Gardening Life File Folder Journal

On Tuesday, I spent a glorious October afternoon filming a few of my latest projects. I can't believe October is almost gone. It is by far my favorite time of the year to photograph. Everything is bathed in a rich, golden light.

Inspired by the golden colors of those fading October afternoons, I created a handmade journal from an old green hanging file folder. 

Gardening File Folder Journal

I cut the metal bars from the top and set them aside. With a couple folds, I created a flap for my journal and a tuck spot. I lay the metal bar against the flap and tore the edge to give it a distressed look. I don't have any distress inks right now, but I plan to ink it up in the future.

To decorate, I turned to the huge collection of images I cut out the night before. As part of fall cleaning in my garage studio, I went through years of collected information on flowers, garden plans, and outdoor decorating. Since most of this information can be found on the Internet, I only kept articles that were memorable, or vintage garden plans that I would be hard pressed to find on the Web. The rest I cut up to use for art. Out of these scraps and clippings from seed catalogs, this little file folder journal was born. 

On the front cover, I decoupaged magazine clippings and a crackle paint chip. I found a cute phrase from an article that said "Come see the garden!" I glued a pretty yellow butterfly above it. The flap holds a set of keys which lay over this peek-a-boo message. 

Peek-a-boo!

I wanted the file folder journal to serve several purposes. It had to be a place to journal about gardening, whether planning a dream garden in the winter or remembering past gardening experiences. I also wanted some graph paper where I could draw garden plans or add photos. I also added a signature of mixed media paper so I could do some sketching or maybe watercolors.

So for the second signature, I cut to size some graph paper and ledger paper. Since these were single sheets stacked rather than folded sheets, I had to figure out how to hold them together. I didn't want to use the gluing method to bind them, so instead I simply used a scrap of the mixed media paper and folded it in half to create a spine. This was sewn along with the papers right into the folder. 

I hot glued a kraft envelope to the back and added a small handmade notebook. I sewed it straight down the middle. It is also decorated with gardening images from magazines and seed catalogs. The cover was a beautiful calendar page that originally came from Lowe's when I was part of their gardening club a few years back. 

I am very pleased with how it turned out. I am also happy to share the video with you, in case you missed it. 

If you have any questions, let me know. 

Enjoy these golden afternoons while they last. :)