Smish Smash, I was making a craft!

Today's project details a sort of smash book/junk journal that I made for a swap. The assignment was to alter an agenda or journal and make a matching pen. Instead of altering a pre-made book, I created one from scratch, so that my partner can use it as a smash book. For those of you who don't know what a smash book or junk journal is, well... get on this wagon, because they are FUN, FUN, FUN! Especially if you have a tendency toward disorganization. Or, actually, it's great for the people who do keep their stuffs in order too.  What you do is gather materials that you like or think you might utilize at some point in your life (in the paper-crafting or similar genre; facts being facts, you cannot fit a dress or fancy piece of furniture or any other super bulky item into a smallish book) and fit them together into a collected journal. You can include papers you like / flat embellishments such as chipboards, dies, cardstock cutouts, etc. / ribbons / tags / photos. Really, the options are limitless, as long as your inclusions can fit into your book. You can put them in whatever fashion or order you like. It can all be "smashed" or "junked" in there in a beautifully messy stash, or it can be sectioned into categories of your preference. Anything goes.

There are several ways to create the journal, or the housing for all that "junk." For this journal, I simply cut chipboard to size and made covers, then bound everything together with binder rings. This works nicely to me because you can add and subtract items from the journal with ease. Here's a photo of the journal I made:

You don't have to make your cover(s) fancy; I just stepped it up a bit since this is an item I made for a swap. My next junk journal will be for myself and I'm thinking of Mod Podge-ing a bunch of images that are relevant to *me* all over the front and back covers. Very easy and very effective in the smash universe. The important thing I'm wanting to show here is the simplicity in using chipboard for covers and binder rings for puttin' all that mess together.

The inside cover has a pocket and the first "page" is also a pocket, so this gives you an idea of how you can hold items that aren't specifically paper. I put some stamped images in one pocket and vellum quotes, tags, and tickets in the other pocket. You can include paper clips, photos, ribbons, etc. in any pockets.

Fearing I would get in trouble for swaying too far from the assigned swap theme, I printed a calendar for the next page. Nothing says "agenda" like a calendar, right? Crisis averted. For said calendar, I just found one on Google (*swooooon*) and printed it onto paper that coordinated with the covers:

Once I got the all-serious calendar out of the way, I proceeded to smash away, sticking various papers that I thought my swap partner might be able to use for projects or inspiration. Once again, the great thing is that if she looks at them and wants to puke out, she can pull whatever she hates out and replace it/them with her preferences. Then, in effort to bring things back down a notch and add some more journal-y/agenda-y feel to the project, I cut some regular notebook paper down to size and stuffed a load of that in there.

That's the smash book in a nutshell, but I wanted to make sure and show the matching pen! I used a normal ball point pen that already came with the tip and grip in a blue that matches the rings on the binder. Awesome! I inserted a tube of paper that matches the covers of the book and added glitter to the clip of the pen cap. The bow/butterfly that I adhered to the pen cap is the same lace trim on the covers too. And finally, I made a beaded butterfly charm to bauble from the pen cap. I made sure to mostly decorate the cap because that way if the pen runs out of ink, she can transfer the cap to a new pen and always have a pen that matches her journal.

I would love to see your junk journals, so please feel free to comment a link!

'Til then,

Krolli