot press watercolor paper in various smallish sizes using washi tape or pockets. Her three favorite articles were kept intact and used as fold out centers of signatures. She does a lot of zentangles as well as watercolor and gauche in sort of doodle form, but prefers the watercolor paper for all of it, and the pieces can be taken out to work on, or moved around as desired.
Wow, that’s a big O journal. Love that it’s full of so much that the whole family will relate too.
Super great start to the addiction of making journals.
What a great way to turn once-treasured things into a a treasured thing for now and the future, as you’ve made space for your mom’s own creative endeavors. This is a wonderful Mother’s Day gift for her and will be a wonderful keepsake for years to come.
I know, it’s a chonk. But most of the pages are from the encyclopedias, and it’s basically cardstock in weight, and the water color paper adds a ton of bulk. Go big or go home, am I right? Lol
I loved it too. Her taste in dogs is much the same, although she wasn’t sure about Schnauzers back then, but she has met a few since, and changed her rating. It didn’t go in the dogs’ favor. Lol
What a beautiful gift for your mom! Full of things she enjoys, with room to create and spend time doing more things she enjoys. And a beautiful item to look at, open or closed.
I’m happy to report that on Mother’s Day I spent the afternoon with my mom and she loved it! Flipping through it, she reminisced about many of the pages. We got to talk about her school science project about the ages of geological time (one of the fold out articles pictures above). The flyleaves with her name have one in her handwriting and one in her mother’s. The dog breeds were a lengthy topic with much laughter. (We are a dog family.)
I’m a little sad to report that apparently this box of books was actually NOT something she knew I had. My dad cleaned out the basement when they were quarantined with COVID, and didn’t tell her what he was getting rid of. Not in a malicious way, just a sort of thoughtless one. After his mom died and the borderline hoarding situation there, my dad has gotten more minimalist, and worried about the task they will leave me and my sister with when they go. We have tried to tell him that they deserve to keep things they love, even if they serve no purpose, and not to think about us, especially when we are both sentimental people. Anyway. Mom didn’t know her books weren’t still in the basement. I was mortified that I had deconstructed them and she didn’t even know I had them. My heart absolutely fell through the floor. But she knew what condition they were in and approved of the way they had been used. It gives her a reason to handle and love a thing she spent so much time handling and loving as a child, without having to store over a dozen dilapidated books, which she would never handle anyway, because they were so dilapidated.
I’m excited to see her start to fill it up. She is a professional artist in retirement, as is my dad. Even her doodles are amazing.
Congratulations! Your Mom-Themed Junk Journal is a Featured Project this week!