Fabric Bound Junk Journal Making Experience at the Farmland Museum - August 2025
- siloutaggart
- Aug 4
- 3 min read
Yesterday's fabric bound junk journal making experience taught by our guest tutor Zakiya - bookbinder & junk journal artist from Fanoggins - was very successful, with a wonderfully creative group of people making their own unique journals with fabric spines and stitched in "signatures". I, Louise, also attended this workshop as I was really intrigued to see how to do heat embossing and how to bind a book.
The morning started with each of us selecting lots of different papers for the internal pages of our journals. These were then separated into signatures - smaller batches of paper - and then Zakiya taught us how to stitch them together using a simple binding stitch. As the spines are covered in fabric, this stitching doesn't have to be so neat - thankfully in my case!
We then set about gluing our signatures together, ensuring we had everything up the right way and gluing the backs to fronts of the signatures.
Having chosen the fabric for our spines, Zakiya explained how to cut it and stick it to our bundles of signatures with enough slack for the pages to turn and using the correct adhesive.
Our journals were then placed in presses, similar to flower presses, so they could be squished flat during lunch.
After lunch, everyone enjoyed designing the covers of their journals using various papers & ephemera. Some were themed - one lady went with a wonderful mushrooms & fungi theme! We carefully stuck the covers to the fronts and backs of our journals and then put them back in the presses while we carried on making some pockets, envelopes and all sorts of fun inserts for our journals.
Zakiya then gave us a demonstration on how to heat emboss, using an embossing gun and powders. It's like magic! The powders turn beautifully shiny and metallic-looking, providing a lovely flourish. This was a new process for me, and very interesting to learn.
The wonderful thing about these journal-making workshops is that you can continue to fill your journal over the next months - or even years. Your journal could be themed or simply a collection of pretty inserts, envelopes, thoughts, poetry ... you can stitch in it, glue in it, rip bits up, paint in it, add stickers or memorabilia, photos, drawings ...
This was a lovely, relaxing experience. It's such a therapeutic craft!
Zakiya is joining us again on Saturday 30 August for a wonderful "Momigami" & junk journal workshop here in the Blended Monkey Studios. Check out the details:
All our experiences make lovely crafty GIFTS & you can also purchase open certificates so the lucky recipient can choose their own experience.
Here's the link for our gift certificates:
We can also provide private journal making experiences for parties or friend groups. We can come to you, host in the Blended Monkey studios, or at a venue of your choice!
REVIEWS
"So today I did something just for me and went on a workshop to make a fabric bound junk journal. I had a wonderful time and came home with my completed book - I just need to decide what I'm going to put in it now! The cover is very special as I used my last piece of hand-dyed fabric for it.
It was taught by @fanogginscrafts and organised by @blended_monkey - check out their website to see all the amazing workshops they offer."
- Gilli -
Comments